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The ANCHOR An Anchor 01 the Soul, Sure and Flrm-St. Paul
Fall River, Mass., Thursday, July 17, 1975 PRICE 15c Vol. 19, No. 29 © 1975 The Anchor $5.00 per ,ear
OIReilly Early and Strong Minority Rights Fighter By Dennis P. Ryan One of the most colorful and illustrious Irish Americans of the 19th century was John Boyle O'Reilly of Boston. . An Irish revolutionary, he fled to America in 1870 to escape imprisonment by the British.. Soon as a reporter .and then editor of The Boston Pilot, he became one of the country's outspoken propopents of minority rights - for Irishmen, Jews, blacks and American Indians. In addition he championed the rights of labor, advocated political, educational and' penal reforms, and called for the conservation of America's natural resources. The Pilot, now Boston's archdiocesan newspaper, was at that time the leading Irish-Catholic paper in the country. Under O'Reilly's direction it campaigned against the squalid living conditions, poor wages and other inequities suffered by Boston's pre-
dominantly Irish immigrant population. He counseled Irish-Americans to practice hard work, toleration and brotherhood in order to win Yankee acceptance, and he was quick to 'admonish when they failed in such objectives. He criticized the employment practices of the Boston Police Department by noting that "out of the entire city, one-half of which is Irish, there are only two inspectors and four sergeants of Irish birth or descent, while out of 70 officers in the state there is only one of Irish birth and he holds the lowest grade." Often O'Reilly scored the public education system for generating prejudice against the Irish and the Catholic Church. The hiring policies of Boston's Department of Education also drew his criticism. In 1885 he observed that although the majority of students in BostQn's Turn to Page Ten
Cites· Position of Church In ·Politics and Economics particularly with regard to the issue of the legality of abortion. "What must be avoided," Archbishop Bernardin said, "whether in the courts or in the halls of Congress, is the impression that the Catholic Church expects civil law to embody divine law as read by Catholic theologians or the magisterium (teaching authority) of the Church. Our efforts should be directed at persuading citizens, law makers and judges that we oppose abortion on the same kind of grounds as one opposes slavery, or euthanasia, or geno· cide or infanticide. It is il matter of basic human rights which transcend denominational interests." The archbishop was a speaker at the fifth Ecumenical Institute
CINCINNATI (NC) - The Church's role in temporal affairs is not that of a law giver nor of a higher authority with a right to correct decisions and actions of the civil government, Archbishop Joseph Bernardin of Cincinnati told an ecumenical meeting here. . The Church's role, he said, is that of a people, God's people, attempting to render services to the human family in the light of the Gospel. The archbishop, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, spoke on "The Ethics of Economics and Politics." Secular humanists, he said, suspect the Church of seeking to "structure and consolidate" society according to divine law,
on Religious Educationat Mt. St. Joseph-on-thre-Ohio near here. The words of Jesus Christ, "Whatsoever you have done to these, the least of my brethren, you have done to me,"are "the true basis of Christian action in the contemporary political and social order," Archbishop Bernardin said. The archbishop said that the principle embodied in those words was the motivation for the involvement of "church peo· pie" in the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. "The 'church people' were not there because they saw an opportunity 'to structure the human community according to divine law,''' the archbishop said, "but because they had developed Turn to Page Two
LIBERTY and JUSTICE FOR ALL by Father Maynard Geiger, O.F.M. Several years ago [ received a letter from a gentleman ~n New York saying he Ihad heard that I had dn ilhe Santa Barbara Mission Archive a copy of a letter sent by Father Jun'ipero Serra to Genera,1 George Washington.. He wondered if he could obta·in a copy of it. I was amazed. Had such '18 Jet· ter eXlisted, ,it would surely have been published 'long ago. ·On JU'ly 4, 1776, Father Serra was saHing aJlong the Pad~ic Coast between Monterey and San Diego, totaHy obHvious to the events in Philade'lph'ia. Neither Father Ser:ra nor General Washington knew of the other':; work. The Atlantic and Pacific shores were both populated by non-Indians 'in 1776. But the differences between the two coloniaJ ~eas in pol'itica'l viewpoints, reli~on and language, and itlhe vast physiool separation by rnounta~n ranges, deserts and plains, would have justified one in saying: Never ,the twa1in shall meet.
Father Serra Cathollic Christianity dn the present state of Ca\:tf~a took root on July 16, 1769, when Father Serra planted t'he cross on a hilltop above the iha'rhor of San -Diego. Contrary to a commonly held opinion, Spa'in did not come to Ca,lifomia pl1imariJy to pIant the Catholic religion. She moved ,in to create a buffer st'ate ·ror what was then known as New Spain (today Mexico) against the threat of Russian 'aggressiontirom the north. In the process, however, she aliso wished to implant the Cathoi'ic faith among the naNves and to ciV'iJIize them on the Spanish pattern. This work w~s commended to the Froooiscan missionaries of tlhe Cd11ege of San Fernando, Mexico City, who were already laboring in Lower California (the peninsula, whioh is stiUa part of Mexico). The kii'ng of Spa'in and under him his Aimer.ican vi,ceroys controlIed 1Jhe Ohurch ,in aU externad 'affairs-a situation totaHy a<l'ien to ooc subsequent ~ational traTurn to Page Two
"GRANDFATHER PRIEST": Rev. Mark Dittami, O. Carm., "grandfather priest" from St. Michael's parish, Ocean Grove, with his f~mily. From left, his daughter Ursula; grandchildren Marietta, Susan, Cathlin; son-in-law Robert Leahy.
Grandfather Priest Serves Shopping Mall Apostolate As Modern As Tomorrow .
ShoU'ld priests marry? For Rev. Mark Dittami, O.Ca,rrn., forrnerJy a member of St. Mi· chael"s parish, Ocean Grove, tlhe question is academic. He was not on1y a husband and faUter, 'but 'a grandfather before he became a priest. For 'him the decision to enter reHgious life came on the heels of tragedy. His Wlife died in 1961, only a few days ,before the couple were to celebrate their 25th wedding ooniversary. In t1he em~iona~ turmoi!1 that fonowed
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he considered dedicating himself to various forms of volunteer work, becoming a teac~er or possibly rema.rrying. 'J1hen a fr.iend suggested 'the priesthood and after prayerfUl ref,lection he decided to follow his brother, Ma,mo Dittami, dnto the Carmelite Order. He left behind him a 'Successful career In adv.ertising and years of service as a Boy Scout commissioner, entering the CareHte community at a novitJiate :in England. Fo'HoWling theolog·
ica~ studies tlhere 'and in Washington, D. C. he was ordained !in 1965 and was immediately assigned to an apostolate as modern as tomorrow-that of serv,ing at a shopping malI .chapel .in Peabody, Mass. "We are putting Christ in the marketplace," he explained in an dnterview several years ago. "We are hringing him· where the people !(lre. The shopping center is now Main Street for the suburbs. Just as the New England churoh Turn to Page Ten