The Message .- for Catholics of Southwestern Indiana \\;, ........
from page 1
Conference and on
application of Vatican
lic colleges and
in preparation for
on both proposals
0vember.
$50,000 from
reserves to a national
campaign to assist
victimized by the
of church burnings
most of them
at black or racially
churches.
their own pockets
nearly $10,000 to
North Portland
hit by an arson attack
neeting.
Archbishop Daniel
Lrczyk of Cincinnati to
Committee on
ne until November 1997,
post left vacant when
John R. Quinn of
retired last win-
DiScussed examples of
Vocations programs as
three-year national
an update from
hn F. Kinney of St.
on the work of his
COmmittee on Sexual
it was established
ago.
the 150th anniver-
J Archdiocese
:their Saturday
ng Mass at Port-
land's Cathedral of the Immac-
ulate Conception.
On their final day the bishops
met in an executive session
closed to the media.
Some bishops said afterward
that topics during that session
included a discussion of how
bishops can advance women'§
role in the church within the
framework of existing laws and
policies, and a talk by Jesuit the-
ologian Father Avery Dulles on
the doctrinal status of the papal-
ly affirmed teaching that the
church is not able to ordain
women to the priesthood.
The talk by Father Dulles was
on the recent Vatican Congrega-
tion for the Doctrine of the Faith
statement that the teaching is
part of the deposit of faith,
founded on the word of God and
taught by the church's ordinary,
universal teaching authority.
Afterward, he reportedly led a
long question-answer session
with the bishops.
Bishop Pilla departed from a
long custom, that presidential
addresses ordinarily are given
only at the bishops' fall meeting,
in order to open the June meet-
ing with a major talk on the
bishops' role in public policy
debates in an election year.
He said the bishops will not
back down from spelling out
positions based on principles of
morality and social justice --
which they see as part of their
job as teachers and defenders of
church teaching -- just because
some will accuse them of parti-"
sanship when their position is
closer to that of one party or the
other on a particular issue.
His point was driven home a
short time later as he issued a
statement, with the unanimous
concurrence of the body of bish-
ops, calling on Congress to over-
ride President Clinton's April
veto of the Partial-Birth Abor-
tion Ban Act.
Cardinal Bernard F. Law of
Boston, who introduced the
statement as chairman of the
NCCB Committee on Pro-Life
Activities, reported that his
office has distributed some 9 mil-
lion sets of three postcards each
to Catholics and others involved
in promoting a grass-roots post-
card campaign urging legislators
to override the veto.
While the meeting was in
progress, Archbishop Joseph T.
Dimino of the U,S. Archdiocese
for the Military Services issued a
statement criticizing an Air
Force directive that would
exclude Catholics in the military
from joining in the postcard cam-
paign.
On June 21 Bishop John S.
Cummins of Oakland, Calif.,
chairman of the NCCB Commit-
tee on Migration, introduced
another public policy statement
that Bishop Pilla issued, again
with the unanimous concurrence
of the body of bishops, sharply
criticizing some parts of pro-
posed federal immigration legis-
lation.
i
In the statement Bishop Pilla
urged "Congress and the presi-
dent to address and correct the
punitive provisions of the pend-
ing immigration legislation" and
come up with "a more thought-
ful bill respecting the human
dignity of our foreign-born sis-
ters and brothers who aspire to
come to our country."
He particularly scored provi-
sions that would allow summa-
ry rejection of claims for refugee
status, restrict or deny publicly
funded health and education
services even to legal immi-
grants, and sharply curtail fam-
ily reunification by imposing
"financial tests which would be
impossible for most sponsors to
meet."
Shortly before the June meet-
ing began, four committees of
bishops got together to develop
a joint statement decrying the
racial and religious prejudice
behind the recent spate of arson
attacks on churches, mainly
with black or racially mixed con-
gregations.
After Bishop Pilla's presiden-
tial address the statement was
introduced as the first order of
business, and by a voice vote the
bishops unanimously affirmed it.
It urged U.S. Catholics to sup-
port victimized congregations,
including making contributions
to a national interfaith Burned
Churches Fund being coordinat-
ed by the National Council of
Churches in New York.
In their votes on the Sacra-
i
mentary, the book of prayers
used by the priest at Mass
throughout the year, the bishops
finished their treatment of Seg-
ment 5 and Segment 6 of the
text, which has been divided into
seven segments to allow bishops
to deal with it in manageable
pieces over several years, and
with some American adapta-
tions, mainly for liturgies of Holy
Week.
4W
Discussion and voting on the
Sacramentary took up the
largest single portion ofthe June
meeting, but it was not charac-
terized by long debates about
style and substance of prayer
translations such as occurred on
some occasions when they first
began the project several years
ago.
The end result of the process
would be the first entirely
revised Sacramentary in English
in more than a quarter-century.
While the bishops were meet-
ing in executive session June 22,
the Committee on Doctrine
released a narrative by Arch-
bishop Pilarczyk on the sequence
of events that led up to the
recent issuance of a critical
review by the committee staffof
the book "Catholicism" by Father
Richard P. McBrien of the Uni-
versity of Notre Dame.
The four-page narrative said
most criticisms raised against
the review focused on the pro-
cess the committee adopted
instead of "the substance of the
review."
hops form national office to prepare for millennium
FILTEAU
News Service
Ore. (CNS) --
bishops June
Shed a national office
Catholic obser-
third millennium
era.
almost immediate
of the office ran
however, when not
who head dioce-
Present to achieve a
Vote to fund the office
next six months. Mail
Will be required to
Vote.
Call for the office to be
about $82,000 this
araounts ranging from
SHOULD
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s today.
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$224,000 to $284,000 annually
over the next.five years for a
total of $1.3 million before its
work comes to an end in 2001.
The main focus of the office
would be promotion of evange-
lization, renewal, and ecumeni-
cal and interreligious coordina:
tion as U.S. Catholics prepare to
observe the millennium.
But its activities would
extend over a wide range, from
publishing resource materials
for parishes and dioceses to con-
vening meetings, answering
media inquiries and coordinat-
ing millennium-related activi-
ties of offices of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops
and other Catholic agencies and
organizations.
Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of
Galveston-Houston, NCCB vice
president and head of the Sub-
committee on the Millennium,
introduced the proposal for a
separately staffed millennium
office at the bishops' national
headquarters in Washington.
He told the bishops that the
approach of the third millenni-
um "can be a privileged moment
of grace for renewal," but an
office is needed to coordinate the
work.
Msgr. Dennis Schnurr, NCCB
general secretary, said the con-
ference has tried for the past 18
months "to move the project for-
ward with staff from other
offices, but we haven't made
much headway."
Paulist Father Bruce Nieli,
director of the NCCB Secretari-
at for Evangelization, and Paul
Henderson, associate director of
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ily, Laity, Women and Youth,
have been devoting part time to
the project in addition to their
own work.
The bishops approved the for-
mation of the millennium office
by unanimous voice vote.
By conference rules, however,
decisions to budget funds can
only be voted on by heads ofdio-
ceses, with two-thirds approval
needed for passage. The written
ballot proved indecisive.
Results were not announced,
but Catholic News Service
learned that only about 135 bal-
lots were cast, indicating that
about 60 heads of dioceses were
not at the meeting. As a result,
fewer than 10 negative votes
would have been enough to force
a mail ballot of absent bishops.
Archbishop Thomas J. Mur-
phy of Seattle, NCCB treasurer,
said he would work out a pro-
posal for funding from 1997
through 2001 for consideration
by the bishops when they hold
their next national meeting in
November.
Archbishop Daniel E. Pilar-
czyk of Cincinnati, warning of
"the inability of our conference
ever to stop doing something
good," asked that the November
proposal contain some sort of
ironclad sunset clause that-
would "make it impossible for
(the millennium office) to go on
beyond 2001."
In another financial matter
before the bishops, they approved
a minor change in policy on reim-
bursements for expenses for com-
mittee meetings, eliminating a
provision that effectively barred
committee chairmen from receiv-
ing travel expense reimburse-
ments for certain meetings at
which their committee members
received reimbursement.
Bishops set collection for
pope for priesthood jubilee
PORTLAND (CNS) -- The
U.S. bishops voted June 21 to
hold a onetime national collec-
tion for Pope John Paul II to cel-
ebrate the 50th anniversary of
his priestlY ordination.
The pope, who began his the-
ology studies in an underground
seminary in Poland during
World War If, was ordained a
priest on Nov. 1, 1946.
Also planned as part of the
golden jubilee gift is a spiritual
bouquet, to be gathered in the
nation's Catholic parishes and
schools, of special prayers for
the pope offered by American
Catholics.
Bishop Anthony M. Pilla of
Clew.and, president of the
National Conference of Catholic
Bishops, proposed the jubilee gift
to the bishops on the second day
of their June 20-22 spring meet-
ing in Portland. They approved
it by a voice vote.
The collection is to be desig-
nated for whatever purposes the
pope wishes.
But Archbishop Theodore E.
McCarrick of Newark, N:J.,
expres the hope that, in light
of the pope's plans to build about
50 new churches in Rome in the
next few years, at lea:t some of the
money might go to the building of
a new parish church in Rome that
would be named after a U.S. saint
