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VOL. 37, NO. 17
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F ALL RIVER, MASS.
Friday, April 30, 1993
Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly
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$11 Per Year
Farm labor mourns loss of great leader WASHINGTON (CNS) - United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez, whose legendary struggles to unionize farm laborers in the 1960s sparked anew generation of Catholic action for social justice, was found dead April 23 at a home in San Luis, Ariz. He was 66. Police said he apparently died during the night of natural causes. He lived in Keene, Calif., but was visiting San Luis on business. He is survived by his wife, Helen, and eight children. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony presided at his funeral yesterday in Delano, Calif., where Chavez founded the union that he led for the past three decades. The cardinal met Chavez in 1965 and worked closely with him in the 1970s. "No farmworker has impacted the fields and corporate board rooms of California's agriculture
like Cesar Chavez, and the nation's farms will never be the same.... Cesar's commitment to Gospelbased justice for farmworkers sparked all his pioneering efforts," Cardinal Mahony said. Of three great social battles that wracked America in the 1960s civil rights, Vietnam and the farmworkers' struggle - it was the farm labor battle that was uniquely Catholic. In its first, most important phase it pitted Catholic Hispanic migrant laborers against Catholic grape growers in California. It was a committee of Catholic bishops that mediated the dispute and brought the two sides to the bargaining table after a strike and national grape boycott that lasted from 1965 to 1970. A devout Catholic who never Turn to Page II
DCCW AWARDS: At the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women's annual convention, Bishop O'Malley presented Our Lady of Good Counsel Awards to, from left, Ruth Murray, Eva Oliveira, Ann Franco, Hilda Ribeiro, Mary O'Brien. (Hickey photo)
Environment is DCCW topic By Marcie Hickey
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CCA KICKOFF: Launching this year's Catholic Charities Appeal at the annual kickoff meeting are Appeal lay chairman Claire McMahon, Bishop Sean O'Malley and Father Daniel Freitas, Appeal director. Below, Mrs. McMahon's family members, in front row, are among the audience as a choir led by Father David Costa (at right) provides music for the kickoff meeting. A special insert in this week's Anchor ~escribes the work of apostolates benefited by tht; Appeal. Special Gift listings appear on page 9. (Kearns and Hickey photos)
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. At their annual convention on Sunday at St. Francis Xavier parish, Hyannis, members of the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women were asked to develop during the coming year a program for environmental action --=- and as a first step were asked to bring their own coffee mugs to meetings so as to eliminate use of styrofoam cups. That proposal by Claire McMahon followed upon the day's exploration of the theme "Protect God's Gift-Our Earth." The program included a keynote speech on "Responsibility fOT Stewardship" by Whitney Tilt, project director for the Washington-based National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and a panel discussion with local environmentalists. Tilt, who has relatives in Chatham, spoke of his familiarity with the Cape ,Cod landscape and said he is a veteran of "over 100 whale watches" off the Cape's coast. The Cape and South Shore have what are among "the richest bog resources left in the United States," along with other assets such as Miles Standish State Forest and Barnstable's salt marshes, Tilt said. He warned that such treasures of the local environment should not be taken for granted, for Cape residents are "just living on a sandlot deposited by the last glacier!" Water, once contaminated; is not a renewable resource, he said. Littered beaches are constant reminders of "our throw-away society." Commercial fisheries are
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collapsing as more than 75 percent of commercial species-including the famed cod-are over-exploited. And the whales Tilt and other sightseers so enjoy watching have been drawn to the area because "the fish they used to eat on George's Bank have been decimated." The whales "are only here <.s long as you treat them well," said Tilt. Such local examples are a microcosm of environmental difficulties that have be~n worsening for decades in the United States and other western nations and more recently in developing countries. "The ecological crisis is a moral issue," Tilt asserted. "We cannot continue to use the goods of Earth as we have in the past if we are, to protect and enhance life on the planet." While the United States has made "tremendous strides" in environmental preservation in recent years, he said, laws currently in place "will not get the job done. They are no match for the challenges that lie ah,ead." "We have talked the talk," said Tilt, "but have shied away from making the necessary moral and economic commitment," in part
because of tension between economic and environmental interests. A new approach to environmental stewardship, Tilt said, must recognize that "environment and economy are not polar issues but two sides of the same coin." He called for promotion of "environmental citi~enship" through education, empowerment and investment. Surveys have shown that "a healthy environment is the number one concern" of today's schoolchildren, Tilt said, adding that education must foster "environmental literacy" by teaching children to recycle and protect their local habitat. "There is nothing children like better than learning about what is in their own backyard," the speaker noted. Education empowers citizens to take action, he continued, urging DCCW members to join with local agencies in such efforts as beach cleanups, creating nesting areas, and explaining proper methods of recycling. Such projects are an investment in the local environment that gives participants a "sense of ownerShip," Tilt concluded. "And once you feel a sense of ownership [for the environment] you are much more willing to maintain and care for it."
The environmental theme was continued in a panel discussion moderated by convention chair Betty Mazzucchelli. Panelists were John J. Gallagher, director of the Center for Marine Environmental Turn to Page 13
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