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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JANUARY 20, 1984
had twins this year. We have sold six goats we are tithing on,
besides the firstborn we are giving to God. I am very thankful we
have this to give because my husband is 85 and I am 75, and we
still have health enough to be able to take care of them and make
a garden.
Mr. & Mrs. L.C. (Big Sandy, TX)
If someone had told me ten or fifteen years ago that I'd be
routinely setting aside twenty and periodically thirty percent of
my gross salary and sending ten to twenty percent of it to
Pasadena, California each week, I'd have told that individual
that he'd better begin sleeping in a padded room!
If this person had gone on to say that not only would I be doing
this and paying thirty percent in taxes, but that I'd also be
prospering, always having enough not only for essentials but also
for many comforts and luxuries, I would have informed him that
regrettably it was already too late for a mere padded cell--would
he care for a lobotomy?
Yet, here I am, finding myself doing exactly those things.
Despite the fact that "it doesn't look good on paper," I seem to
be more than making ends meet on less than forty percent of my
gross income. Maybe God uses different paper!
ON THE WORLD SCENE
J.H. (College Point, NY)
--Richard Rice, Mail Processing Center
TROUBLES IN THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC CHURCH (CONTINUED) Last week we began a
presentation on the growing rift between the Vatican and its increasingly
wayward American church. Now to continue. In its November 28, 1983 issue,
TIME magazine ran an article entitled, "A Struggle to Keep the Faith: Amer
ican Catholics Are Torn Between Change and Loyalty." The report shows why
the Vatican is so concerned about wayward tendencies in its American body.
Simply put, they can upset the faith around the world.
Beneath the Vatican's stern and watchful gaze, the Roman Catholic
Church in the U.s. sometimes must seem like an unruly teen
ager•.•. Like any prudent parent, Pope John Paul II is seeking
to exercise a firm hand without alienating. Consider some of the
family conflicts over the past few weeks:
In Washin � ton,
o.c.,
one-third of the nation's 292 active
Catholic bishops attended a meeting that was sponsored in part .QY
groups advocati ng the ordinati on of women•••• In Seattle, a
special papal delegate has been examining Archbishop Raymond
Hunthausen of Seattle, an outspoken antinuclear activist who has
welcomed homosexual groups to his cathedral and allowed liturgi
cal experimentation.
The Pope has directed other American
bishops to investigate the 500 religious orders in the U.S. as
well as the country's 300 seminaries.•..
In short, John Paul would seem to have trouble on his hands with
the U.S. church, the richest and fourth largest national branch
of Roman Catholicism...• Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago,