FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSmS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS VOL. 33, NO.·29
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Friday, July 28, 1989
FALL RIVER, MASS.
Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly
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511 Per Year
Teaching guidelines for social doctrine issued by Vatican
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BISHOP DANIEL A. CRONIN greets parishioners at St. Joseph's Church, Woods Hole, in the course of a pastoral visitation. With him is Father James P. Dalzell, pastor.
Priests minister at crash site SIOUX CITY, Iowa (CNS) .:."It was a scene from hell." said
Father Mark Duchaine, one of 10 Sioux City priests who arrived minutes after United Air'ines Flight 232 from Denver to Chicago crashed at the Sioux City airport July 19. killing more than 100 people and injuring nearly 200. "There were a lot of casualties.... We anointed conditionally all those we could reach," Father Duchaine said. "It was a horrible. horrible thing.... I had my [sacramental] oils and I knelt. prayed. anointed and absolved. I really didn't have any idea of the time. You operate on automatic pilot, your mind is numb." Msgr. Frank Brady of St.· Francis Church said the first thing he did "was make the Sign of the Cross over the scene and said. 'Dear God, please bring your mercy upon these people.'" "It was unbelievable;' he said. recalling images of dead bodies "still strapped into seats.... I would guess there were 30 bodies along the runway where the plane first came down." Sioux City priests. ministers and other volunteers quickly gathered at the airport, hospitals. an Air National Guard commissary and a local Catholic college to bless the dead and comfort and counsel survivors. "The community response has been just fantastic.... V.olunteers were pouring in," said Father Robert J. Schimmer. Catholic chaplain of Marian Health Center. where most of the severely injured were treated. In an interview the next day. Father Schimmer said he spent the hours after the 4 p.m. crash at the hospital;s trauma center, anointing and absolving the critically and seriously injured. "The other chaplains visited people in their rooms," counseling and helping those who were less
seriously injured or who had said. "Some we prayed with, talked already been treated. he said. to or just listened as they spoke. Marian, which is run by the Sis- Others just needed a shoulder to ters of Mercy. handled 85 victims lean on, someone to cry with." Msgr. Brady said that at the of the disaster. a hospital spokeswoman said July 2~. Sevett-diee:tflt< cemmissapy ". found slories of the hospital. 40 were treated and courage among the survivors how they encouraged each other hospitalized. and 38 were released when the plane section finally came after treatment. The city's other hospital. St. to a stop and they were hanging Luke·s. which does not have a upside down, how they helped one trauma center, reported that it another get out." handled 108 victims. Two died. 19 were hospitalized. one was released after overnight observation. and 86 were released after treatment. Father Kevin McCoy, chancellor of the Sioux' City diocese. said he began alerting priests in the city . as soon as he heard the first news reports that the disabled plane was attempting to land in Sioux City. By Pat McGowan Then tie got a call from United Dr. Patrick MacLeod of Queen's asking him to send every available University. Kingston, Ont., Canpriest to the airport. ada. is a compassionate physician. "Priests from the chancery and a medical geneticist and one of the local parishes responded and about world's leading authorities on what 10 were at the airport shortly after is variously known as Azorean, the crash.... We also coordinated Joseph's or Machado's disease. with the two local hospitals. He comes to Fall River and New assigning three priests to each to Bedford two or three times a year help the chaplains;' he said. to study victims of the noncomFather Duchaine, who is on the municable hereditary condition and diocesan marriage tribunal. was hopefully to locate new families among the first to be alerted and with afflicted members. He was at . head for the airport. the Charlton Memorial Hospital "It was a horrible scene. small in Fall River earlier this month to fragments of wreckage, strewn meet with 34 patients whose cases clothing and baggage. dismembered he has been following for years. bodies;" he said. Before he held the one-on-one "The redeeming grace was in meetings, he 'gave a highly informhow people came together.... he ative lecture and slide show for added. "Clergy, fire. police, rescue patients, family members and other went about their work in an out- persons interested in the degenerastanding fashion." tive disease of the central nervous As emergency workers began to system that for some time was get the different classes of victims thought to affect only persons of sorted out. the sheriffs department Azorean ancestry. moved priests and ministers on the Dr. MacLeod demolished that scene to the Air National Guard myth in short order, "Everyone commissary, where survivors with- affected by the disease in the Uniout severe injuries were being gath- ted States and Canada is thought ered. to be from the Azores," he said. "Sometimes they spoke first, "and because 80 percent of all Portsometimes I did," Father Duchaine uguese in the United. States are of
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education has published new guidelines on the teaching of the church's social doctrine aimed at improving the training of future priests, according to a congregation official. While many seminaries effec, tively,teach this doctrine. "there are others which leave much to be desired," said Archbishop Jose Saraiva Martins, congregation secretary, during a recent presentation of the new document. The archbishop specifically cited some seminaries in Italy and the United States where "more time is given to sociology than church social doctrine." The archbishop also said there were many good seminaries in the United States. The 95-page document. titled "Guidelines for the Study and Teaching of the Church's Social Doctrine in the Formation of Priests;' was released by the Vati. can June 27. It was signed by the congregation's prefect, Cardinal
William W. Baum, and Archbishop Saraiva Martins. The archbishop said the document, seven years in the making. involved consultation with the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The document was a response to requests for guidance from bishops, seminaries and Christian communities,he said. It is the first such document to specifically concern itself with the teaching of church social doctrine. It came out of a "growing necessity" for the formation of Catholics in the church's social teachings "with the help of competent priests," Archbishop Saraiva Martins said. The archbishop said the formation of Catholics depends "to a large extent on the quality of the formation which future priests receive in their seminaries." But the answer to the congregation's surveys of how well seminaries are teaching the doctrine and its "correct application" is "not Turn to Page Six
Canadian doctor gives hope to Machado/Joseph patients AlOrean extraction. this connection was made. However. we now know that Joseph's disease is universal. occurring in Europe and Japan as well as in North America and the Azores." Symptoms include an unsteady gait and somewhat prominent eyes. As the disease progresses. patients are confined to a wheelchair. "But you don't die of Joseph's itself." said Dr. MacLeod. "rather from complications to which it can make you vulnerable."
DR.-MacLEOD makes a point at his Fall River lecture. (Gaudette photo)
He said that U.S. cases of the disease. as far as is known, all stem from Joseph Bastiano, who emigrated from the Azores in 1845, hence the name Joseph's. But there were undoubtedly connections between the Bastiano and Machado families, he said. thus the name of Machado's disease. given to the same condition. The disease is also common among Azoreans in California. where some years ago a geneticist organized a family reunion of those affected. Some ISO persons attended the landmark event, of which Dr. MacLeod showed slides; and about 20 were found to be afflicted with Joseph'sl Machado·s. A giant step forward in aiding victims was made in 1980, said Dr. MacLeod. when the Gulbenkian Foundation sponsored a meeting in Lisbon for those studying Joseph'sl Machado's. The physician spoke at that time on the importance of isolating and decoding the gene that dooms its carriers to the disease. Those with it. he said, will pass it on to 50 percent of their children and will manifest its effects at Turn to Page Six