CLIPS

1998
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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

March 1998

MONSIGNOR [HUGH] O'FLAHERTY hid Jews in monasteries and convents, at Castel Gandolfo, in his old college of the Propaganda Fide, in the German College and in his network of apartments. Every evening, he stood on the porch of St. Peter's, in plain view both of the German soldiers across the piazza and of the windows of the Pope's apartments. Escaped POWs and Jews would come to him there. He would smuggle them across the piazza and through the German Cemetery to the college. Sometimes he would disguise them in the robes of a monsignor or in the uniform of a Swiss guard.

-- "Catholic Heroes of the Holocaust," by Elizabeth Altham, Sursum Corda, Winter 1997

OVER AT THE NEW YORK TIMES, another remarkable transformation on another life-or-death issue was also announced on page 1: A lot of women who have had miscarriages or abortions are conducting new rites of mourning for their lost children. (Yes, the Times actually referred to fetal death as "the loss of the child.") It goes without saying that people don't hold funerals for a clump of tissue, so it's clear that the Times is backing into a story far broader than one about ceremonies of loss. In large part, the rites are "the result of society's changing perception of when a fetus becomes a child," the Times says. The old perception -- that a fetus becomes a child at birth, and not before -- has faded. It was too simple, too doctrinaire. Ultrasound undermined it. So did early viability and the partial-birth abortion debate. Now "society" has changed its mind, making late abortions, at least, more morally problematic than ever. This is an important shift in opinion, particularly in the elite opinion represented by the Times and its coverage. There is something new in the abortion debate after all.

-- "Taking a right turn," by John Leo, U.S. News & World Report, 2/23/98

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY'S PRESIDENT, the Rev. Leo J. O'Donovan, asked Chaplain Adam Bunnell yesterday to "move forward expeditiously" to place crucifixes in all but one of the remaining classroom buildings without the signature Catholic crosses....

Two older classroom buildings have crucifixes, but several newer ones do not. Last spring, a group of students called the Committee on Crucifixes began lobbying the administration to place crucifixes in all classrooms....

About 60 percent of Georgetown undergraduates report that they are Catholic....

Bunnell said he met recently with the Rev. William Lori, auxiliary bishop to Cardinal James A. Hickey, who heads the Washington Archdiocese. "We respect the cardinal's [and Lori's] concerns and suggestions. We are following their wishes but in our own way."

Hickey weighed in on the crucifix controversy in November. "Frankly, I can't imagine why a university, run by the Society of Jesus and

operating under a pontifical charter, would have to debate the issue," he wrote in the Catholic Standard, the diocesan newspaper....

Shaun Tandon, editor in chief of the Georgetown Voice, a weekly campus newspaper, said: "Basically, we support [the new policy] but...we think it's become more of a political issue" because some students took the issue to the student government....

Asked why the crucifix decision came earlier than expected, Tandon said he thought that when the university administration studied the issue, officials realized it was not all that important. "There are much larger questions at Georgetown," he said.

-- "Crucifixes to Be Placed in Classrooms at Georgetown," by Bill Broadway and Caryle Murphy, Washington Post, February 21, 1998

WHILE RICHARD LAND, a Southern Baptist leader, was denouncing the ABC/Disney television show Nothing Sacred as "yet another egregious example of Disney's Christian-bashing agenda," [Los Angeles cardinal Roger] Mahony was praising the show, and he "pointedly" (as the Los Angeles Times noted) posed with the star of the show at a media awards ceremony. What would those formidable bishops of bygone years cited by [Monsignor George] Kelly [in his article about what a good bishop can do] have said about a show that misrepresents Christ's teachings and demeans the Church He founded, and whose star plays a priest who refuses to tell an inquiring pregnant woman whether abortion is right or wrong? They would have said what Land said. Would any of them have posed with the star for a photo? Not a chance.

-- "Nothing Sacred About My Cardinal," letter to the editor by Charles J. O'Connell from Sylmar, California, New Oxford Review, February 1998

LET ME GIVE YOU AN EXAMPLE, in a little story. During the recent retreat for priests in Rome, I think there were 7,000 priests who attended. I was invited to give talks at this retreat. Some of our [Filipino] priests also went to Rome. There were 260 who wanted to go, but they had no money. So they came up to me and asked, "Can you support our trip to Rome, and we will pay you later?" I said I would; we asked the travel agency if we could pay later, and so we went.

When I arrived there, I learned that we still had to pay for our meals. That was a lot of expense; to stay there for a week.So I was very sad.

That night I was invited to be the guest of the manager of Fiat International. When we arrived there, I asked the manager, "Why would you invite me? I do not know you, and you do not know me!" He said to me, "I invited you because my housekeeper is from the Phillipines."

Then he told me how one evening his youngest child approached him and said, "Daddy, tomorrow is Sunday; tomorrow will be my birthday, and tomorrow will be my First Communion. My gift from you will not be money, as you are always giving me everything, my gift will be that both of you will attend my First Communion day. And beginning that Sunday you will go to Mass every Sunday, and every night before we go to sleep, before we kiss you, we will pray the night prayer together. Daddy, can you give me that favor?"

The father went inside his room and started to weep, and told himself, "My house is no longer just a house, it is a home, because of this housekeeper." So, he told me, "I am grateful to you people. Ask what you like, and I will give it to you." I said: "I need money to pay for the travel of the poor priests who came to the retreat." He gave me enough money so that I paid the travel agency and I also paid for my priests' meals and lodging.

There you can see the influence of the Filipinos -- the maids in Rome who have great influence over children, because the hands that rock the cradle are the hands that govern the world.

-- Phillipine cardinal Jaime Sin, quoted in "A Special Mission," Catholic World Report, February 1998

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