Banner Graphic, Volume 12, Number 87, Greencastle, Putnam County, 18 December 1981 — Page 6

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The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, December 18,1981

Cooke letter draws criticism

By KENNETH A. BRIGGS c. 1981 N.Y. Times NEW YORK protest, a group of priests, brothers, nuns, church officials and members of the laity of the Archdiocese of New York have openly criticized Terence Cardinal Cooke for asserting that nuclear deterrence can be “morally tolerated if a nation is sincerely trying to come up with a rational alternative.” The critics asserted in a 1,000word statement being cir-

See Cooke story, bottom of page.

culated for signatures that the cardinal's views as set forth in his annual letter to chaplains Dec. 7 were "clearly contradicted by the developing position of his fellow bishops” on the issue of nuclear weapons. They referred to a statement by the 1976 conference of bishops condemning both the stockpiling of nuclear weapons and the threat to use them. They further admonished the cardinal for implying that a limited nuclear war could be waged.

Churches plan Christmas services

Greencastle Presbyterian Greencastle Presbyterian Church will have its children’s Christmas program at 9:45 a.m. Sunday in the church’s dining room. Refreshments will be served afterward. The public is invited. Gobin United Methodist Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church has scheduled two special Christmas Eve services. A birthday party, honoring the birth of the Baby Jesus, is planned at 5:30 p.m. in Charterhouse Lounge. There will be a birthday cake, drinks and singing. The party is designed for the children, but their entire families are invited. Henrietta Schwartz is in charge of refreshments and Janis Price is directing the singing. At 6:30 p.m. the sanctuary will be the setting for a candlelight Christmas Eve service for all Gobin members and friends. Sacred music will include carols. On Sunday evening, Dec. 20, the choir will present a service of Christmas carols after which the congregation will separate into groups, each accompanied by choir members, to sing carols for area shut-ins. The choir is directed by Geoffrey Price. Big Walnut Baptist Big Walnut Baptist Church will present “The Littlest Angel” during its annual Christmas program at 7 p.m. Sunday. The musical drama was prepared by Sally Leonard and Betty Killion and will feature several children and adult members of the church. The children’s choir is under the direction of Pat Trent. After the program, a fellowship period will feature homemade candy and a visit by Santa Claus. Big Walnut is located two miles south of Reelsville Elementary School. Russellville Baptist Members of the Russellville Baptist Church will be singing Christmas carols throughout the town on Wednesday evening, Dec. 23. The group plans to begin at 6:30 p.m. Community residents who would like to hear carols are invited to leave on their porch lights. Additional information is available by contacting Rev. Jim McAfee at 435-2885.

ewish victory in 165 B.C.

Hanukkah recalls faith triumph

By GEORGE W. CORNELL AP Religion Writer From their mountain camp, a ragged band of guerrillas watched as a huge Syrian army approached across the plain. “How can we, few as we are, fight such a mighty host as this?” they worried. Their leader, the “hammerer,” Judas Maccabee, was unshaken. After a three-year war, the tattered Jewish warriors finally in 165 B.C. defeated the world’s then greatest military power in history’s first crucial fight for religious freedom. Commemorating that victory, Judaism on Sunday evening begins the eight-day Celebration of Hanukkah, the “festival of lights,” a joyful period of gift-giving, prayers and lighted candles recalling

Strategy of nuclear deterrence 'morally tolerable', Cooke says in annual letter

c. 1981 N.Y. Times NEW YORK Cardinal Terence Cooke, in a letter made public Monday, said “a strategy of nuclear deterrence can be morally tolerated if a nation is sincerely trying to Qome up with a rational alternative.” *ln his annual letter to military chaplains, the New York archbishop, military vicar for Roman Catholics in the

In New York, the clergy and laity have seldom publicly spoken out against a position taken by the cardinal, who wrote the letter in his capacity as military vicar. The list of objections to “several of the positions taken by Cardinal Cooke’s letter” contained 60 signatures as of Thursday afternoon. The Rev. Paul Dinter, the Catholic chaplain of Columbia University, who coordinated the effort and supervised the drafting of the statement late Wednesday, said many more were expected. Through a spokesman for the archdiocese, Cooke declined requests to discuss the contents

church

the heroic triumph of faith. Sometimes the observance is seen as a kind of Jewish “Christmas,” and it does have indirect connections with that holiday of Christianity’s origins, since the Maccabean victory prevented destruction of the “mother religion,” Judaism. From it stemmed all monotheism, including Christianity. Had the Maccabees not won, "Judaism might have perished, and quite conceivably, Christianity and Islam would never have emerged,” says Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum of the American Jewish Committee. The Syrian emperor, Antiochus Epiphanes, ordered Judaism wiped out. Throughout Israel, pagan

United States, said Catholic theology held that “it is legitimate to develop and maintain weapons systems to try to prevent war by ‘deterring’ another nation from attacking.” He said the principle also applied to the nuclear age and that the church “considers the strategy of nuclear deterrence morally tolerable not satisfactory, but tolerable ”

of his letter or to respond to the critics’ statement. Rejecting as “fiction” the cardinal’s inference that the United States is making sincere attempts to reduce nuclear arms, the statement accused him of providing theological legitimacy for the current increases in military spending. “We, the undersigned, wish to separate ourselves from this teaching,” the statement said. In his letter to the chaplains, which was released to the public this week, the cardinal set forth the church’s traditional view that “a government has both the right and the duty to protect its people again-

First Baptist Greencastle A seven-scene musical tableau “Christmas--The Gift” will be presented at 7 p.m. Sunday evening at First Baptist Church, located on Judson Drive in Greencastle. The musical program will feature the 28-voice adult choir under the direction of Joyce Hanlon and the 21-voice men’s choir, directed by Associate Pastor Steve Hall. Also featured will be the youth choir, ladies’ trio and several solo parts. The program will be narrated by E. Ray Moore. Tableau scenes will be portrayed by senior youth members Greg, Brummet, Debbie Schimpf, Jamie Harris, Amelia Williams, Lisa Hanlon, Bob Schroer, Troy Trout, Theresa Paullus, Kelly Prather and Ann Morrill. The public is invited to attend. Christ Apostolic Christ Apostolic Church will present its annual Christmas play,“He is still King of Kings” at 7 p.m. Sunday. The public is invited to attend. The church is located at 315 N. Jackson St. in Greencastle. St. Andrew's Episcopal St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 520 E. Seminary St., Greencastle, will have special services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, families are invited into the church after 6 p.m. for private worship and viewing of the Creche (Nativity Scene). A program of Christmas music, arranged by Dr. Eunice Wilcox, choir director, and Professor Arthur Carkeek, organist, will begin at 10:30 p.m. The Festal Eucharist of Christmas Eve is slated at 11 p.m. At 10 a.m. on Christmas Day, the church will celebrate the Eucharist for Christmas Day. Special 12:20 p.m. services also are planned on three other Holy Days of Christmas. They include: Saturday, Dec. 26, St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr ; Monday, Dec. 28, St. John the Evangelist, and Wednesday, Dec. 30, (transferred) Holy Innocents (commemorating the babes and young children of Bethlehem slaughtered by Herod). St. Andrew’s also will have a 10 a.m. service, “The Holy Name of Jesus”, on New Year’s Day and celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany on Jan. 6, the Twelfth Day when Christmas season ends. Holy Communion will be at 12:20 p.m.

altars were erected and patrols deployed to force villagers to bow to the new “gods.” Israel suffered many foreign occupations, but it always had retained its right of worship. It was the decree compelling Jews to bow down at pagan altars that sparked the revolution. It began when the aging Maccabee father of five sons defied a Syrian officer’s command to kneel and instead attacked and killed him. He and his sons fled to the Galilean hills, where he later died. The sons carried on, gathering a scanty, ill-equipped but growing army of resistance fighters, ready to die for the sake of conscience. “Arm yourselves and be brave,” Judas Maccabee told them. “It is better for us to die

Cooke’s views were at variance with those of other Roman Catholic bishops who have begun to speak out recently on the ethical problems of nuclear armaments. Archbishop John R. Roach of Minneapolis, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, drew applause at the bishops’ meeting last month when he called the nuclear arms race “the most dangerous moral

st unjust aggression.” He also said the church condemns "the use of any weapons, nuclear or conventional, that would indiscriminately destroy huge numbers of innocent people.” The critics’ statement challenged what it called an implication by the cardinal that nuclear weapons could be used in a discriminate fashion. “The cardinal’s statement assumes a legitimacy for weapons systems that are, of their nature, indiscriminate and which fall under the clear condemnation of the teaching authority of the church,” the statement said.

in battle than to witness the ruin of our nation and our sanctuary.” Their struggle marked the first successful use of guerrilla tactics lightning strikes and retreats, surprise attacks, ambushes, night raids and harassment. The Jerusalem temple was cleansed and rededicated. Tradition says that there was only enough oil for the Temple lamps to burn one day but miraculously they burned eight days until more oil could be made. In celebrating the event, Jewish families light an additional candle each night beginning with the first candle after sundown this Sunday. By the eighth evening the following Sunday, eight candles will shine from the menorahs.

issue in the public order today.” Bishop Leroy T. Matthiesen of Amarillo, Tex., questioned whether Catholics could in good conscience work in plants producing nuclear warheads. Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin of Cincinnati, head of a special committee of bishops that is drafting a pastoral letter on war and peace, told the bishops’ meeting that the moral problems involved in preparing

The original ark of the covenant as described in the Bible may have looked like the drawing above-a wooden chest covered with gold, with cherubs guarding the mercy seat. Much later, synagogues held a symbolic version of the ark, such as the third-century example at right, which includes a portion found by Duke University researchers in Galilee last summer.

'Year of the Ark' yielded discovery, movie, confusion By BORIS WEINTRAUB National Geographic News Service WASHINGTON - This has been the Year of the Ark. First, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” thrilled film-goers as Indiana Jones searched for the missing ark of the covenant. Then a team of Duke University archeologists found the carved limestone top of a third-century A.D. synagogue ark in upper Galilee, the oldest such ark ever found. Soon, confusion abounded as journalistic accounts mixed up the two, as well as Noah’s ark. WHAT, THEN, is the “lost” ark? Where did it come from, why was it important, and what happened to it! There are 201 biblical references to the ark, under a variety of names: ark of the Lord, ark of testimony, ark of God, and many others. But much of the information is contradictory. THE EXODUS DESCRIPTION The Book of Exodus, which deals with events of the 13th century B.C. but was compiled as much as two centuries later and put in its final form another 500 years later, gives the first and clearest description of the ark. It is a chest of acacia wood-a hard wood found in the desert2M: cubits long, U/2 cubits wide and deep-about 45 inches by 27 inches by 27 inches. It was covered with gold, and had four gold rings, so that carrying poles could be inserted in each corner. Portability was important to desert semi-nomads. On top was the “mercy seat,” a golden slab flanked by two cherubs facing each other, their wings spread out. “AND IN THE ARK,” Exodus says the Lord told Moses on Mount Sinai, “you shall put the testimony that I shall give you.” The ark became the central focus of the Israelite tribes during their wanderings. It was carried about by the Levites under a tent tabernacle. It wasn’t unique. “The pre-Koranic peoples of the Syrian desert and of modern Saudi Arabia all had portable tent shrines,” says Dr. Edward F. Campbell, professor of Old Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. “They all contained some sort of box or chest. So the ark itself is thought of as a container of some sort.” Though the original Hebrew word for this sort of ark is different from the Hebrew for Noah’s ark, both have been translated into “ark” in English, meaning “chest” or “repository.” But there is some disagreement among scholars about whether the ark of the covenant carried the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments. LEGENDARY MISTS “There is no reason to believe that at some certain stage, the ark didn’t contain essential covenant documents,” says Dr. Frank M. Cross, a prominent Harvard University biblical scholar. “But that it went back to Sinai and the tablets Moses brought down from the mountain-that is another matter. That is really lost in legend.” Dr. Eric Meyers, the Duke religion professor who found the third-century ark, raises another question: What would the commandments have been written on? “THE POPULAR IMAGE is of huge stones that Charlton

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This piece of carved limestone, from the top of the oldest synagogue ark ever uncovered, was found in Galilee last

for nuclear war might make it necessary to re-examine some traditional church teachings about defense. Cooke’s five-page letter said, “Clearly the upward spiral in armaments and what it implies must be ended.” It was sent to the chaplains Dec. 7 and released to the public Monday afternoon. He cautioned against overemphasizing national defense and said every citizen

must be “conscious of the many needs of the nation, especially the needs of the poor, and use the nation’s resources responsibly, with meticulous honesty and care.” Cooke warned against assuming that vast reductions in defense spending would benefit social programs in the United States. “The question of how much the United States spends on

Heston carries as he comes tripping down from Sinai,” says Meyers. “But I can’t imagine that. We have so little writing from the 13th century B.C. It could have been incised on potsherds, or even on parchment. “The point is that the object in and of itself was important. The popular imagination appreciated it for its invisible power, God’s unlimited power. ” The ark became thought of as the throne of Yahweh, the Israelites’ God. The most prominent place at which it was kept was Shiloh, and it was from there that it was taken into battle against the Philistines in the I.lth century B.C. The Israelites thought they could not be defeated with the ark, but they were, and it was captured. The Philistines suffered a plague, however, and attributed it to Yahweh’s wrath. The ark was returned after seven months. A POLITICAL ROLE During the monarchy that soon emerged, King David led a large procession of Israelites-some biblical translations say as many as 30,000-to the new capital, Jerusalem, with the ark. “David is trying to bring it to his use as the central political figure, and he puts the worship of Yahweh under royal patronage,” says Campbell. Meyers agrees, calling David’s use of the ark “a move of absolute political brilliance.” “David ties himself with both the old religious establishment and the new expansionist monarchy,” Meyers says. THE BOOK OF SAMUEL says that David wanted to build a temple to house the ark, but that he was dissuaded by the prophet Nathan, who tells him that the Lord wants no such home. David’s son, Solomon, did build such a temple, and the ark was put into its most sacred niche, the Holy of Holies. From then on, the ark virtually vanishes from view. And when the Babylonians destroy the temple in 587 B.C. and carry off its treasures, there is no mention of the ark’s fate. Nor is it replaced when the second temple is built five decades later. It is this “disappearance” that has led to notions of the ark being “lost,” and to expeditions to find it. There are some rabbinic traditions that it actually was hidden, perhaps by Jeremiah in a mountain cave, perhaps under the floor of the second temple. Most scholars, however, think it was taken for booty, its gold melted down, its wood burned or left to disintegrate. MANY ARKS? But one historian has suggested that the ark had vanished earlier, during a period when a king of Israel replaced it with an idol of a different god. And another has written that there were actually three different arks. How could such an important object drop out of biblical records? Meyers’ wife, Dr. Carol Meyers, also a Duke religion professor, says this may be due to the “sad” shape of religion in the later monarchy ; it had become so diluted that the ark’s loss may not have seemed vital. The important thing is that the ark later became a symbol in all synagogues, such as the one the Meyerses found in Galilee. Today the ark is the place where the scrolls of the Torah are kept, and is the most holy place in the synagogue.

summer by Eric and Carol Meyers, husband-and-wife research team from Duke University.

military defense involves a number of technical issues about which I have no special expertise,” he wrote. “We must be very careful about assuming that reductions in defense spending would automatically or completely solve such problems as poverty, hunger and disease in our nation or in the world. ” Cooke said his message had been prompted by letters he had received asking if the church

had changed its views on military sen, ice and whether a Catholic must refuse to have anything to do with nuclear weapons. He said the church had not changed its position on military service, adding: “I am per sonaliy proud of the dedication of our military men and women and consider them to be true guardians of peace."