Family Night program to begin here
In September the Diocesan Office of Family Ministry will Inaugurate a Family Night pro gram which wUl be supported by The Anchor with a w~y Famlly Night Program Outline with activities for young, middle year and adult families, even in cluding snack suggestions. In the following article, the originators of FamUy M~t,
Terry and Mimi Reilly of Phoe nix, Ariz., share their reasons for developing it: We welcome the opportunity to tell you about Family Night, a program that has been deeply rewarding to us as individuals and as a family. It is a program we developed in response to the hunger we all share to experi ence as families joy, love, peace,
and a real sense of oneness. We had become acutely aware of the emptiness in families: words were spoken but no one heard; funny stories needed to be shared but stayed within little and big hearts; laughter and tears were left unattended. We wanted to do something about this in our own family but it seemed there was so little
opportunity. Our lives were bursting apart at the seams with the hustle and bustle of busy ness. An endless list of rushed breakfasts, school, work, sports, lessons in this and that, com mittee and community meetings, scouts, 4-H, dentists, hair ap pointments, shopping, telephone calls, doctor appointments cram
t eanc 0 VOL., 26, NO. 32
FALL RIVER, MASS., FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 1982
med our days and weeks and were spilling into years. We began to thin out our overcrowded schedules and sought to spend more time to gether but as we did so we be came more and more aware of an obstacle to the unity we so craved. The TV, intended as a pleasant Tum to Page Six
FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER f:OR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSEnS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS
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Death penalty?
By Jerry FUteau When convicted murderer Frank Coppola was electrocuted in Richmond, Va., Aug. 10, he was only the fifth man to be ex ecuted in the United States since 1967, but there are indications that the death penalty will be come more common nationwide. Massachusetts voteFs, for in .stance, face a referendum this faIl on a constitutional amend ment that would allow the state to reimpose the' death penalty. The Catholic bishops of the state have issued a joint statement opposing the reintroduction of capital punishment. An effort for a similar referendum in Ore gon failed earliet:., this year to gain enough signatures to go on the baIlot. The U.S. return to capital punishment for crimes in volving murder goes against the trend in other western countries and against new thrusts in Cath olic teaching.
There have been growing caIls for abolition of the death penalty within the church, and use of the penalty for personal crimes, even murder, has practically dis appeared in western Europe in the 20th century. A 1981 world survey concluded that: - Twenty-three nations, most 'ly in Western Europe, the Am ericas and Australia have abol ished the death penalty totally or (in the case of some federal na tions) in some states. . - Another eight have abol ished it but reserved the right to reinstate it for certain crimes in time of war. - Eight more have abolished it except for crimes of treason or assassination attempts 011 heads of state. - The rest of the world's na tions - including most in Asia, Africa and the Eastern Europe Tum to Page Six
Success recipe
MILWAUKEE (NC) - Inner city private schools succeed not by taking the cream of the stu dent crop but by creating a dis tinctive educational environ ment, according to a study con ducted by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Liberties. Nearly 4,000 parents of stu dents in 54 elementary schools completed a questionnaire on why they were sending their children to private schools. The four-year research project included schools with at least 70 .perce~t minority enrollment in New York, Chicago, Los Ang eles, New Orleans, Milwaukee, Deroit, Washington and New ark, N.J. Jesuit father Virgil Blum, de signer and supervisor of the pro
ject, called the schools "islands of hope in the poorest areas of the nation's urban landscape." Researchers said their findings help disprove the pervasive myth that Catholic schools are elitist. According to the league's re port, 80 percent of the sample schools accept academically weak public school transfer stu dents frequently or sometimes and· 56 percent accept public school transfers with disciplinary problems frequently or some times. In a typical year, 61 percent of the schools expelled no stu dents. No school in the sample expelled more than two students in any year. "Perhaps the most striking finding of our survey was the Tum to Page Eleven
Father John P. Hogan blesses fishing boat at 13th annual Blessing of the Fleet at New Bedford State Pier.