FAll liVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSmS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS VOL. 32, NO. 25
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Friday, June 17, 1988
FALL RIVER, MASS.
Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly
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Millennium sparks hope, fear in USSR MOSCOW (NC) - Vatican officials participating in June celebrations of the millennium of Christianity in what is now the Soviet Union praised the country's reforms and expressed hope for the future of religion in the country. But Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, said the Soviet government used the millennium ceremonies to create an illusion of religious liberty under the communist government. He also accused a Russian Orthodox church leader of ecumenical "blackmail" on the issue of the legalizing the Ukrainian Church. Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, Vatican secretary of state, headed the Vatican delegation to the millennium ceremonies. Cardinal J 0hannes Willebrands, head of the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, also attended. They prodded high-ranking Soviet leaders for more freedom of religion. Cardinal Casaroli, the No. 2 man at the Vatican and the highestranking Vatican official to visit the Soviet Union, told government leaders that Christianity is an "uncontestable reality" of human history and must be a factor in plan. ning for the future. "The realism of men of state makes it a necessity. And respect for man demands it," the cardinal said in a June 10 speech at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater, at which Raisa Gorbachev, wife of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, was present. Cardinal Casaroli praised Gorbachev's reform policies and expressed hope that they would lead to greater religious freedom. The Vatican official noted the improved relations between the government and the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest in the nation, and asked that this "new breath" be exended to Catholics and religion in general. The Christian vision of the world is in "complete opposition" to the view that human reason can eliminate religion, said Cardinal CasaroIL "The fact of religion, especially Christianity, is still an uncontestable reality," he said... It cannot be neglected by anyone responsible for facing reality, nor can it be neglected in daily life or in plans for the future." "The supremacy of the state in the religious field" is an outdated idea, the cardinal added. The Vatican official praised an April speech by Gorbachev in which the Soviet leader said a new law on freedom on conscience and organized religions was planned.
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MOTHER TERESA and some of her sisters ar.e escorted into the Concord House of. Correction to visit prisoners. (NC/UPI photo)
"Hey'Mom, thanks for everything!"
Mother Teresa visits U.S. By NC News Service Mother Teresa of Calcutta, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, earlier this month and in late May took her message of love to prisoners, high school graduates and the poor in cities around the United States and in Mexico. But the Nobel Peace Prize winner talked tough in St. Louis, telling pro-lifers she would like to put physicians who perform abortions in jail. While visiting three prisons in the Boston archdio'cese June 4, Mother Teresa urged prisoners to take advantage of their time in prison to be alone with God. They responded by standing on chairs, whistling and trying to touch her. Inmate Donald Ouimet, a former monk who ha"s been exchanging letters with Mother Teresa for several years, called the 77-year-old nun "the hands and feet of the Lord and the glory of God." Mother Teresa visited maximum security prisons in Concord and Walpole and a women's prison in Framingham. As she has so often, she spoke against abortion. She told prisoners abortion is double murder the killing of an unborn child and of a woman's conscience. To pro-lifers in St. Louis June 7, Mother Teresa said, "If I had power I would open a jail and I would put every single doctor [who
performs abortions] in the jail for kiHing, killing life, killing a child, a gift of God." The comments came during a talk to more than 3,000 people on behalf of Presbyterian Pro-Life prior to the opening of the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA. The Presbyterian Church USA favors legal abortion. "We are precious to him, every single child that he has created. Every unborn child in the womb, precious to him." Each child was created "for greater things, to love and be loved," she said. "That is 'why abortion has become the greatest destroyer oflove, of peace." -She urged prayer and sacrifice "to make up for what is being done" by abortion. In Washington, D.C., June 5, Mother Teresa shook hands with each of 186 graduates of Gonzaga High School as she passed out diplomas. She told the graduates, "Go out being carriers of God's love. Never be afraid to do small thin~ with great love." Instead of making a donation to the school, the seniors gave their class gift - nearly $5,000 - to her order, which operates three missions in the District of Columbia. Mother Teresa ended a two-day visit to the northern Mexican border town of Tijuana with the June 1 inauguration of a shelter for the homeless and needy run by sisters of her order. "We will always have the poor.
That's why it is important that we all learn to give them love, that they should be provided with free education as well as food and clothing," she said. When asked by reporters ifthere was an incongruency between the poverty of the developing countries such as Mexico and expenditures on armaments by developed nations like the United States, Mother Teresa replied, "I don't want to mix charity, which is Christian love, with politics." The shelter was opened 11 months ago under the direction of one U.S. and three Indian nuns belonging to Mother Teresa's order. "Hunger today is not only for bread" but forlove, Mother Teresa said May 31 in San Diego in conjunction with the Tijuana visit. She told nearly 6,000 people at the University of San Diego that God has promised salvation to those who help the hungry, naked and homeless. "God wants us to love one another as he loves us. You are precious to God," she said. Mother Teresa contrasted giving of one's abundance with the ideal of "giving until it hurts." Citing an example of the latter, she described an impoverished family with six children to whom she took food. Before feeding her own children, the mother shared Tum to Page Six
His Excellency, the Most Reverend Daniel A. Cronin, Bishop of Fall River, has accepted the nominations ofthe Very Reverend William Heffron, SS.CC., Provincial of the Sacred Hearts Community, and has made the following appointments, all effective July I: Reverend Patrick Killilea, SS.CC., to Pastor of Saint Joseph's Parish, Fairhaven. Reverend Brian Marggraf, SS.Ce., to Parochial Vicar at Saint Joseph's Parish, Fairhaven. , Reverend Matthew Sullivan, SS.Cc., to residence at Saint Joseph's Rectory and Ministry at the Eastern Massachusetts Correctional Alcohol Center. 'Reverend Henry Creighton, SS.CC., to Technical Assistant at Saint Mary's Parish, Fairhaven. Reverend Alphonsus McHugh, SS.CC., to Parochial Vicar at Saint Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet. Reverend Leo King, SS.CC., to Technical Assistant at Saint Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet. The bishop has also accepted the nomination of the Very Reverend Alban Montella, O.F. M., Provincial of the Franciscan Province of the Immaculate Conception, and has appointed the Reverend Ronald Siciliano, O.F.M., to Pastor of Saint Margaret's Parish in Buzzards Bay, and its Mission, Saint Mary's'in Onset.
Feticide deplored WASHINGTON (NC) - A Catholic pro-life official has called it "tragic" that some doctors are using selective abortion to reduce the number of fetuses in women who are pregnant with several. "And it is all the more tragic in light of the advances that could be made if the relentless effort to destroy were rechanneled into an equally relentless effort to help every mother and every child," said Gail Quinn. acting director of National Conference of Catholic Bishops' office for Pro-Life Activities, Ms. Quinn made the comments' in response to a report in a recent issue ofthe New England Journal of Medicine. The article by a team at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine detailed the" selective reduction of multifetal pregnancies in the first trimester of a pregnancy." Another Catholic pro-life leader. Msgr. Orville Griese. director of research at the Pope John XXlll Medical-Moral Education Center near Boston. said the procedure was .. murder. ... There's no other way of looking at it." Tum to Page Six