Who ()wns parish? When in a column a couple of years ago, I mentioned a good parish, I got a letter that questioned my guidelines for judging a parish bad, mediocre, or good. "What is your basic criteria?" asked the writer. "What do you look for first?" That one is easy. The first most underlying clue to a parish is who owns it? If there's no clear answer, then a parish has passed its initial physical and is on its way to good health. If nobody owns the parish, then everybody does and we call it community. However, lots of parishes are owned by someone or some group. Here are the most familiar ones: Father. By far the most typical parish owner is the pastor. It is his parish, whether "by choice or delegation. Lots of pastors don't want ownership but their parishioners don't want it either, so it becomes a hot potato. In other parishes, Father demands ownership as a by-product of ordination and this creates its own problems, or mystique, as the canon may be. (In olle parish, I'm told, the housekeeper, as an extension of the pastor, owned the parish but only because of longevity in the parish. When she passed on, as they say in the sagas, both the parish and Father were liberated to become a community.) School parents. The second most familiar deed holders are those who have or had their chil-
elren in the parish school. This is the familiar "parish-is-theschool" model of church and those parents who have been told they are special for sending their children to the school believe it. Even if only one-thirtieth of these people have children in the school, the school is the allegiance test which, if you pass at some time in your parish life, proves you are a good supportive parishioner deserving ownership. Natives. Next most common landlords are those who were there first. Everyone else is a newcomer, a 'they,' even though 'they' may have been there 25 years. These owners are the ones with the most kin in the parish graveyard and the original stained glass windows in the church. Therefore, they grant themselves the right of eminent domain. They still talk of the good old days when the founders didn't have to share the Good News with people they didn't know. Ethnic. German, Italian, Polish come next. If you're Irish in an Irish parish, your vote counts more on the KC ballot. However, if you're Irish in a Polish parish, offer it up. People don't want their First Communicants marching with yours. If you're Hispanic in L.A., you have more ownership than in most other places because you're almost in the majority there (however, you might have a foreign-born Irish pastor, a real possibility in L.A., and that could change things).
THE ANCHOR-Diocese of Fall River-Thurs., Oct. 8, 1981
By
Pentagon slightly
DOLORES
CURRAN
feet and slithers between the toes of people walking along the beach. Who would believe that seaweed may offer an impressive answer to our energy prl:Jblems? According to scientists, farms of seaweed "planted" along the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines could offer great potl~ntial for supplying methane, the principal component of natural gas. Methane can be produced through the "digesting" of vegetabl,e material including seaweed. To produce natural gas then, we would cultivate seaweed farms, harvest the crops, digest them into methane, and pipe the gas through existing gas lines. Growing seaweed in. quantity has a side benefit as well. It could go a long way toward purifying the oceans. Some seaweeds feed on ocean pollution, acting as cleansing agents. They offer the potential, theil, of eliminating the need to construct some water treatment plants. The Gas Research Institute and the federal government are currently funding seaweed farm research in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Marine Sciences Research Center at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook is experimenting with nine common species of seaweed to see which grow best, have the longest, most stable life cycl~s and can best be protected against the sea animals that use them as food. The scientists are conducting their experiments in a seaweed greenhouse and in floating rafts along the coast of Long Island. When they decide which seaweed species are most feasible to use, the plans to produce miles of seaweed farms may proceed. The resulting natural gas could take care of a significant percentage of our national energy needs, supporters of the seaweed farms claim. Because of these possibilities, I think seaweed is one of God's surprises. I am fascinated by the secrets God has hidden throughout his creation. I think the Creator knew he could preserve wonder and humility in his creatures this way. In case anyone needs more conviction about the Creator's surprises, I offer this item from a recent issue of Science Digest: If we gathered all the genetic coding material responsible for determining all the characteristics of each human person on this earth, it would compress to about the size of an aspirin. I remember the late Msgr. John Cass, who spoke about the
By MARY McGRORY
Rural. If you live in the country adjacent to a metropolitan area, you're already experiencing the big city folk moving into your area for the joy of country living. That's okay, but when they start bringing their big city ideas into your comfortably secure parish, you're likely to make a stand for rural ownership and ask them to drop "visitor" envelopes into the weekly basket. Renewal or Traditionalist. If you're for English, the sign of peace, and coffee after Mass, you own a part of the cornerstone if your pastor also likes them. If, however, he's for Latin, a sign of subservience and raffles after Mass, go back to renting. It isn't your parish. Civilian. If you live in a parish near a military base, you can claim more ownership than those military people moving in because they are going to leave in two years. Why crowd your pews and classes with their children? Why bother to listen to their needs, input, and ideas? There are more but you get the idea. I'm sure you can come up with your own parish landlords, but if you can't, thank God and move on to community ownership.
By Seaweed is often considered a nuisance. and is certainly a big inconvenience when it loops around bare
5
ANTOINETTE BOSCO
Creator in a book published 31 years ago. He wrote, "Every discovery of science opens a door to new wonders, widens the view of life and deepens its mystery." In my favorite chapter, "On the Trail of God," Msgr. Cass wrote that the design, law and order in the universe are the "footprints for us Robinson Crusoes to wonder at," for they lead us to the mind capable of such creation. Next time I walk along the beach, I'll step more carefully on the seaweed. I will also be more appreciative of the scientists who keep discovering the Creator's miracles. They spark my faith.
True Joy "The life of St. Francis ... is a joyful life, not a comfortable one. If Francis possesses the world, it is because he has stripped himself of everything. If he knows the fullness of joy he has found it through the uttermost of pain and suffering." - A. M. Allchin
nicked When the government departments line up to claim their Purple Hearts for wounds suffered in the battle of the budget cuts, the Pentagon will be there. Having received only a ritual scratch inflicted by a wincing commander in chief, it may look a little funny next to agencies which have lost arms and legs, but where the Department of 'Defense is concerned, Ronald Reagan is ready to stretch a point. Actually, he only did it to make a point, which is that all government is making equal sacrifice for the realization of the president's economic goals. Making a $13 billion reduction in the rate of rise of the Pentagon spending means that next year, the warriors will have $2 billion less to defend us from the Soviets. Out of a budgeJ:~-Of $1.6 trillion over the next five years, it may not seem like much but that's only to people who cannot see the threat from a nation which has added to its perfidy, according to our secretary of state, by using poisonous chemicals in Asia. Actually, the $13 billion was a sum proposed by a Democrat Chairman Jim Jones of the House Budget Committee, and it was angrily rejected by conservatives of both parties. By certain standards, especially his own, Reagan was extremely brave. He does not believe for a minute that the Pentagon wastes money. Only sloppy, civilian agencies like Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development throw the stuff around. Cost overruns and lemon-weapons are honest mistakes, as eompared with the deliberate fraud perpetrated in behalf of "welfare queens" and other such predators. The extraordinary thing about the Pentagon in this Congress is that even waste and fraud have been regarded as sacred cows. Take the fate of Rep. Patricia Schroeder's modest attempt to take $8 billion in documented waste (documented by the General Accounting Office) out of the Pentagon budget - with the secretary given discretion in the choice. Only three Republicans out of 62 who had written a letter in May, suggesting that $25 billion could be painlessly removed, dared to vote with her. She was denounced during the debate of July 16 by outraged defenders of the Defense Department for "a cheap, backdoor attempt to reduce the authorization figure" and for "really going after the national defense of this country." She lost by a margin of almost 2-to-1.
And how will Reagan, with his penknife on the Pentagon's sleeve, be received by such champions? They will groan a bit, but only for the record. The $13 billion frees their hands for the real action - bigger slashes on the social programs. They were terribly concerned that radicals like David Stockman and White House Chief of Staff James L. Baker, who have an unfortunate tendency to look at figures instead of red hobgoblins, might persuade Reagan to do something really wild, like a $20 billion to $30 billion cut. Now that reason has prevailed, they are relieved. During the suspenseful White House meetings where the fate of the big spenders was being decided, two friends of the Pentagon, Rep. William Dickinson, R-Ala., and Charles Bennett, DFla., held a press conference under the auspices of the Coalition for Peace through Strength - a 272-member hawk' <:Tub on Capitol Hill. Although Dickinson had been shown special consid· eration by Reagan, and had been flown to the ranch for reasur· ance about some supposedly endangered weapons systems, he was worried that the president might be listening to the wrong voices. Dickinson can live with the cuts. The Democrats are in the process of deciding that they can, too. They have informally reached the conclusion that there is nothing in it for them to propose a leaner, alternate defense budget. They do not need to carry the added burden of being called "soft on defense" into the 1982 campaign. They are inclined to let the Republicans fight it out among themselves. There are people in the GOP who are mindful of their budget-balancing rhetoric and somewhat selfconscious about taking milk from babies and pittances from Social Security recipients in order to provide for "the poor relative" - Reagan's term for the Pentagon. But as Rep. Schroeder observes from her experience, "Republicans talk defense cuts, but they never vote them." Politically alld cosmetically, the president is in fine shape. He will "win" in Congress. He has tiptoed into the temple of defense spending. Unfortunately for him, Wall Street is the only audience that counts. If the Street says that the $13 billion nick won't do anything to bring down the high interest rates, he may have·to go back and take-· a serious whack at the wallets of the admirals and the generals. ·It· would go against the grain for him. For now, though. he and his victims are happy.