Watching the World
Food Crisis Grows
◆ “Many competent observers believe the need for food is the real reason behind the thaw in U.S. relations with Russia and China,” says a Progressive Farmer magazine article. It observes: “Food production . . . has become more important than nuclear weapons.” The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization now says that a “shaky grain situation” in China, the worst harvest in Chile since 1930, and an all-time low in vital world fishmeal production are factors contributing to the growing food shortage world wide. Meanwhile in the United States, depleted grain reserves, increased demand, and a wet spring that has interfered with planting crops, have pushed prices upward. The Agriculture Department now says that food prices this year may increase twice as much as they did in 1972.
Military Morale Difficulties
◆ Eased tensions in the cold war have created troop morale problems for some countries. According to reports, thousands of Soviet military commissars met in April to study the situation. One London news analyst says: “When Soviet military men see all that sweetness between Russia and the U.S.—formerly the arch-enemy—they start wondering what’s left for them to do.” America’s European forces are having similar problems. A captain in West Germany said about a training test: “The real question is whether we’re training for war or just training for these tests. I guess all we do is train to pass the tests.” Few soldiers believe that war is near. As one put it: “I don’t mind being a pawn, but not in as ridiculous a situation as this.”
Research on Live Fetuses
◆ Research on aborted live fetuses has been going on for some time in Scandinavian countries and others. Fetuses are kept alive artificially for several hours and even days while experiments are performed. British governmental guidelines set last year limit researchers to using fetuses within 20 weeks of conception and weighing less than 10.5 ounces. The U.S. National Institutes of Health made a recent policy statement that does not permit federal funds to be used to support such research. Protesting the NIH statement, Dr. Jerald Gaull of the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Mental Retardation said that “it is a terrible perversion of ethics—to throw these fetuses in the incinerator as is usually done, rather than to get some useful information.” On the other hand, Dr. André Hellegers, professor of obstetrics at Georgetown University, parallels this type of research with experiments on condemned prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. He says that their approach was: “If it is going to die, you might as well use it.”
Women as Clerics?
◆ With the steadily dropping ranks of seminarians and clergy, the ordaining of women as priests and ministers has become the subject of intensive discussion. It was given the most floor time at the 88th annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, California, this spring. “Do not make a decision on wrong grounds. Do not fall back on the New Testament as it pertained to the world then. It is not our world or our time,” argued Silva Lake, who taught religion for fifty years. A similar view was expressed on another occasion by Chess Lovern, minister of a Tulsa, Oklahoma, Methodist church: “Anything the Bible said then can not apply to whether women today should be ministers.” Thus, though claiming to be Christian, they reject the very book that is the basis for Christian teaching.
Hawaiian Quake
◆ Tall buildings swayed, trees and power poles toppled, roads and reservoirs cracked, water mains broke and windows shattered as the strongest earthquake in twenty-two years shook Hawaii. Eleven or more persons were injured and $3 million in damages was caused by the April 27 quake. It registered 6.2 on the Richter scale.
“Salvation” by Gambling
◆ “Beano,” a gambling game, “was our salvation,” appealed Roman Catholic Monsignor Joseph P. Burke as he spoke to the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Government Regulations. He argued for legalizing another game of chance called “‘Lucky Seven.” Dramatizing how much gambling games help to finance church-run schools, he said: “If we don’t get Lucky Seven, we’ll have to close.” Gerard A. Guilmette, a member of the committee, filed legislation to legalize the game. The monsignor indicated it was already being played in “many places.” Guilmette said: “Many members of the cloth are interested in this legislation.” This situation prevails in much of the U.S. Says C. B. Woodrich, information director of the Denver, Colorado, archdiocese about the chance-game bingo: “That’s what keeps elementary schools going.”
Portuguese Church Crisis
◆ Is Portugal still a stronghold of the Catholic Church? No more, according to the Portuguese weekly news magazine Observador. It reports: “Portugal is, among all European countries, one in which the number of priests is smallest in proportion to the number of Catholics.” And what about the church members? “Among the Catholics of the Patriarchate of Lisbon, only 15% go to mass on Sundays.” The article, entitled “Church Crisis,” observes in conclusion that “Catholicism is a minority religion in our country.”
Child Terrorists
◆ Two North Carolina 9-year-olds, and another aged 11, reportedly extorted almost $1,000 from two 9-year-old classmates. These little terrorists are said to have demanded payments for protection from beatings over an 8-month period. Their victims tried to pay with lunch money, allowances and loans from friends. But as the demands grew, they began taking money from their parents until the father of one missed a $100 bill. The London Daily Mail reports a similar situation in England. Dr. Rhodes Boyson, headmaster of Highbury Grove Comprehensive School in North London, says he has seen “a whole class with razor blade cuts on their hands to show they have not paid their weekly protection money.” He also says that “we are nearing a situation where it is the good boy who does not come to school—because he dare not.”