t eanc 0 VOL. 25, NO. 47
FALL RIVER MASS., THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1981
Families for Prayer By Pat McGowan
Sister Mary Manning, SND, is a lady with a large mission.. She wants to fill New England with praying families. She will explain how she hopes to work that miracle at a day for parish family ministers to be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Dio(:esan Family Life Center, 500 Slocum Road, North Dartmouth. Her presentation on the "Families for Prayer" program will begin the day planned for representatives from the 51 dio(:esan parishes that have appointed family enrichment coordinators under auspices of the Office of Family Ministry. Also on the program will be a presentation by Bill and Patty Coleman on a "total education
FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSEnS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS
program" themed Together in Prayer: Together with Jesus. Workshops on various aspects of family ministry will be offered by Deacon and Mrs. Leo Racine, Deacon and Mrs. John Schondek and Jackie and Walter Coyne. Sister Lucille Levasseur, SMSM, will explain Billings Natural Family Planning, in which she offers instruction and is also training teacher couples. Families for Prayer The Families for Prayer program, said Sister Mary, is an outgrowth of Father Patrick Peyton's famous rosary crusade with its slogan "The family that prays together stays together." As time went on, said Sister Mary, it was realized that families were asking for more than
the rosary, for a home-centered prayer program growing out of a . parish context. To meet this need, Families for Prayer was developed. After pilot trials in a few areas it has been expanded across the nation. In the Fall River diocese it is now in use in Our Lady of Fatima parish, Swansea, and SS. Peter and Paul, Fall River. Previously it was implemented at St. John the Evangelist, Pocasset, while a Portuguese version of the program is now in preparation at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, New Bedford. As New England regional representative of Families for Prayer, Sister Mary crisscrosses the six-state area explaining its mechanics. Turn to Page Six
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Bishops differ on Hatch amendm,ent At the annual Washington meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Daniel A. Cronin was among critics of the proposed Hatch human life amendment to the Constitution. Saying that the amendment had merits but that it seems to permit unborn children "in the wrong state at the wrong time" to be aborted; Bishop Cronin aligned himself with other bishops who questioned the amendment because it does not ban abortion outright, instead granting Congress and the states power to reenact abortion restrictions struck down in 1973 by the Supreme Court. It was endorsed by Archbishop John R. Roach of St. Paul-Minneapolis, NCCB president, and Cardinal Terence Cooke of New.York, head of the Bishops' Committee for Pro-Life Activities, in congressional testimony Nov. 5. But Cardinal Humberto Medeiros of Boston. said in Washington, "In my conscience, as it is at this point, I don't see how
I could" support the Hatch amendment. He said the measure would allow some states "to destroy innocent human life" if they so choose. "I think there's much confusion coming from here," he said of the NCCB. He also said that the NCOB backing of the Hatch Amendment contradicts testimony he and other prelates gave before a congressional committee in 1974, when the bishops said they did not favor a "states' rights approach." (fhe Hatch Amendment has been called a states' rights measure by some.) In other action at the bishops' meeting, which ends today, participants: - ¡Considered a statement on Latin America' which criticizes the U.S. for addressing Central America in terms of global security rather than the needs of the region's poor; - Heard education researchers Msgr. William Baumgaertner of the National Catholic Educational Assn. and Father FranTum to Page Three
Nuclear arms race • a major concern
In a family Sietting, a mother explains the symbols of the cup and bread to her child.
American bishops are continuing to tackle the moral issues of the nuclear arms race, which Pope John Paul II said Nov. 11 threatens to annihilate "not just a country or a continent, but all of mankind today." At the bishops' national meeting this week a progress report on issuing a national pastoral statement on war and peace issues was to be presented and several bishops have added their names to the list of at least 30 who have spoken out individually or in small groups on the question in recent months. "A bilateral reduction of arms will not begin until something unilateral happens," said Bishop Francis Quinn of Sacramento,Calif., in a plea for a unilateral first step toward disarmament to end the arms race. His fellow Californian, Archbishop John R. Quinn of San Francisco, in early November made his second major statement on the topic in a month, warning in a speech in Los Angeles that the psychological and poli-
tical barriers that have made nuclear war unthinkable to most people are being eroded by the defense policies and rhetoric coming out of the nation's capital. He called even deterrent possession of nuclear weapons immoral as a "long-term policy" and said that governments have a "grave moral obligation" to end the arms race. In October, in a statement issued in connection with the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, Bishop Daniel A. Cronin called the killing an "occasion for world leaders to initiate serious efforts to bring peace." He added that the "current senseless buildup of conventional and nuclear weapons is fraught with the very real peril that a worldwide conflagration can burst forth." Archbishop Philip M. Hannan of New Orleans struck a different note with a column in his archdiocesan newspaper. Although he, too, advocated an Tum to Page SIx