Viewing the Family from the Oval Office

(United Press International correspondent Wesley G. Pippert has been reporting on Jimmy Carter since early in his campaign for the presidency and is now assigned to cover the White House. In the following special report he takes a look at the President’s views and performance on family-related concerns.)

The text of the first speech that Jimmy Carter gave after receiving the Democratic presidential nomination a year ago began: “The American family is in trouble.”

“Forty per cent of all marriages in America now end in divorce,” he said as he stood on a flatbed truck earlier in Manchester, New Hampshire. “In 1960, one of every twenty women giving birth was not married; today the figure is about one in eight. The extended family is all but extinct.” He promised to analyze each federal program and any major decision in terms of how the American family would be affected. “I intend to construct an administration that will reverse trends we have seen toward a breakdown of the family in our country,” he said.

The surprising thing is not that he spoke those words, but that he is following through on his pledge. In a recent interview he said that the integrity of the family ought to be a factor in almost every program his Administration puts forward. “I would be inclined to put it as a much greater factor, perhaps more than some others,” he said.

His famous remark about “living in sin” was made in the context of relating a stable family life and one’s public service. “It’s very important that all of us in government not forget that no matter how dedicated we might be and how eager we are to perform well, that we need a stable family life to make us better servants of the people,” he said to employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “So those of you who are living in sin, I hope you’ll get married. Those of you who have left your spouses, go back home. And those of you who don’t remember your children’s names, get reacquainted.” After the laughter subsided, Carter drove home his point: “But I think it’s very important we have stable family lives, and I’m serious about that.”

Carter’s remarks are all the more significant because they come at a time when many persons are saying that there is and ought to be no connection between one’s private and public lives.

Perhaps as a result of Carter’s feelings, his close aide Greg Schneiders married his long-time roommate on New Year’s eve. Cabinet Secretary Jack Watson, Appointments Secretary Tim Kraft, and Deputy Press Secretary Rex Granum all have married this year. On the other hand, Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal, who was chairman of the Bendix Corporation, and his wife have separated after a long marriage.

One Sunday while his wife was on a diplomatic visit to Latin America, Carter taught a Sunday-school lesson at First Baptist Church in Washington. In it he urged married persons to be faithful to their partners. Even, he added in words reminiscent of the prophet Hosea, when their partners are not faithful to them.

Tasty Tub

Build a mold six by four by two feet, and what does a church pour into it in the summer? Those could be the dimensions for a baptistry, but in the case of the Spanaway (Washington) Assembly of God the mold was for something else. It was for a frozen root beer treat for the congregation. Rowboat oars were used to mix 400 pounds of sugar, 100 pounds of corn syrup crystals, 350 gallons of water and two gallons of root beer flavoring. The result was a 3,320 pound delight.

A year earlier the congregation got some notice when it concocted a hot dog 189 feet long. Pastor Skip Bennett thinks the 1977 treat deserves mention in the Guinness Book of World Records, and the details have been forwarded. If it doesn’t make the book, maybe the 1978 (yet-to-be-disclosed) recipe will.

His own family life is exemplary. Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, George McGovern, and other presidents and presidential candidates were not especially close to their brothers. Jimmy and Billy Carter, however, have genuine affection for one another. Last summer in Plains, Jimmy Carter went down to the peanut warehouse many mornings about 7 o’clock to sip coffee and chat with Billy in what was obvious mutual warmth. The President’s closeness to his sister Ruth Stapleton has been highlighted in a number of press accounts, especially those dealing with the spiritual impact she has had upon his life.

Carter has an extended family in the White House. Son Jeff and his wife are living there, and until their recent widely publicized departure from the executive mansion so were son Chip and his wife and baby, James Earl IV. (They went back to Plains, Georgia, to live in Carter’s home.) Other family members, including “Miss Lillian,” the President’s mother, have paid long visits.

During the campaign, many persons criticized Carter for what they believed were his positions on abortion and homosexuality. Now, supporters of abortion and gay rights are criticizing him. Carter and HEW secretary Joseph A. Califano, Jr., a Catholic, are opposing the use of federal funds for abortions, which would reduce the number of abortions in this country by several hundred thousand a year. And, in a recent interview on the family, he expressed belief that homosexuality is not normal. He said:

“I don’t see homosexuality as a threat to the family. What has caused the highly publicized confrontations on homosexuality is the desire of homosexuals for the rest of society to approve and to add its acceptance of homosexuality as a normal sexual relationship. I don’t feel it’s a normal relationship. But at the same time, I don’t feel that society, through its laws, ought to abuse or harass the individual. I think it’s one of those things that is not accepted by most Americans as a normal sexual relationship. In my mind it’s certainly not a substitute for the family life I described to you.”

His views of forgiveness toward those who differ from him are apparent. For example, at a recent news conference, journalist-Episcopal priest Lester Kinsolving boisterously asked whether it was true that although Carter was monogamous he never held anything against staff members who were promiscuous. “My relationship is monogamous,” Carter said amid laughter. “My preference is that those who associate with me—in fact, all people—would honor the same standards that I honor. But I’ve never held it against people who had a different standard from myself. “If there are some who have slipped from grace, then I can only say that I’ll do the best I can to forgive them and pray for them.”

Staff members attending the news conference applauded.

Tradition vs. Traditionalists

Pressures continue to mount on the rebel Roman Catholic traditionalist archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre (see July 29 issue, page 39). Other conservative Catholics are now aiming verbal barbs at him for his defiance of Pope Paul VI, thus possibly undercutting his base of support. One of the strongest attacks came last month when the leader of the American Catholic Traditionalist Movement, Gommar A. DePauw, told a reporter, “Lefebvre is a hypocrite.” The Long Island priest, who regularly says Masses in Latin, told the Providence (Rhode Island) Journal-Bulletin, “Lefebvre blew it. We may even have had Latin Masses again now if it hadn’t been for him.” DePauw, who attracted wide attention a decade ago for continuing traditional rites after Vatican Council II decreed worship in the vernacular, claims to have the Pope’s blessing for his own activity. In contrast, he says the Swiss-based Lefebvre is acting in defiance of the pontiff.

“About ten years ago,” DePauw revealed, “I asked Lefebvre to help lead our cause, but he couldn’t be bothered. Now he realizes there is a constituency for the Latin Mass, and he is running around taking up the torch. But he is leading the people over the cliff of schism.” The Belgian-born DePauw said language is not the issue between the rebel archbishop and the Vatican. The main problem is his operation of seminaries and ordination of priests.

The American traditionalist leader finds it particularly strange that the former archbishop of Dakar is now attacking decisions of Vatican II when he is on record as having voted in that council for most of its pronouncements. If, as Lefebvre charges, the council was the work of Satan, then would his participation not make him an instrument of the devil, DePauw asked.

“Now I’ve always said that Paul is a very weak Pope,” DePauw declared, “but he’s the only Pope we’ve got. You don’t go around calling the Pope a traitor.” He believes that if Lefebvre had not caused such controversy the Pope would have gone along with the British and other bishops who last year began to move in the direction of giving the traditionalists what they were requesting. DePauw discounts reports that some church officials have denounced his own work, saying that they are only “flunkies” who are not speaking for the Vatican.

The best known of the conservative Catholic papers in America, The Wanderer, has also joined the attack. A Franciscan priest, Milan Mikulich of Portland, Oregon, wrote in the weekly that Lefebvre had once promised the heads of three Vatican congregations that he would close the seminary at Econe, Switzerland. The promise was tape recorded in March, 1975, he wrote, and he examined a text “published by a strong defender of Archbishop Lefebvre.” The Franciscan said that the rebel’s acts are in direct violation of canon law which predates Vatican II. The writer said Lefebvre will certainly be excommunicated if he elevates one of his priests to the episcopate.

In the same issue of The Wanderer, editor A. J. Matt, Jr., called on followers of the archbishop to review his claims. He also appealed to the prelate and his advocates “to abandon their perilous course and consider the grave harm they do to the souls of thousands of their followers.”

Bishops around the world were also warning the faithful under their care to beware. In the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., Bishop Thomas J. Welsh warned Catholics that they were risking their eternal salvation if they confessed their sins to a Lefebvre-ordained priest. Dan Dolan, the priest sent by the traditionalists to celebrate Mass at a motel near the nation’s capital, said just the opposite: “Hang on to this true Mass … if you want to save your souls.”

The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, continued its warnings, meanwhile. Lefebvre’s actions, it said, “provoke grave disorientation” among the faithful. The paper also commented on the “bleak future” facing the priests he has ordained.

Speaking to Lefebvre’s claim that he is upholding Catholic tradition, the Vatican journal said, “The real tradition requires unity with the Pope in harmony with the bishops of the church and the decisions of the Ecumenical Council.”

Vatican Variations

American Catholics will soon be joining those in about fifty other countries who get communion wafers in their hands instead of on their tongues. Target date for the instituting the practice is November 20.

Archbishop Joseph R. Bernardin, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, emphasized in his announcement of a target date the fact that it is up to each bishop whether to allow the new practice and when to start it in his diocese. A majority of the bishops, in a mail ballot, requested the Vatican to allow communion in hand. The approval came through in July, and NCCB produced catechetical materials the following month to explain the change.

In another ruling, the Vatican seemed to relax—ever so slightly—its opposition to male sterilization. A decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published last month said men who had vasectomies could enter into valid marriages. Church sources stressed, however, that vasectomies were not being approved as a method of birth control. The operation was approved only when necessary for “serious medical reasons.” In the past, sterility has been a reason for annulment in Catholic marriage courts. Female sterilization was not mentioned in the decree. The new ruling reinforces the position of Vatican Council II which said that procreation is not the only purpose of marriage. Church sources also pointed out that the change was primarily a legal technicality and not an attempt to restate the church’s position on a moral issue.

Sister of Mercy

Elizabeth Candon is in a difficult position. She is Vermont’s secretary for human services. She is also a Roman Catholic nun. In her state job she oversees the medicaid program, which pays for welfare abortion. This has brought her into conflict with Bishop John Marshall of Burlington. He says the nun’s position contradicts Catholic teaching and can place her outside “the sacramental life of the church” and deprive her of her “good standing” as a Sister of Mercy. The bishop claims the state’s welfare abortion policy was set by Ms. Candon. Governor Richard Snelling, however, insists the ultimate responsibility for administering the program lies in his hands.

Ms. Candon says she personally is opposed to abortion but favors the use of state funds to pay for abortions for poor women.

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