FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSETTS: CAPE COD I THE ISLANDS VOL. 36, NO. 26
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Friday, June 26,1992
F ALL RIVER, MASS.
Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly
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The new Our Father:
Trespasses, temptation out; sins, time of trial in WASHINGTON (CNS) - A proposed new English version of the Our Father avoids such archaic English forms as "who art," "thy" and "trespasses." Back in the 1970s, when the U.S. Catholic bishops first voted on an English translation of the Mass, they decided against the new Our Father and instead chose the .traditional version. Now, however, they are a couple of years away from considering a new translation of all the Mass prayers and the International Commission on English in the Liturgy will once again include the new Our Father. ICEL is a joint commission of English-speaking bishops' conferences, formed to pool financial and scholarly resources and provide a degree of uniformity to English texts used in Catholic liturgical rites around the world. In a progress report on the new Mass translations recently sent to the bishops' conferences, ICEL included the proposed new version of the Our Father: Our Father in heaven, haIlowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever. (Amen.) The report acknowledged that "change is no new thing in the history of this prayer" and even in Scripture there are two versions -Matthew's and Luke's. The commentary noted that the proposed new translation retained the word "daily" even though that translation of "epiousios," the original Greek word, "is notoriously uncertain." It discussed the line, "Save us from the time of trial," at some length. "Two errors must be avoided in this line," it said. "The first is the misconception that God would 'tempt' or entice people to .evil, and the second is to think that the original Greek word 'peirasmos' means 'temptation' as it is meant today. The reference here is primarily eschatological - a petition for deliverance from the final 'time Turn to Page Nine
The 'P,erot phenomenon: good or bad? By Laurie Hansen WASHINGTON (CNS) - The Ross Perot phenomenon makes the U.S. bishops look prophetic. Last October, when their administrative board issued its 1992 election year statement on political responsibility, the bishops warned of a growing "public cynicism" and disenchantment with politics. "This alienation is a dangerous trend, threatening to undermine the heart of our democratic traditions," the board wrote. Today, cynicism and disenchantment with the political process are reasons frequently cited by political observers for the national attraction to Perot, the Texas billionaire who portrays himself as a political outsider who if elected president will put an end to Washington gridlock. The bishops haven't been the only ones concerned about where the political process is heading. Republican political consultant Ed Rollins told college students in February that his "great fear" was "that we are going to have an accidental president one of these days." "We are going to '" elect somebody who is very charismatic, who
understands the process very, very well,but who has some very significant flaws because he is a total unknown," commented Rollins, who - perhaps ironically - was recently appointed Perot campaign manager. Alan Ehrenhalt, author of "The United States of Ambition," says one reason Perot has captured the nation's imagination is "whatever the average voter is angry about, that voter can hold out hope that Perot's angry about it too." The anger goes deeper than just frustration with politicians, Ehrenhalt told Catholic News Service. "The standard ofliving has been going down. People are earning more but only because they're working longer hours, That's not fun. People see their life chances slipping away, and a transfer of income" from the middle class to the wealthy, says Ehrenhalt. People are tired of negative campaigning, he says. "Twenty years ago we didn't have people trashing each other during campaigns. What happens with negative campaigning is somebody wins, but public confidence in politicians goes down," he says. Turn to Page Eight
OKLAHOMA CITY Archbishop Charles A. Salatka speaks during a session of the U.S. bishops' spring meeting at Notre Dame University. (CNS photo)
At bishops' meeting:
Women's pastoral tops agenda NOTRE DAME,lnd. (CNS)Vigorous public debate about a still-controversial pastoral letter on women was the highlight ofthe spring meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and U.S. Catholic Conference June 18-20. In a daylong session closed to the press, some 240 bishops also discussed ways of dealing with the issue of priests who sexually abuse children. Meeting on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, the bishops also discussed the need for a new Catholic engagement in evangelization and problems the church faces in trying to deal with aggressive proselytism by other groups directed especially at Catholic immigrant groups. Participants voted - inconclusively - on a new Lectionary for Mass, approved new norms for national shrines and decided to change the way they assess dioceses to fund their national offices. The bishops approved funding of $4.5 million, including $1 million to be collected from dioceses, for the August 1993 World Youth Day in Denver, an event that will feature a visit by Pope John Paul II.
In a secret session, the bishops learned from Washington Cardinal James A. Hickey that the Vatican had established a second canonical conference of U.S. women religious superiors alongside the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whose status remains the same. (See story on Page 8.) Women's Pastoral In a straw poll June 18 the bishops voted to move ahead to-
ward a possible vote this fall on their proposed pastoral letter on women's concerns. But there was clear evidence that they probably have a long way to go before they can agree on what to say or how to say it. Whether the final document would remain a pastoral letter was unresolved. Other possibilities are making it simply a public 'statement by the bishops, without the character of teaching authority generally associated with pastoral letters, or issuing it as a document of the committee that wrote it. "The truly critical or neuralgic issue is that of ordination [of women]," said Chicago Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin. "I think we really have to address that," he said, and "put more emphasis on why the church holds what it does." Most bishops addressed the issue from the perspective of wanting the proposed pastoral to explain church teaching on the male-only priesthood more fully and convincingly. But at least two bishops ex-
Ordination set Hartford Archbishop Daniel A. Cronin will return to the Fall River diocese Saturday, July 11, to ordain Deacon James Medeiros to the priesthood. The celebration will take place at 11 a.m. at St. Mary's Cathedral. Priests ofthe diocese are invited to concelebrate the Mass and all diocesans are welcome to attend the liturgy. The new priest's first Mass will be offered at 2 p.m. July 12 at St. John of God parish, Somerset.
pressed opposition to or serious reservations about the teaching itself. Retired Bishop Charles A. Buswell of Pueblo, Colo., declared: "The church is guilty of sexism when it denies ordination to half its people because they are women." He said that although the proposed letter is described as a pastoral response to the concerns of women in the church and society, "it seems to be a response more to our own concerns and the concerns of the Vatican." New Ulm, Minn., Bishop Raymond A. Lucker, one of several bishops who unsuccessfully urged dropping the pastoral letter, said that "right from the start we had very serious difficulties" with writing a pastoral. Although the bishops had no problem making suggestions to society about its treatment of women, "we had difficulty applying Jesus' teachings to the daily life of the church itself," he said. He urged dropping the pastoral in favor of "a brief positive statement" on things the bishops could clearly agree on, such as their consensus that sexism is sinful. . "We also need to name what divides us," he added, "and especially we need an open and honest study on the question of the ordination of women." Open discussion of the pastoral letter took up most of the first afternoon of the bishops' meeting. Earlier, the discussion narrowly missed being closed to the press, as Portland, Ore., Archbishop William J. Levada asked the bishops to talk about the letter in executive session. Turn to Page II