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AUGUST 22, 1936
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
SEVEN
► Bishop Gunn Consecrated Twenty-Five Years Ago
i
PASTOR AT ATLANTA
BISHOP OF NATCHEZ
FOR THIRTEEN YEARS
Had He Lived, This Would
Be Silver Jubilee Year of
Beloved Marist Prelate
Twenty-five years ago this month,
on August 29, 1911, the Very Rev.
John E. Gunn, S. M., pastor of
Sacred Heart Church, Atlanta, and
one of the most beloved of the Marist
Fathers, was consecrated Bishop of
Natchez at Sacred Heart Church in
Atlanta, one of the few times when a
Bishop has been consecrated in this
country outside a Cathedral or Epis
copal City.
For nearly thirteen years he labored
without ceasing for the upbuilding of
the Church in Mississippi, and twelve
years ago, worn out with his toil, he
was called to his reward amid mourn
ing which hung like a pall over the
Church in the entire South.
Bishop Gunn was born in County
Tyrone, Ireland, March 15, 1863, and
therefore died in the vigor of his man
hood. He was the eldest of eleven
children, and was educated at St.
Mary’s Dundalk, 1875-1880, in Paign
ton, South Devonshire, England, 1880-
82, and in the Gregorian University in
Rome, where he was ordained to the
priesthood February 2, 1890.
Coming to the United States, Dr.
Gunn was appointed to the faculty of
the new House of Studies of the
Marist Fathers, of which society he
was a member, at the Catholic Uni
versity of America, Washington, D. C.,
and he remained there in that capaci
ty until appointed pastor of Sacred
Heart Church, Atlanta, in 1898, suc
ceeding Father William Gibbons, S.
M., the first pastor.
In Atlanta Dr. Gunn did magnifi
cent work. He erected the church,
founded the college, of which he was
president, extended and deepened the
work of his predecessors, and built up
in the city a spirit of good will to
ward Catholics which is effective to
day, and which was invaluable in the
days when bigotry ran rampant in the
state.
The Holy See on June 29, 1911, ap
pointed Dr. Gunn, Bishop of Natchez,
succeeding the late Bishop Thomas
Heslin; Bishop Gunn was consecrated
August 29 of that year by the Most
Rev. James M. Blenk, S. M., D. D.,
then Archbishop of New Orleans,
with the late Most Rev. Edward P.
Allen, D. D., Bishop of Mobile, and
the Most Rev. John B. Morris. D. D.,
then as now, Bishop of Litle Rock as
co-consecrators. He was installed at
the Cathedral at Natchez September
14.
Bishop Gunn’s first step was to be
come acquainted with his people, and
he traveled the state from end to end,
meeting them and observing their
needs. Additional churches and chap
els were a great need, and he under
took to provide them; during his years
in Mississippi twenty - six new
churches and chapels were built, some
of them replacing older churches, but
most of them providing edifices in
places which had never had them be
fore. He increased the number of
priests, erected parochical schools,
strengthened existing institutions, and
renovated the Cathedral, its rectory
and schools.
An eloquent speaker, a man of
deep learning, wtih a gentle, kindly,
friendly character. Bishop Gunn
soon made a deep impresison on the
state, and the respect of all classes
ripened into affection. He was be
loved throughout the state by Cath
olic and non-Catholic, and this af
fection of the state placed new bur
dens upon him, new demands for his
talents, which he did not hesitate to
assume.
About 1920, his health began to
fail, but he did not spare himself,
forcing himself to efforts to sustain
the works he had inaugurated. His
health grew worse, but still he la
bored, bringing his episcopal minis
trations to every comer of the dio
cese. On Thanksgiving Day, 1923,
the Knights of Columbus had a
great state banquet in Jackson and
he was asked to attend and deliver
an address. His physicians had
warned him of the danger of any ac
tivity, but he attended the dinner
and delivered the address, as he had
numerous others in the days of his
failing health. It was one of his
last public appearances; soon after
wards he was forced to retire to
Hotel Dieu in New Orleans, and
here on February 19, 1924, he passed
to his eternal reward.
Bishop Gunn was always a warm
friend of the Catholic Laymen’s As
sociation of Georgia. At the Jack-
son Knights of Columbus dinner in
1923, at which an official of the Lay
men's Association spoke of the
work, Bishop Gunn told of the
growth of prejudice in Georiga, of
the organization of the Association
and of the character and calibre of
the men who organized to meet the
threat of prejudice. To his dying
day he loved Georgia and particu
larly Atlanta, but he could not pos-
The Catholic World
J. LEWIS MAY, noted English au
thor, has been received into the
Catholic Church in London. His
reception took place quietly and has
escaped notice until now.
BROTHER GALLIMARD, of the
Brothers of Christian Doctrine in
France is still teaching near Paris
at the age of 96; he started his teach
ing career 77 years ago.
NINETEEN different Catholic Ac
tion activities of the Central Verein
of America will be reported on at
the 81st annual convention in San
Antonio September 13-16. Several
Archbishops and Bishops will attend
the convention.
THE CENTRAL VEREIN has 75,-
000 members and financial backing
of over 5285,000. built up since its
foundation in 1855.
MONSIGNOR CASHIN, pastor of
St. Andrews’ Church in New York,
will lead a pilgrimage to the Thirty-
Third International Eucharistic
Congress in Manila February 3-7.
THE C. D. OF A. pilgrimage,
headed by Miss Mary C. Duffy, su
preme regent, will sail on the same
ship as Monsignor Cashin’s party,
from New York early in January
on the S. S. President Jefferson.
THE PARIS World Exhibition
next year will have a Catholic pa
vilion, its authorities announce.
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY of Chi
cago, awarded 47 Bachelor and 37
Master of Arts degrees at summer
school exercises July 30. The Very
Rev. Edward V. Stanford, O. S. A.,
president of Villanova College, de
livered the commencement address.
THE KING OF BELGIUM by de
cree has barred from admisison to
the country more than a dozen Pari
sian magazines on the ground that
they are licentious.
MRS. MARY A. PARKER, a
nurse trained by Florence Nighten
gale, and King George’s nurse when
he was a boy, is dead at Hurstpier-
point, Sussex, England, at 89. Mrs.
Parker was a life-long Catholic.
MSGR. MARTIN JOHNSON, of
the newly created Diocese of
Nelson, British Columbia. Bishop-
elect Johnston, a native of Toronto,
is 37 years old.
edward McIntyre, vice-presi
dent and manager of the publishing
company of the Syracuse Catholic
Sun, died in July at 52. Mr. McIn
tyre was formerly connected in ex
ecutive capacities with the Syracuse
Daily Telegram, the Worcester Daily
Gazette, the New Haven Daily Reg
ister and other leading newspapers.
RICHARD S. GRIMM, a sudent
for the priesthood in the Holy Cross
Order, which conducts Notre Dame
University, plunged into Deep Creek
Lake near Deer Park, Maryland,
and rescued ten-year-old Eugene
Sheldon Legget, Jr., whose father,
was a former president of the Na
tional Press Club. The youngster
was in a boat with companions
when a storm capsized it. Other
Seminarians assisted Mr. Grimm in
the rescue.
TWENTY BISHOPS and Arch
bishops will attend the fourteenth
annual convention of the National
Catholic Rural Life Conference, to
be held in Fargo, N. D., the week of
October 11.
NOTRE DAME University will
honor the memory of the late Fath
er John W. Cavanaugh, C. S. C.,
formerly president of the Univer
sity, with a large dormitory, work
on which has already been started
on the campus. Father Cavanaugh
died in 1935; he was president from
1905 to 1919.
FATHER ADALBERT,. 40 - year -
Capuchin missionary from Canada,
laboring in Ethiopia, was killed by
pillaging natives 200 miles southwest
of Addis Ababa, the Canadian gov
ernment has informed Father Adal
bert’s superiors at Ottawa. Brother
Benoit, his companion, was left for
dead. Father Adalbert was born in
Montreal.
THE HOLY FATHER, through the
Papal Secretary of State, has ex
pressed to King Edward VIII of
England, through the British Lega
tion to the Holy See, congratula
tions on His Majesty's escape from
grave danger when the apparent at
tempt on his life was frustrated.
CARDINAL DOUGHERTY, Arch
bishop of Philadelphia, has been
sued for 5200.000 by Joseph Ruther
ford and the Watch Tower Bible and
Tract Society because the Ruther
ford broadcasts have been rejected
by Station WIP here.
sibly have loved them more than the
thousands and tens of thousands he
had endeared himself to in Atlanta
and Georgia loved him. Twenty-five
years out of Georgia and twelve
in the grave, the memory of Bishop
Gunn is still as fresh in the memory
of countless Georgians as if the
passing years were weeks,
0GDENSBURG COADJUTOR
The Rt. Rev. Francis J. Monaghan,
D. D., formerly President of Seton
Hall College, South Orange, N. J.,
who has been consecrated Titular
Bishop of Mela and Coadjutor Bishop
of Orangeburg in New York, Bishop
Monaghan, who is 45, was ordained at
St. John Lateran, Rome, in 1915, and
has performed priestly duties in the
Diocese of Newark.
CARDINAL CAREJEIRA, Patri
arch, of Lisbon, in Portugal, offi
ciated at the solemn Mass at Oak
land, Cal, on the occasion of the
six hundredth anniversary of the
death of St. Elizabeth, Queen of
Portugal.
THE REV. DR. EUGENE
DEVAUD, a member of the Faculty
of Letters, has been named rector
of the University of Fribourg, in
Switzerland.
SHIRLEY TEMPLE, child motion
picture actress, vacationing in the
Northwest, met Sister Martina, of
Los Angeles, a Maryknoll delegate
to the Catholic Charities Conference,
and an old friend at whose school
she had entertained the pupils. She
accompanied Sister Martina to the
convention and made her first pub
lic speech there, saying: “I am hap
py to be here, and thanks for the
pretty badge.”
VERY REV. P. M. BRESNAHAN,
O. S. M., is again provincial of the
American Province of the Order oi
the Servants of Mary, with the Rev.
Jerome DePencier, O. S. M., editor
of Our Lady of Sorrows Magazine
and vice-president of the Catholic
Press Association, as vice-provincial.
Headquarters are in Chicago.
CHURCHES are eligible for loans
from the Federal Housing Adminis
tration up to 550,000 through a re
cent amendment of the National
Housing Act, officials announced.
The money must be used for “mod
ernization” such as repairs, altera
tions of additions; loans cannot be
made for the erection of new
churches. The former limit was
$2,000.
BY GEORGE BARNARD
(London Correspondent, N. C. W. C.
News Service)
LONDON—An Anglican Bishop has
withdrawn an attack on the Holy
Father in which he said the Pope had
not “dared to say a word in condem
nation of the Italian ggression of
Abyssinia”.
He is Dr. A. W. F. Blunt, Bishop of
Bradford. In his attack on the Pope
he said also that the Holy Father “al
though no longer a prisoner of the
Vatican seems to have imprisoned his
mind”.
A reporter, armed with clippings
from Catholic sources visited tbe
Bishop, who read the reports of
speeches by the Pope.
Afterwards the Bishop said: “Of
course we only see what the newspa
pers choose to give us, and we can
only go by them. I know quite well
that the newspapers often misrepre
sent what a man says—it has hap
pened to me”.
Dr. Blunt admitted to the reporter
that, according to the evidence just
shown him, the Pope had not ignored
the matter, though he thought the
Pope should have been “more spe-
specific”.
At the end of the interview the
FATHER WILFRID PARSONS, S.J.
former editor of “America”, now pro
fessor of political economy at George
town University, told the Institute of
Public Affairs at the University of
Virginia that there is no hope for us
if in modern times our American sys
tem of government is not compatible
with social justice.
SISTER HELEN LALINSKY of the
Catholic Medical Missionaries, Wash
ington, D. C., has completed her
course in medicine at the Women’s
Medical College and her internship at
Misericordia Hospital, Philadelphia,
and has been awarded the degree of
Doctor of Medicine. She has been as
signed to the Society’s hospital at Ra
walpindi, India-
BISHOP DESCHAMPS, Montreal
auxiliary? offered the invocation at
the dedication of the Canadian Me
morial at Vimy, in the presence of
King Edward VII and of President
Albert Lebrun.
THE TYROL Passion Play in the
Tyrolese village of Thiersee is being
presented this summer to large audi
ences. The play is a development of
the Procession Plays first presented
at Bozen in 1341.
FOUR PHILADELPHIA priests and
three laymen have been honored by
the Holy Father. The Rev. Vincent
L. Burns, rector of St. Charles Bor-
romeo Seminary, the Rev. James E.
Heir,* Pottsville, the Rev. Edward
Hawks, Philadelphia, and the Rev. J.
Carroll McCormick, chancellor, are
named Rt. Rev. Monsignori, and
Matthew J- McClosky, Jr., Col. Vin
cent A. Carroll and Furey Ellis are
created Private Chamberlains of the
Cape and Sword.
BROTHER ANDRE, founder of the
famed St. Joseph’s Oratory in Mon
treal, observed his 91st birthday Au
gust 10.
SENATOR JAMES BYRNES of
South Carolina was among the recent
speakers at the Catholic Summer
School at Cliff Haven, N. Y.
FATHER JULIUS DILLON, O.F.M.,
a native of Hartford, Conn., where
he was born 39 years ago, has been
named Prefect Apostolic of the njw
prefecture of Shasi, Hupeh, China.
Father Julius has been laboring in
this district since 1932.
MISS MARY O’FLAHERTY, Hart
ford, Conn., president of the Hart
ford Diocesan Council of the Nation
al Council of Catholic Women, has
made a gift of 520,000 to St- Francis
Hospital there in memory of her
mother and father.
BISHOP BOYLE of Pittsburgh lost
his mother, Mrs. Anna Keelan Boyle,
by death August 14. Mrs. Boyle was
84 years old, and lived at Johnstown,
Pa. Surviving also is another son,
Michael Boyle, sheriff at Johnstown.
All the other members of the fami
ly lost their lives in the Johnstown
flood.
IOWA’S attorney general, Edward
L. O’Connor, has sustained the opin
ion of County Attorney Kenneth B.
Welty of Milton, Iowa, that children
attending parochial schools have an
equal right with pupils of public
schools to bus transportation provid
ed by the public authorities.
Bishop said: “I admit that to say that
the Pope said nothing is an exagger
ation”.
The report which appeared to im
press Dr. Blunt was of a speech made
by the Holy Father on April 1, 1935.
In this His Holiness said:
“Rumors of wars, current every
where, are a cause of the deepest
agitation to all, and rouse in all hearts
the gravest fears. That the nations
should again take up arms against
one another, that the blood of broth
ers should again be shed, that de
struction and ruin should be poured
out over land and sea and in the air,
would be a crime so heinous, a mani
festation of folly so mad, that we re
gard it as absolutely impossible.
“We cannot in fact persuade our
selves that those who have at heart
the nation’s prosperity and well-being
can wish to drive to slaughter, ruin,
and extermination, not only their own
nation, but a great part of humanity
as welL But if anyome should
dare to commit this crime, we shall
not be able to do otherwise than to
pray to God with bitterness in our
hearts: ‘SCATTER THOU THE NA
TIONS THAT DELIGHT IN
WARS.”
SAN FRANCISCO MAN
HEADS RETREATANTS
Leo Cunningham Elected at
Convention in Chicago
(By N. C. W. C. News Service)
CHICAGO. — Leo Cunningham, of
San Francisco, was elected president
of ( the National Laymen’s Retreat
Conference at the concluding session
of the sixth national conference here.
He succeeds Daniel E. Morrissey, of
Chicago, who becomes national treas
urer.
Other officers are Lawrence J.
Tierney,Brookline, Mass., first vice-
president; Walter J. Conaty, Rich
mond, Va., second vice president;
Fred P. Hanson, Chicago, third vice
president; Frank Bering, Los An
geles, fourth vice president, Pat
rick F. Brown, Hot Springs, Ark.,
fifth vice president. John J. Craig,
Little Rock, was elected national sec
retary, succeeding Father Valerius,
O.F.M., of Chicago. San Francisco
was chosen as the place of the 1937
conference.
The conference closed with a ban
quet at which the speakers were the
Most Rev. William D. O’Brien, Aux
iliary Bishop of Chicago; the Very
Rev. Raphael C. McCarthy, S.J., of
St. Louis University; Joseph Scott,
of Los Angeles, and Representative
Clare Gerald Fenerty, of Pennsylva
nia.
His Eminence George Cardinal
Mundelein, Archbishop of Chicago,
officiated at a Holy Hour service held
in the afternoon at Holy Name Ca
thedral. The sermon was preached
by the Rev. C. F. O’Connor, S.J., of
New York.
The delegates attended High Mass
in the morning at St. Peter’s Church,
at which the Most Rev. Francis J.
L. Beckman, Archbishop of Dubuque,
officiated. In his sermon, the Rev.
Herman Storck, S.J., of Morristown,
N.J., delivered a eulogy of the late ^
Father W. J. Lonergan, S.J.
LAYWOMEN’S RETREAT
CONFERENCE SUCCESS
(By N. C. W. C. News Service)
CHICAGO.—The first national con
ference of the Laywomen’s Retreat
Movement has been written in the
pages of retreat history as marvel
ously successful.
The retreat representatives present
decided not to form a new organiza
tion, but to appoint a continuing com
mittee consisting of one representa
tive from each permanent retreat
house represented at the conference
to function for the ensuing year. The
chairman is Miss Mary Gertrude
Quick, Milwaukee; first vice chair
man, Miss Nell Merrigan, New York;
second vice chairman, Miss Etta
Brown, Philadelphia; third vice chair
man, Mrs. John J. Monaghan, De
troit; recording secretary, Miss Mil
dred McCauley, Chicago, executive
secretary, the Rev. Mother Helen
Clifford, Chicago.
C. D. of A. Launches
Anti-Red Movement
Bishop Hafey Addresses Of
ficers at Atlantic City
(By N. C. W. C. News Service)
ATLANTIC CITY. — A national
movement among youth to counter
act the efforts of Communists and
atheists to win American school and
college youths is planned by the
Catholic Daughters of America as the
result of deliberations here by the
national officers and directors of the
organization at the semi-annual con
ference.
The conference condemned, through
a report by Miss Mary C. Duffy, su
preme regent, what was called “much
misguided financial support” being
given to Communism by such organi
zations as the Garland Foundation,
the Duke Endowment, the Carnegie
Foundation.
“Catholic education, a religious
training, regard for the sanctity of the
home and love of parents, patriotic
fervor and proper environment, are
the mainstays for the right upbring
ing of our children in America to
day,” said the Most Rev. William J.
Hafey, Bishop of Raleigh and nation-
al chaplain of the order, who was
present at the supreme board meet
ings. _ He praised the members of the
board for their keen and intelligent
plans for striving to prevent the fur
ther inroads of the forces of Com
munism, Bolshevism and atheism, and
stressed the need for an active and
energetic plan of action to combat
such forces-
Bretton Woods, in the White Moun
tains of New Hampshire, was select
ed as the city for the 1937 convention.
AN AGED CHINESE Christian not
ed for his piety died recently near-
Ichang; after his death his family
found a little note book with daily
entries showing that he had baptiz
ed over one thousand dying pagan
babies.
Anglican Bishop Withdraws
Charge Made Against Pope
Bradford, Eng., Prelate Had Said Holy Father Had Not
Dared to Say Word About Italy in Ethiopia