FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER
t eanc 0 VOL. 28, NO. 46
FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSETTS
CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS
FALL RIVER, MASS., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23; 1984
u.s.
By bjshops
bishops support Abp. Hurley
Nation, church discussed
NC News Service
o
Bishop James W. Malone of Youngstown. Ohio, president of the National Conference of Catholic 'Bishops, has written to Prime Minister P.W. 'Botha of South Africa, and U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz protest ing the prosecution of Archbish op Denis Hurley of Durban, South Africa. Also, Cardinal Joseph L. Ber nardin . of, Chicago wrote to Archbishop Hurley expressing his admiration for the archbis hop's consistent defense of hu man rights. In a Nov. 7 Jetter to Botha, Bishop Malone said that by pro secuting Archbishop Hurley, the South African government would be seen as renewing efforts to "suppress the truth about Na mibia and to inhibit those who are courageous enough to wit ness the truth." The NCCB president called the archbishop "a churchman of ~n ternational stature with a ·Iong record of concern for Ilocial justice for all peoples." . Archbishop Hurley is sched uled to appear in court Feb. 18, 1985, on charges stemming from a 1983 press conference in which he accused a South African po lice counter-insurgency force called Koevoet (Crowbar) of commIU,lngatrocities. in Nanii bla. He was charged with vio :Iatlng the 1958 Police Act, which makes it illegal to pub lish a report "regarding the South Mrican police...without having reasonable grounds for bel,ieving the statement is true." On Nov. 9 the archbishop en tered a plea of innocent. The trial was expected' to 'last as long as four weeks, according to the London-based Catho\'ic Institute for International Re lations. 'Bishop Malone said he was astonished at the charges made against Archbishop Hurley, crit oicized the South Mrican gov ernment for resisting interna tiOD'll! calls for Namibia's inde pendence, .and called for with drawal of South African forces from Namibia. In his letter to Shul~ in which he enclosed a copy of the letter ~o Botha, Bishop Malone sa,ld h~ was dismayed that the U. S. government " 'abstains' when the United Nations Se curity Council speaks of cenTurn 'to Page ,Eleven
$8 Per Year
By Jerry Filteau
AT THE U,SL BISHOPS' MEETING, Bishop' Daniel A. -Cronin confers with Bishop James Malone, president of the National Conference .9f Catholic Bishops. (Keams Photo)
Diocese opens beart to
Etbiopian. need
Bishop Daniel A. Cronin is Oct. 29 an4 Nov. 9. The agency has been receiV'ing mor~ money "overjoyed" at the overwhelm ,Ing response that has greeted weekly than it normally 'receives his personal appeal for aid to ill a month," she said. But much more will still be famine-scourged Ethiopia, a na tion where he served for several needed, according to the relief years as a young priest. agency. Lawrence Pezzullo, CRS The bishop said parish after executive director, told National parish has exceeded aH expecta Catholic News Service Nov. 14 tions -in generosity, both in the 'that his group estimates it will shape of donat'ions from the need about $40 miLlion for its emergency and development ef parish as. a whole 'and from in forts in Ethiopia. If donations dividual members. . spurt and then drop;dramaticaHy, Additionally, many non-Cath olics: bavedonated to (:atholic "the whole thing wHl flare up Relief Services, the agency most again," he said. involved in Ethiopian relief. Meanwhile, donors included They have transmitted their 28 students from an eighth gifts through parishes or· the grade religion class in Queens, chancery office, said the bishop. . N.Y., who contributed at least National Response a nickel for each member of iNationally, from oIassrooms their famHy who 'was well-fed. to boardrooms, American Catho The class donation totalled tics and non-Catholics aI·ike have $16.12. flooded Catholic Relief Services Chase Manhattan Bank, an with donations for its efforts in other New York donor, contribu Ethiopia, where an estimated 6 ted $100,000 for CRS efforts in million people face Starvation. Ethiopia. eRS spokeswoman 'Beth Grif Many donations were triggered fin said iNov. 14 that the relief by a graphic IBritish Broadcast agency received $1.7 million ting Corp. videotape depicting from 20,000 donors between the Ethiopian suffering. It was 0
aired by NBC -News on Oct. 23 and succeeding days, lJV1s. Griffin said. The fiolm showed babies with bloated bellies, adults with stick~like limbs who looked !ike concentration camp victims, and masses of people gathering futilely outside the walls of a feeding center without enough food to feed them. On its Oct. 25 report on Ethi opia, NBC aired the telephone number of CRS, which is cur rently distributing an estimated 90 percent of American food aid reaching the country: "The phones went wild before they even took the number off the screen," Ms. Griffin said. Gary Geers, station staff an nouncer of NBC affiliate KYW TV1n Philadelphia, can attest to the impact of .the footage had on viewers. He told NC News that he aired some of the Ethiopian footage on the Oct. 28 episode of "Con nections," a local religious news program. He told viewers of the 7:30 a.m. Sunday show that Turn to Page Three
WASHLNGTON (NC) - Na tional public policy issues of the economy, the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion evoked lively discussion by the U.S. bishops as they met in Washing ton Nov. 12-15. Nearly all the actual decisions made, however, were on more strictly religiOl:s matters: in church rules, liturgical docu ments, guidelines for permanent deacons and for continuing edu cation of priests, an ecumenica'1 evaluation and decisions on mis sion activity. Nearly unanimously, the bish ops voted to raise $4 million over the next three years to help the bishops of Thailan,d main tain aid programs for some 200,000 Asian refugees in their country. 'f.he chief focus of popular in terest at the meeting was the un veiling of the first draft of a pastoral letter on. Catholic social teaching and the U.S. economy. The draft caMs for a national policy of "f,ull employment," major reforms in .the "woefully inadequate" welfare system, and substantial redistribution of health to correct. the "gross in equalities" that ex:ist today. It also calls for significant changes in U.S. aid and trade policies to ward the Third World. Three reports to the bishops touched on abortion. Cardinal Bernardin, speaking for the Bishops' Committee for Pro-Life Activities,. stressed the "seamless garment" of respect for life at all stages and pro tecting it against an forms of attack. Archbishop John R. Quinn of San Francisco, head of the bish ops' doctrinal committee, sharply reproved efforts by Catholics who favor -1egalired abortion to describe the church's position on abortion as changing and incon sistent. Evaluating the Equlrl Rights Amendment, Archbishop John L. May of St. Louis recommended that ·the U.S. bishops, whire "un Ifeservedly committed to justice between the sexes," rema'in offi cially neutral about the ERA. One key reason for concern about the ERA, he said, was its potential to "buttress" ,legalized abor;tion unless it is amended to Turn to Page Six