Texas Gulf Coast Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 15, No. 3, Ed. 1 Friday, June 8, 1979 Page: 2 of 6
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Page 2
TEXAS GULF COAST CATHOLIC
f Friday. June 8, 1979
Don't forget
Father’s Day
is June 17
Treat hi
It
Festival
Corpus Christi
11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Padre-Staples Mall
The Texas Gulf Coast Catholic regrets that Father Paschal Bergin’s name was
left out of the cutline identifying several local diocesan priests greeting the Holy
Father which appeared in the May 25 issue. Father Bergin is pictured here
taking a photograph of Pope John Paul II. Also pictured are Fathers James Ta-
mayo (looking at the pope’s hand) and Father Hugh Clarke to Father Tamayo’s
left.
The 66th Legislature
Edito Rials
Redbook’s survey on abortion
Now that the 66th Session of the Texas Legislature has adjourned, several
comments can be made.
One observation that needs to be made is that this session was dramatically
influenced by the election of Republican Bill Clements as Governor last Novem-
ber and the passage of Proposition 13 in California last year. Those two events
evidentally had a significant impact on strategic decisions, made by the
members of the Legislature.
Since Texas law does not permit the referendum process, there is no way
for the electorate to influence public policy except by voting for or against parti-
cular candidates. A slight majority of the electorate voted for Bill Clements
over John Hill last November. Texas voters also, incidentally, elected two more
Republicans to Congress and several more Republicans to the Texas House of
Representatives. The politicians considered all of these events to mean that the
Texas electorate was moving to the right and was in fact interested in more
fiscal conservatism in government. When the 181 members of the Legislature
arrived in Austin in January to begin the session, they were therefore ready to
pursue a more conservative public policy. One result was that the “lobby”, that
is4he representatives of the major business and industry associations, seemed
to have much more influence over the legislators than in immediately past ses-
sions. In other words, the legislators, always interested in being re-elected, de-
cided that what the voters of Texas wanted was a more conservative public
policy which usually means a public policy advocated by spokesmen for the
realtors, doctors, oil and gas interest, railroads, etc. The fact that the lobbyists
for all of the major business and industry associations also control political ac-
tion committees whose main function is the raising and distributing of large
amounts of campaign contributions, also had its usual effect on the Legislature.
The members of the Texas House meanwhile had a unique circumstance to
cope with. Speaker Bill Clayton had just been elected to an unprecedented third
term and almost immediately announced that he would be s candidate for a
fourth term in 1981. Since the Speaker controlls all Committee appointments in-
cluding chairmanships, as well as the flow of legislation through the Texas
House, few members were willing to challenge the Speaker for fear that such a
challenge would jeopardize his or her legislative programs.
Still another ingredient which explains the current session is tfte spector of
the 1982 gubernatorial contest in Texas. Many political observers consider Cle-
ments’ victory a fluke and are fairly sure he will serve only one term. It is also
expected that the Democratic primary in 1982 will be crowded. Right now the
two leading candidates to get the Democratic nomination have to be Lieutenant
Governor Bill Hobby and Speaker Clayton. Clayton has always been considered
very conservative; Hobby has been spending the session moving to the right in
preparation for that 1982 primary contest against Clayton. By doing so, he evi-
dentally has lined up support from business and industry leaders and their fat
political action committee war chests. Whether or not the challenge to Hobby’s
leadership in the Senate by the “Killer Bees” will adversely effect his guberna-
torial hopes remains to be seen.
So it appears that what has been happening in Austin during the current
session is related directly to the election of Bill Clements, the passage of Pro-
position 13 in California, and the Democratic gubernatorial primary of 1982.
REMEMBER
THE DIOCESE
OF CORPUS CHRISTI
IN YOUR WILL
£or raoRe details cuRite:
THE CHANCERY — 620 LIPAN ST.
CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS 78401
By Dale Frances
I’m one of those persons who, when
a survey comes up with findings that
agree with my own views, thinks sur-
veys are wonderful, professional in-
struments for discerning the truth
about opinions of the people.
But when surveys offer findings that
differ with my own viewpoint, I’m in-
clined to think that polling the public
is fraudulent, that it twists the views
of people, that it is manipulated by the
way questions are formulated and, in
any case, such polls do not survey any
significant number of people.
I’m a little like you, I suspect.
Well, Redbook magazine has pub-
lished the results of one of those sur-
veys I don’t like. But despite my na-
tural inclination not to like surveys
that offer results I’d prefer not to be
lieve, the fact is the Redbook survey
was conducted by the Gallup Organi-
zation. Not only does the Gallup Or-
ganization qualify as thoroughly pro-
fessional, I remember how thoroughly
pleased I was when the organization
reported how a great majority of the
people believe in God.
So I don’t like the findings of this
latest survey by Gallup but if I’m
going to be consistent, I’m going to
have to believe it. The results of the
survey are a great disappointment.
The disappointment is greater be-
cause I’ve been thinking the move-
ment of opinion was in the very op-
posite direction.
We've had seven years now of con-
centrated action to turn the people
away from acceptance of abortion.
But the Redbook survey says we’ve
not succeeded at all.
The Gallup Organization found that
30 percent of those surveyed believe
that abortion should be legalized, at
least under certain circumstances. All
along we’ve been thinking that at the
start maybe two-thirds or at most
three-quarters of the people accepted
abortion but we’ve thought we’d been
changing their minds. Then along
comes a survey that says abortion, at
least under some circumstances, is
accepted by a greater number of
people than we thought accepted it in
the beginning.
With all the discussion, all the con-
troversy, haven’t the minds of people
been changed? The Redbook survey
reports that minds have been changed,
35 percent of the people said their atti-
tude towards abortion had changed
over the past several years — but 74
percent of them said the way their at-
titude had been changed was to be-
come more accepting of legal abor-
tion.
My own personal argument has al-
ways been that people who accept
abortion do so because they don’t rec-
ognize the life in the womb as real hu-
man life. What I’ve been saying is that
our task was to get them to see the life
in the womb as real human life and
then they, too, would oppose abortion.
This latest survey knocked that
theory into a cocked hat. It showed
that 49.3 percent of those surveyed be-
lieve human life begins at the moment
of conception. Yet 80 percent favor le-
galized abortion. That means that
nearly 30 percent believe the life in the
womb is human life and are still will-
ing to see it destroyed.
Not only do 80 percent of those sur-
veyed accept legalized abortion but 70
percent believe that government funds
should pay for the abortions under
certain circumstances, 23 percent un-
der any cirsumstances.
So what does this mean to those of
us committed to the pro-life cause? It
means only that we must dedicate our-
selves more completely to the battle
for unborn human life. It is a disap-
pointment but the disappointment
must not lead to discouragement, only
to more vigorous and more effective
action.
Worst air crash in history:
a powerful homily, priest says
texas gulf coast
CATHOLIC
Pubiiifted wecfciy. except me last wee* of December ana the ip»t week et Jvly
Official Newspaper of the Diocese of Corpus Christi
President...................Most Rev. ThomasJ. Drury D.D.
Editor and Business Manager..............Fr. Robert Freeman
News Editor...............................Terri Ackerman
Circulation/Advertising Manager .............. Mary Vasquez
awi*
Address all communications:
TEXAS GULF COAST CA THOLIC
P. O. Box 2584, Corpus Christi, Texas 78403
Telephone 882-6191 5
Price: $5.00 per year
Entered as Second Class Matter United States Post Office
Corpus Christi, Texas
(USins 540-860)
By Lou Jacquet
CHICAGO (NC) — “It was the most
powerful homily I have ever seen,”
said Father William J. Lion, executive
director of the Illinois Catholic confer-
ence, describing the scene of the worst
airline crash in U.S. history.
Father Lion was one cf a number of
priests, including Cardinal John Cody
of Chicago, who went to the crash site
to administer last rites when Ameri-
can Airlines’ Flight 191 crashed while
taking off from O’Hare Airport May
25.
All 271 persons aboard the Los An-
geles-bound flight and two people on
the ground were killed when one of the
plane’s engines fell off and it plumet-
ted to the ground.
“Like a policeman at the scene told
me,” Father Lion said, “a scene like
that makes you ask yourself, ‘What is
this life all about?” It makes you think
about getting your priorities in order.”
The priest had been attending a
meeting with Cardinal Cody when the
news came that the DC-10 had gone
down in an abandoned airfield. Ob-
servers said the plane, was already on
fire before the crash; it shattered into
thousands of fragments upon impact.
The cardinal immediately called
chaplains in the area to inform them
of the tragedy, but most were already
on the scene. When he and Father
Lion arrived, local priests had begun
giving the last rites to the victims.
“By the time we got there, there
was nothing left” Father Lion said.
“The cardinal had hoped that we
might console the survivors, but there
were no survivors. That was the
strange part. We knew that 273 lives
had been snuffed out, but there were
no bodies, and no airplane. Just frag-
ments of everything. It was the type of
thing that you couldn’t comprehend
when you were there. It hit you later
when you got back home.”
Among the victims in the crash was
Sacred Heart Father Albert Leunens,
provincial of the Sacred Heart Fa-
thers in Hawaii since 1973. The Bel-
gian-born priest had been in Chicago
to attend anniversary celebrations for
the Theological Union and to visit with
candidates for priesthood in the Sa-
cred Heart Fathers.
Father Leunens was assigned to
many parishes and served as chaplain
to many organizations in the Honolulu
Diocese. He was first elected provin-
cial in 1973 and re-elected in 1976 and
1978.
Among the first at the scene was
Chicago Fire Department Chaplain
Father Matthew D. McDonald, who
said he has seen other plane crashes
in his 11 years as chaplain, but nothing
like the wreckage of Flight 191.
“I’d seen burned bodies before, but
the sheer number was staggering,” he
said. “The fire was still smoldering
when I got there half an hour after the
crash, and officials were afraid some-
thing would explode. They asked us to
give the last rites in a hurry. I
baptized something that looked like a
baby, and any bodies which were still
intact. The only good thing was that
they couldn’t have suffered much; it
all happened so fast."
As he walked among the rubble, Fa-
ther McDonald saw reminders of what
the victims had expected to be just an-
other plane ride: a shaving kit, a
couple of unmatched shoes, a charred
suitcase, an unread novel.
“But there were no bodies left in
seats,” he added. “In fact, there were
no seats. They must have burned on
impact. The whole experience made
me realize that you never know when
your time is up. May God be good to
all those poor people who have left
us.”
Father John J. Keough, chaplain at
O’Hare, said that priests as well as
clergy of several denominations
turned up to help families of the vic-
tims.
“But it was too terrible,” said Fa-
ther Keough, "I can’t talk about it any
more.”
By the time Cardinal Cody and Fa-
ther Lion arrived, police and fire
squads were beginning to remove the
remains and federal investigators
would soon begin to inspect the area
for clues to the disaster.
“The professionalism of the police
and fire units was impressive,” Fa-
ther Lion said. “But the saddest thing
was that when the ambulances ar-
rived from all over the Chicago area,
they were never needed. There’s
wasn’t anyone to save.”
The cardinal prayed briefly for the
victims as he toured the crash site. On
May 28, during an ecumenical
memorial service, held at Mary, Seat
of Wisdom Church in Park Ridge, 111.,
he prayed in his closing benediction
that the dead would be welcomed by
the martyrs and angels “into the holy
city, the new and eternal Jerusalem.
“Our prayers now are ended,” the
cardinal added, “and we bid our last
farewell. There is saddness in the
parting, but it should fill us with new
hope, for one day we shall see our
brothers and sisters again and enjoy
their love. By God's mercy, we who
will leave this church today in sorrow,
will be reunited in the joy of God’s
kingdom. Let us comfort one another
in the faith that is ours.”
The cardinal also read a telegram
from Pope John Paul II, which said:
“The Holy Father is deeply grieved at
the news of air tragedy that has struck
the Chicago area. He prays for those
who have died and expresses his
heartfelt sympathy to the families of
the numerous victims, asking God to
sustain them in this hour of great sor-
row.”
A Protestant minister, a deacon and
a rabbi also participated in the
memorial service which was attended
by more than 1,000 persons.
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Freeman, Robert E. Texas Gulf Coast Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 15, No. 3, Ed. 1 Friday, June 8, 1979, newspaper, June 8, 1979; Corpus Christi, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth840298/m1/2/: accessed July 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .