South Texas Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 15, No. 48, Ed. 1 Friday, May 2, 1980 Page: 2 of 16
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Page 2
South Texas Catholic
Friday, May Z, 1980
news in brief
NATION
WASHINGTON (NC) - A grant of
$17,500 has been awarded to the
National Conference of Catholic
Bishops and the Synagogue Council of
America to help Finance an ongoing
exchange between the Catholic and
Jewish communities concerning social
justice issues The grant was awarded by
the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
WASHINGTON (NC) - Harvard
University president Derek Bok
defended giving preferential treatment
to minority applicants and opposed
using university boycotts and disinvest-
ments to respond to social injustices
outside the campus. Bok spoke on “The
Ethical Responsibility of a University"
at Georgetown University.
BATON ROUGE, La. (NC) - The
firing of three members of the staff of
Christ the King Catholic Student Center
at Louisiana State University has
sparked protests at the center, where
controversy flared a year ago. About 80
people gathered at the center April 18
to protest the firing of Sister of St.
Joseph Lydia Champagne, Brenda Faye
Broussard and Philip St. Romain.
KANSAS CITY. Mo. (NC)
Members of the National Association of
Permanent Diaconate Directors have
asked for a progress report cf a study on
the ordination of women to the
permanent diaconate ordered by a
committee of the National Conference
of Catholic Bishops.
WORLD
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope John
Paul II criticized "adultery in the heart”
and hailed the new African state of
Zimbabwe at his general audience April
23. After his main talk, the pope
greeted pilgrimages from Zimbabwe
and Uganda.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (NC) - The
Nicaraguan bishops have asked the
government to divert $3,5-40 destined
for church building improvements to
the National Literacy Crusade. The
government had earmarked the money
for the maintenance of churches in
several areas.
PEOPLE
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope John
Paul II has named Father Marcel
Gervais as auxiliary bishop of London,
Ontario. The Vatican announced the
appointment April 23.
NEW YORK (NC) -- Lynn V.
Marshall, former director of programs
in East and West Africa for Catholic
Relief Services (CRS), the overseas aid
agency of U S. Catholics, has been
named director of communication, and
(-duration and appeals of CRS.
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FREE AT LAST — Happy Cuban refugees from among the thousands who
sought refugee at the Peruvian embassy in Havana give the victory sign in San
Jose, Costa Rica, as a bus takes them to the presidential residence where they
will be housed temporarily. On hand to greet the refugees was Costa Rican
President Rodrigo Carazo. (NC Photo)
Abortion forced rethinking on death penalty, bishop says
By Jo-ann Price
NEW YORK (NC) Concern for
ti e protection of innocent life against
the legal injustiee of abortion laws has
forced Catholics to rethink the morality
of “capricious" death penalty laws, said
Bishop Rene Gracida of Pensacola Tal-
lahassee. Fla
Such laws are generally ineffective in
preventing major crimes such as murder
and rape. he said.
The bishop said in the second of a
Seven Shepherds lecture series April 18
that the teaching office of the church
seems to have little to say on the
morality of the death penalty.”
Bishop Gracida last June 17 issued a
pastoral letter opposing capital
punishment shortly after the execution
of John Spenkelink. the first person to
be executed against his will in the
United States in more than 12 years.
The bishop said his execution for
murder failed as a deterrent because
within three days in Florida the papers
carried siories of a man attacked and
killed for not moving a parked car and
another murdered for not turning down
a radio.
“The difficulty we have as Christians
is that we can never arbitrarily,
universally, make the judgment that
there is no hope for the criminal,"
Bishop Gracida said in response to a
question
Perhaps from a pragmatic viewpoint,
persons found guilty of major crimes
should be “eliminated," he said,
adding: “But we are not pragmatists.
We are Christians, and over and over
again we know of men on death row
who have undergone genuine conver-
sions.
“For the Christian there can be no
escaping from the sacredness of all
human life. It is not a matter of its
quality.. The whole Gospel of St. John
teachers us that human life is sacred.”
Bishop Gracida said, "What is
needed is a reform of the court system to
bring about certain punishment for
criminals." He called for a reform of the
parole system, citing also “heinous
crimes’ committed by people released
or, parole from institutions for the
criminally insane.
The U.S. bishops opposed capital
punishment in 1974 by a vote of 108 to
63. Last year the Catholic bishops of
Florida, supporting Bishop Gracida,
and the U.S. Catholic Conference’s
Administrative Board, listing 1980
political issues, registered their
opposition to the death penalty.
Bishop Gracida said he planned to
ask the spring meeting of the bishops to
study the moral ramifications of death
penalty laws beyond their previous brief
statements.
“Once you reach the position of
believing capital punishment is morally
unjust.’’ said Bishop Gracida, “there is
not much room for argument left.”
Bishop Gracida cited figures showing
that the number of legal executions per
year in the United States has been
reduced gradually from 167 annually in
the 1930s to as low as two a year in the
1960s.
Since the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court
decision in Furman versus Georgia, he
said, the lack of a single majority
opinion has left "much confusion" and
35 states have enacted new capital
punishment legislation.
In 1976 the high court in effect
upheld capital punishment legislation
in cases involving Georgia, Florida and
T exas. He noted that during the 1970s,
11 states severely restricted implement-
ing death penalty laws.
For Christians. Bishop Gracida
stressed, the death penalty cannot be
defended solely upon scriptural grounds
nor upon the legal practices of ancient
Israel, where many crimes ranging from
worshiping an alien God to male
homosexuality were punishablt by
death.
He said trends in capital punishment
over the centuries in many countries
have shown a reduction in the number
of crimes carrying the death penalty,
the use of more “humane” methods of
execution and modifications in moral,
relgious and legal justifications for
capital punishment.
United Nations documents and a
resolution now under consideration by
the Council ol Europe reflect growing
concern for human rights and
opposition to c aptial punishment.
“In thinking and working to protect
innocent life against legal injustice,” he
said of abortion Catholics have been
compelled to think about the sanctity of
all life.. Th< good end of just
punishment cannot justit, the use of
bad means.”
Military move in Iran would cause world war, archbishop says
By Nancy Frazier
ROME fNC) U.S. military
intervention in Iran would lead to a
third world war, said Archbishop
Hilarion Capucci after returning to
Rome from an Easter visit to Teheran,
Iran.
In a lengthy interview published
April 22 by the Rome daily newspaper,
11 Tempo, the controversial Melkite-
Rite archbishop discussed his three visits
to Iran since the revolution which
brought the Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini to power.
“Mine is a mission of a humanitarian,
religious, non-political character,’’ said
the 58-year-old prelate who has visited
the American hostages in the U.S.
embassy in Teheran several times.
He refused to comment on the
number or condition of the hostages,
however, saying that the question
should be answered by officials of the
International Red Cross who were
recently authorized by the Iranian
government to visit the hostages.
Archbishop Capucci, a Syrian, was
convicted in 1974 by Israeli courts of
gun running for Palestinian guerrillas.
He was released in 1977 following
Vatican guarantees that he would not
publicly discuss political issues of the
Middle East or return to the region.
Archbishop Capucci is the former
Melkite-Rite patriarchal vicar of
Jerusalem. Last May Pope John Paul II
appointed him visitor for the
Melkite-Rite communities of Western
Europe.
ArcnTshop Capucci first visited
post-revolutionary Iran in January 1979
at the invitation of the Ayatollah
Khomeini. In February 1980 he was a
guest of the government at ceremonies
marking the beginning of the Moslem
15th century.
He also visited the American hostages
during the second visit, accompanied by
Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khomeini, the
Ayatollah's son
Archbishop Capucci told 11 Tempo
that the Iranian revolution was “of a
religious nature." but said that "as in
any revolution. there have been
incidents of exaggeration, of excess.”
Describing a visit to Teheran’s
poorest section, he said, “my heart felt
a tremor in seeing an incredible misery,
in seeing people forced to live in
subhuman conditions, worse than
animals.”
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Freeman, Robert E. South Texas Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 15, No. 48, Ed. 1 Friday, May 2, 1980, newspaper, May 2, 1980; Corpus Christi, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth840493/m1/2/: accessed June 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .