FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER
t eanc 0 VOL. 30~·NO. 31
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Friday, August 8, 1986
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Nicaragua assessment continues
Bishops keeping watch NEW YORK (NC) - The U.S. bishops are denouncing oppression in Nicaragua with "much stronger statements today," Cardinal John O'Connor of New York said Aug.
4. Butthe shift is caused by developing circumstances in Nicaragua, not by any "philosophical or ideological" change on the part of the . bishops, he said. The cardinal, who chairs the U.S. Catholic Conference Committee on Social Development and World Peace, said his committee is reassessing the Nicaraguan situation "constantly." A major new church-state controversy arose in late June and early July when the government expelled Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega, vice president of the Nicara-
guan bishops' conference, just a week after it denied reentry to Msgr. Bismarck Carballo, communications director of the Managua archdiocese. Cardinal O'Connor said he was currently reviewing a paper to be sent to the U.S. Senate in connection with its upcoming action on military aid to the contras, the anti-government guerrillas in Nicaragua. He said the U.S. bishops' position would reflect the Nicaraguan bishops' statement April 6, which said: "It is our judgment that any kind of help, whatever the source, that leads to the destruction, sorrow and death of our families, to hatred and division between Nicaraguans is to be condemned."
Cardinal O'Connor answered reporters' questions during a brief appearance to open a forum sponsored by the Northeast Catholic Pastoral Center for Hispanics. Both Bishop Vega and Msgr. Carballo were originally scheduled as featured guests, but Bishop Vega was uriable to attend. He had been delayed in Italy for further talks with Pope John Paul II and other Vatican officials, Cardinal O'Connor said. . Bishop Sean. O'Malley of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, chairman of the pastoral center's board, read a statement condemning Nicaragua's actions against Bishop Vega and Msgr.-Carballo.He said that ifthere were specific charges against Bishop Vega, as Nicaraguan PresTurn to Page Six
Thinks nukes prevent·WW3 TURIN, Italy (NC) - Without nuclear deterrence there might have been a third world war, the Vatican's chiefU.N. representative said. Archbishop Giovanni Cheli also said the nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl power plant in the Soviet Union showed nothing new about the dangers of nuclear power. Nuclear power cannot be "disinvented," he said, describing calls for its abolition as "unreal." Archbishop Cheli is head of the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations, where he has served since 1973. His comments were part of an interview published Aug. 4 in the Turin newspaper La Stampa. While expressing concern about the arms race, Archbishop Cheli said everyone is convinced that no one wins a nuclear war. "The reciprocal deterrent exercised until now by the two greatest nuclear arsenals has served, good or bad, to avoid a third world war; an affirmation that one may not like, but absolutely realistic," he said.
If the world was armed only with conventional weapons, he added, "probably the strongest would have already taken the initiative" of attacking its rival. The debate over the morality ·of deterrence has engaged Catholic leaders in the Vatican and in the United States for several years. In a 1982 message to the U.N. special session on disarmament, Pope John Paul II said, "in current conditions 'deterrence' based on balance, certainly not as an end in itself, but as a step on the way toward a progressive disarmament, may still be judged morally acceptable." The U.S. bishops' 1983 pastoral letter on war and peace, while adopting this papal statement on deterrence, added that it is a "transitional strategy justifiable only in conjunction with resolute determination to pursue arms control and disarmament."
the concept of deterrence in the light of recent arms control efforts. Concerning the peaceful use of nuclear power, Archbishop Cheli said the Chernobyl nuclear accident "added nothing to what we already knew about the dangers and benefits of atomic energy." Calling the possible abolition of nuclear energy "an unreal hypothesis," the archbishop said it is a discovery that cannot be "disinvented." He said he hoped, however, that the "cleaner" process of fusion energy will be made available as an alternative to present forms of nuclear power. Archbishop Cheli said that during his 13 years as Vatican representative to the United Nations, the world situation has grown worse.
He said he worried most about the lack of a nuclearrarms accord, the Third World debt crisis and A new commission of U.S. bish- such "extremely dangerous conops headed by Chicago Cardinal flicts" as those found in the Middle Joseph Bernardin is reexamining East.
Feasibility study report In April of this year, St. Anne's Health Care System, Inc., the parent corporation of St. Anne's-Hospital, Fall River, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River initiated a study to examine the feasibility of conjoining St. Anne's Hospital, the only Catholic hospital in the diocese, and the four long-term care facilities. Specifically, these facilities are the Catholic Memorial Home in Fall River; Our Lady's Haven in
Fairhaven; Marian Manor in . The Most Reverend Daniel A. Taunton; and Madonna Manor in Cronin, Bishop of Fall River, and North Attleboro. The study has Sister Dorothy Ruggiero, O.P., been completed, and it hils been Chairman of St. Anne's Health determined that a corporate change Care System, Inc. and Provincial Superior of the Dominican Sisters is not appropriate at this time. of the PresentatioQ, emphasized The study pointed out that in the importance of a closer collabothe rapidly changing health care ration between the two groups of field a closer working relationship health care facilities and pledged between the two groups of facili- to continue to work together to ties will enhance the quality care insure quality health care in the diocese. that they provide.
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"It is governments and their people which destroy the environment and thereby threaten the survival of future generations. It is acts of man, not acts of God, which pose the fundamental threat to the human species." - Brian W. Walker (see page 10)
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