NEWS & VIEWS:
Deedy, John
NEWS& VIEWS The Baby Airlift The opposition of Caritas, the international relief agency headquartered at the Vatican, to the "mass expatriation" of South Vietnamese orphans put Catholic officials...
...Both did their part at La Guardia Airport Wednesday to get Vietnamese orphans to their new adoptive parents...
...A new era awaits def-inition...
...Then came the statement of Msgr...
...In an accompanying story, the Guardian advised Britons against the American "senti-mental frivolity": "British families who want to help should ask themselves whether instead of adopting a doe-eyed Vietnamese child they would be prepared to have a middle-aged South Vietnamese Army major liv-ing in their house for the rest of his natural life...
...There is the lingering suspicion," it editorialized, "that church periodicals re-flect the establishment and are inclined to use public re-lations gimmicks to push programs...
...Not so much so as the editorial cartoon on page one of the Manchester Guar-dian's weekly for April 12...
...Resolved, meanwhile, seems the case of anti-war activist Jim Douglass...
...The standards employed in placing Vietnamese orphans were "of the highest professional level, with the best interests of the child considered para-mount," said Bishop Edward Swanstrom, director of Cath-olic Relief Services...
...The comment is from The Christian Century, The action means that for the first time in its 150-year history, America's second-largest Protestant denomina-tion will be without a general church magazine for its 10 million members...
...22, while preparing to ad-dress a conference on non-violence at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, Douglass was arrested by the FBI...
...The U.S...
...Protestors in Court Two anti-war protestors from Jonah House in Balti-more were hit with 90 days for pouring human blood on an American flag last Jan...
...Leaders of the American hierarchy had instantly en-dorsed the baby airlift, and the president of the U.S...
...So much for emotionalism in Britain...
...It was originated by an unmotivated hysteria which appears to have fortunately faded...
...John the Evangelist parochial school in Hudson, N.H., will close in June...
...Catholic policy remained firm in the face of Caritas criticism...
...Douglass termed the out-come a "gift in and through community...
...United Methodists Today had a circulation of 141,427, down from the high of 899,-376 enjoyed by its predeces-sor, Together...
...Adop-tion is contrary to the cul-tural traditions of the Viet-namese people...
...The magazine allowed that economics was a facto r-"astronomical" rises in printing costs and postage rates, for instance...
...It was one of the stiffest sentences of its type since the government was riding shot-gun on the Berri-gans...
...It showed President Ford in football gear dashing down the field with a Vietnamese baby tucked, football-like, into his right arm...
...The placements were being car-ried out "in complete coop-eration with the Roman Catholic bishops of South Vietnam," he added, "and will continue on that basis...
...Last time he was in town he startled folks when he recall-ed the lanterns' code: "One if by day and two if by night...
...The archbishop met a TWA liner chartered by Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities and gave a helping hand to Nguyen Yan Tu, 6, whose polio-crip-pled legs were encased in steel braces...
...In the same breath it re- . fleeted that "possibly it is wrong to assume that the average reader, if there is one, is a deeply committed Christian longing for in-depth information about the church...
...The implications of United Methodists Today's demise cannot be overlooked, the Century said...
...Off to DC...
...Its conclusion: "One era in religious journalism has gone...
...Last Feb...
...government might "just pick up kids off the streets," responded one Cath-olic official, but Catholic agencies are evacuating from South Vietnam only children who have been documented with case histories as or-phans...
...It left un-answered the point of Viet-namese "cultural traditions" raised by Caritas...
...That explanation might have taken care of objec-tions that the airlift was in-discriminate-that it was catching up non-orphans as well as orphans...
...Instead, he was released, being given unsupervised probation for two and a half years and no travel restrictions...
...Two years ago Douglass refused to pay a $500 fine for a blood-pouring incident in Hawaii, instead making a $500 contribution to a fund to help victims of the bomb-ing in Indochina...
...Jail went Ronald Rieck and Christopher E. Moore...
...31 in the foyer of the White House...
...There was applause from the courtroom...
...He was returned to Hawaii, where he expected jailing under a term of six months to a year...
...Actions like blood-pouring, a misdemeanor, have been drawing fines or suspended sentences...
...JOHN DEEDY...
...More par-ticularly, according to the Century, it "marks the end of an era which has seen the flourishing of well-edited general church publications with impressive circulations...
...JOHN DEEDYfrom parish bingo...
...Of-ficials cited declining reve-nues from parish bingo...
...Odds and Ends -Proper Bostonians held their breaths when President Ford arrived for the April 19 commemoration of the hanging of the lanterns in Old North Church...
...But it wondered if there were not deeper problems...
...Nasty...
...St...
...Catholic Conference had pledged to President Ford the cooperation of all Cath-olic relief agencies in "this urgent humanitarian chal-lenge...
...In any case, U.S...
...Hours later, Hefner's plush black Bunny jet set down from San Francisco and more orphans spilled into the airport, carried in the arms of Hefner's bunnies...
...Moore was also charged with simple assault as the result of an alleged scuffle with an Executive Protective Service policeman during the inci-dent...
...The Protestant Press The United Methodist Board of Publication has voted to discontinue its gen-eral church magazine, United Methodists Today, and its specialized clergy insert, To-day's Ministry, and "the de-cision [has] produced shock waves not only in United Methodist circles but through-out the world of religious journalism...
...Charles Grange, head of Caritas' Asian De-partment: "We feel the air-lift is a deplorable and un-justified mistake which does not solve the problem...
...Orphans are generally placed in the cus-tody of other relatives or taken care of by - the com-munity' in villages or dis-tricts- Adoption by strangers has seldom been considered in the past...
...Meanwhile, the Associated Press, ever watchful for in-teresting personality con-junctions, moved this story on its wires for April 10: NEW YORK-What do Play-boy Hugh Hefner and Car-dinal Cooke, Archbishop of New York, have in com-mon...
...NEWS& VIEWS The Baby Airlift The opposition of Caritas, the international relief agency headquartered at the Vatican, to the "mass expatriation" of South Vietnamese orphans put Catholic officials in this country on the defensive...
Vol. 102 • May 1975 • No. 4
