Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

MARCH 26. 1938 THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA THREE Confraternity of Laity Program Launched Savannah, Atlanta Dinners Monday, Wednesday Formal Opening of Epochal Effort Bishop’s Addresses There a nd at Mass Meetings in Key Cities Will Be Based on His Observations in 43,000 Miles of Travel in State During Past Two Years (Continued From Page One) nature, also will occupy seats at the head table. James L. Dickey will preside and act as toastmaster at the Atlanta dinner, where the program otherwise will be substantially the same as at Savannah. On the dais with him, the Bishop and Chancellor, and Estes Doremus. vice-chairman of the din ner committee, will be seated Rev. Thomas L. Finn, Atlanta district director and other clergy, laity who have been active in the movement. Parish leaders will preside at their parish tables. Bishop O’Hara's pre sentment of his seven-point program as a problem for co-operative solu tion will be followed by "The Solu tion of the Problem”, suggested by Father White in his address. Music and other entertainment features will follow the lines of the Savannah affair, with Paul Delany in charge. While these dinners will be festive occasions to express the high esteem in which the laymen of Georgia hold for Bishop O’Hara as man and cleric, they have also a purpose of much greater significance and importance. The Bishop has spent much of his time, during the little over two years since he came to the diocese from Philadelphia, making an exhaustive study of the religious, educational and economic conditions throughout the State of Georgia. This has not been an arm-chair study of reports. He has driven more than 43,000 miles to gain first-hand knowledge. His observations have not been filed away for future reference. They have culminated in a long-term, methodi cal program for diocesan develop ment. In that program the Bishop finds seven features which' cry out for immediate attention. Father White, who is famed the country over as a humorous after- dinner speaker and is in constant de mand at stag affairs. Known as the “chaplain of Broadway”, Father White has been treasurer of the Ca tholic Boy Scouts was their national chaplain for some years, and he was war chaplain at Camp Gordon. Acceptances of dinner invitations promise to overtax the capacity of the banqueting halls where the af fairs will be held. At both of them arrangements are being made to seat 400 guests, and the attendance may go oyer that figure. To make sure guests will sit in groups who know each other, tables are being gotten to gether by the various parish leaders. It is promised there will not be a dull moment at either of the events. Philadelphia is sending Paul Delany, musician and entertainer of the Knights of Columbus and the Elks, who will keep things moving as mas ter of ceremonies. An instrumental trio, community singing and solos by artists who have been invited to attend, will liven the program throughout the evening. OUR BISHOP’S SEVEN-POINT PROGRAM BY THE MOST REV. GERALD P. O'HARA, D. D, J. U. D Bishop of Savannah-Atlanta To give the Bishop an opportunity to lay his program before a consider able number of the leading laymen of every parish in the diocese, these dinner affairs have been organized by the groups of laymen who, in smaller numbers, have heard it from the lips of the Bishop as he has con sulted with them during several weeks past. First he called in two or three to meet him in Atlanta, and likewise in Savannah, and discussing with them his findings and his am bitions for a forward movement to improve conditions for Catholics in Georgia. Those conferences were followed by others at which leaders from every parish were in attend ance. There the Bishop again went into the details of his studies and his hopes. To his deep gratification their response was immediate and en thusiastic. It was crystallized in the form of a resolution published else where in this issue. With every confidence in the out come of these dinner conferences be tween the Bishop and laity, leaders have been quietly organizing an army of workers to do the “leg work” involved in broadening the Bishop’s appeal for co-operation so that every adult lay perr r in the diocese will be given a direct personal oppor tunity to participate in the crusade for a Greater Catholic Georgia. Catholics of the Savannah-Atlanta Diocese must aim at a high mark of devotion and achievement if we are to prove worthy of those who estab lished the Church in this part of the United States with the first explor ers, and of our first Bishop and his co-laborers. Great and many are the things which have been accom plished in our Diocese since it was created by separation from the dio cese of Charleston eighty-eight years ago. Churches, schools and institu tions of charity and social service have grown from the smallest be ginnings of Colonial days. In the story of the long struggle for liberty in that heroic age, and of the formation of a stable democratic government, there is no more glorious page than the one written by our Revolutionary Catholic forebears in Georgia. We of today must not and will not fail to face with equal de votion and sacrifice the problems which confront us. say they imperatively demand imme diate attention if we Catholics of Georgia are not to fail Mother Church. We enumerate these projects and describe them briefly as follows: O- RUBAL MISSIONS At the Savannah conference, held in Marist School Hall on March 1st, adoption of this resolution was moved by Thomas F. Walsh, K. S. G., and seconding speeches were made by several of the men present, resulting in unanimous approval. Mr. Joseph B. Brennen offered the resolution at the Atlanta meeting on March 3rd, where equally hearty action followed. The aggregate attendance at these meet ings exceeded 250, some of those pres ent traveling to them from the most distant points to hear the Bishop and assure him not only of their in dividual support but the backing of the parishes they represented. O O | WORKERS MASS MEETINGS | o o To get their final instructions, to hear the Bishop in person, and to give them an opportunity to see how many co-workers they will have, the men and women who have enrolled as volunteers to carry the Bishop’s appeal to their fellow parishioners will assemble at great mass meetings this week. The first one will be held in Augusta on Thursday, March 31st, at Mt. St. Joseph Auidtorium, where Richard Reid, of Augusta, will preside. This will bring together workers from all the Augusta and nearby parishes. Dr. Michael J. Egan will be chairman of the mass meeting at Savannah on Friday eve ning, April 1st, at eight o’clock. Here the workers will come from the re maining parishes of the Savannah district, which comprises the area of the state between the coast and a line drawn from Augusta through Dublin to Thomasville. All the other parishes, in the northern and western sections of the state, are in the At lanta district. Their mass meeting will be held at four o'clock, Sunday afternoon, April 3rd. THE DINNER PROGRAMS -O o- Working out a carefully planned procedure, which leaves nothing to chance, the laymen who have the success of this movement at heart have arranged the testimonial din ners to the Bishop as the next step. There the Bishop will be able to lay his plans before such large and rep resentative bodies of laymen that when they speak it will be certain that they voice the sentiment of all the laity in the great Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta. All indications are that (' ey will put their parishes be hind the Bishop’s program wtih all the enthusiasm which has char acterized the smaller gatherings. Fur ther steps in the movement will be taken with confidence and inspira tion after being given such a sub stantial “head start” through these progressive conferences between the Bishop, the clergy and laity. At the dinners the Bishop’s ad- ^jress will discuss his proposals as “My Problem, Your Problem, Our Problem”. He will be followed by the Rev. John F. White, who will make a special visit to Savannah and Atlanta, coming from his Church of the Immaculate Conception, Staten Island. New York. The dinner com mittees feel highly gratified at their success in securing the presence of At all of these gatherings Bishop O’Hara will be present and will ad dress the assembled campaigners. Thus they will have direct assurance of the intense interest of our Chief Shepherd following them as they make their rounds of their parishes during the week following Sunuay, April 3rd. If any one thing was needed to charge the diocesan atmosphere with enthusiasm and courage and determ ination to succeed in this great ef fort, it will be supplied by the per sonal appearance of Bishop O’Hara at these gatherings to assure all the workers, whether they are able to be present or not, of his deep desire for their success, of his blessing on their voluntary labors, and of his faith that their work will be crowned with triumphant success. Father White has indicated his willingness to prolong his stay in Georgia so he can attend and ad dress these mass meetings. The same is true of Paul Delany, who willl en- liven them with his leadership of singing and other entertainment fea tures. On Sunday. April 3rd, another in teresting feature of the movement will be the diocesan Radio Hour over Ctation WSB of the Atlanta Journal. This will take place from 2:00 to 2:30 o’clock, Atlanta time. As Bishop O’Hara is the speaker, it is expected every Catholic family with a radio will be listening in at that hour to hear him in a fifteen-minute address. Preceding and following his talk there will be a musical program of the highest order, as the radio committee, of which the Rev. Joseph W. Kava- nagh, secretary to the Bishop, is chairman, has sought out the best talent in the church. During the pre ceding ten days prominent lay Ca tholics will be heard over the radio in support of the Bishop's program and the campaign which will be waged to make it effective. The needs of the Diocese are many and vital. They extend into every portion of a Diocese which geographi cally is the largest in the country east of the Mississippi River. During the two years of my episcopate I have devoted much of my time and have driven thousands of miles in making a careful study of those needs, at the same time, in consulta tion with clergy and laity, I have with equal care considered our resources. Our needs are indeed great and I am assured and convinced that the spirit of helpfulness and generosity among our people is no less great. In determining not only what may be needed, but also what may be undertaken as feasible, we have had in mind the needs of every portion of our Diocese. Every section, be it ever so remote or small, has a claim upon our solicitude and interest. And every section of the Diocese should feel under obligation to con tribute its share toward the upbuild ing of our Diocesan works of reli gion, charity and education. If we go forward with faith and courage and generosity, a glorious victory will be achieved for the Church in Georgia and for the welfare of every man, woman and child within the Diocese. —O I ~o In the rural areas of the Dioecese there are places where the dilapidated chapel is the poorest building in the settlement. . Repairing is sorely needed. At other points which could support chapels there is none. We must build them. Again, some of our missions are burdened with debt beyond their capacity to pay. These are pressing needs. Shall we shrug our shoulders and say it is none of our business? Let us re member that virtually no parish, however prosperous it may be today, was ever established without outside help. “Bear ye one anothers’ bur dens.” There are areas where the sparse popuation cannot well go to church because it is too far away. Happily, in this motorized age. the church can be taken to them. A mobile chapel has been developed, mounted on wheels, which can be driven about by the missionary priest in charge. What a boon such a trailer-chapel would be to those of our fellow Ca tholics who now see a priest but rarely. Its value to the souls of our rural children, growing up without the advantage of a church building, would be beyond calculation. Give me at least one such traveling chapel, you who can! given daily to religious instruction. How deeply satisfying this service to these young souls is, how inval uable it is to their spiritual growth, I must leave to your imagination. Villa Marie needs to be set on a firm, permanent basis financially, free of debt, so there may be no anxiety about its continuance and its im provement, so we may have all the facilities there which are needed- Perhaps in time to come one or more additional camps might be located at convenient points throughout the state. O- O- ST. MARY’S ORPHANAGE O- -O Supported by the unanimous ap proval of our clergy and laity in an extended series of conferences at tended by larger and larger num bers, we lay before the. Church cer tain projects of such outstanding im portance that it is ..ot too much to Macon and WPAX, Thomasville. These stations have granted the courtesy of their facilities in a spirit of co-operation with the Bishop which . he appreciates highly. The talks delivered by the laity at these microphones will deal with special features of the Bishop's seven-point program, so every Catholic home in the state will know it in all of its details. Supplementing this method of spreading the news of the Bishop’s Confraternity, the committee in charge will publish a newspaper, or bulletin, which will be distributed to adults at the doors of every church and mission in the diocese after all masses on Sunday, April 3rd. From that publication they will learn, in articles written by leading laymen, every detail of the Bishop’s program, and of its adoption by the laity in consultation with him through the weeks of careful prep aratory consideration and formation of plans to put it into effect by pre senting it to every adult communicant as a personal responsibility, as a per sonal opportunity to uphold the Bishop's hands in promoting Catholic welfare in Georgia. These broadcasts will be staged at Station WTOC, Savannah; WSB. Atlanta; WRDW, Augusta; WMAZ, Climaxing all this foundation work, the canvassing army of close to a thousand laymen and women will march forth on Monday, April 4th, after having received corporate com munion at their parish churches on Sunday. Monday. Tuesday, Wednes day, Thursday and Friday they will work in pairs, visiting their "fellow communicants and accepting their applictions for membership in the Bishops’ Confraternity of the Laity. Each evening they will meet in their parish halls to report results, com pare notes and get their assignments for the next day’s work of solicita tion. By means of a thorough system of reporting, results will be known at the Bishop’s headquarters in Savan nah by mdnight each night and will be given out there to the daily papers for publication the next day. Not the slightest doubt is entertained, by any of the men who have been en gaged, in the preparatory stages of the movement, that the grand total reported on Friday night. April 8th, will set a mark of achievement by the Catholics of Georgia which not only will gladden the heart of their beloved and energetic Bishop, but will spread the fame of the diocese throughout the Catholic world and gain the approval of the Holy Father himself. THE HOLY PRIESTHOOD 6 — o Promising boys, bless: d with a vocation, must not be deprived of the opportunity ^to enter the Holy Priest hood by the mere lack of financial support. In cases where their fam ilies are not so circumstanced as to be able to provide it, it is a Dio cesan obligation to do so. Such was the pronouncement of the momentous Council of Trent in 1558. That dec laration stressed the desirability, nay the duty, of every Diocese raising up its own clergy from among its native sons. It is also true that some of our devoted missionary priests suffer personal hardships and are hamper ed in the performance of their holy calling by reason of the inadequate stipend they receive. This again rep resents a definite obligation. It is a matter of satisfaction and rejoicing that we were able, a few months ago, to begin the erection of the present handsome structure which will house the orphan girls of the Diocese. But it still carries a heavy load of debt. Surely the time has come to pay off this debt and save the carrying charges. Moreover, conditions seem to make it urgent that provision be made for a boy’s industrial school which will teach a trade to our orphan boys after their elementary school course. O- OUR NEGRO CHILDREN | O -O | CATHOLIC EDUCATION o O ~The proper education of all our children is an outstanding obligation. Better and better are the public schools providing the secular educa tion which is so vitally necessary to success in life and to intellectual breadth. But they have one great drawback. They do not. perhaps can not. provide children with proper daily religious instruction. Unless we provide for our Catholic children the opportunity for religious educa tion which we know tj be so vital, if we leave their education entirely to the public schools, we shall be do ing them a fatal disservice, but in the rural districts the problem is quite beyond local powers of solu tion. What will the future of Catholicism in Georgia be if a con siderable percentage of boys and girls, because they happened not to live in a city parish, grow up largely untaught and untrained in the doc trines and obligations and blessings of their religion? In certain of the country districts of the Diocese, careful study con vinces us it is feasible to gather to gether enough children for small parochial schools. Devoted Sisters to teach them stand ready at the call of the Church. We have only to pro vide them a school to teacl in. a convent to live in, and the children to teach will only too gladly flock to those centers. With all our other pressing obliga tions, we must not neglect our Negro children They stand greatly in need of better schools, with- better equip ment than we have hitherto supplied them. The orphans among them must be provided for o . a better scale if we are to give them a fair chance in life. Looking again to the future, we all know that the mani fold problems of inter-racial rela tionships will approach solution with the less friction, less danger to our social fabric, the more we deal with the immediate conditions confronting us in the spirit of Him with Whom there is neither white nor black, bond nor free. These little ones are equal members of our flock, they are equally a charge on our fraternal sympathies. I place their needs, without distinction, alongside all those other needs of our Diocese which I am laying on your hearts. CATHOLIC LAYMEN'S ASSOCIATI t O O- SOCIAL CENTER—RURAL LIFE BUREAU -O I I -O The difficult conditions of twentieth century life under which our fellow Catholics, especially the children, labor outside the cities, is a matter constantly of deep concern. To serve this need adequately and efficiently and economically a Catholic Social Center should be set up, staffed and maintained. From such a center the needful activities can r iate, day and night, week in and week out, to reach the needy. We have done enough in this direction already to know very definitely the sort of ser vice needed, where it is needed, and how and where to do it. Nothing is visionary. A Rural Life Bureau for the betterment of social and econo mic conditions of our ru.al Catholic families is perhaps the central fea ture. Again, for lack of parochial schools, many rural children have no facili ties for religious education other than our summer camp at Villa Marie. Along with healthful outdoor life, with all its fun, regular hours are O b Never to be forgotten so long as Catholicism exists in Georgia is the valiant service rendered the Church and the faithful during many trying years by the Catholic Laymen's Asso ciation. That organization became the spokesman for our faith when it was made the target of misrepresen tation and persecution. By dignified methods and in restrained 'rut force ful language, it met vilification with the weapons of simple truth and charity. Thus falsehood was van quished. While that particular battle is won, there is much for that body yet to do. But it is hampered in the doing by financial difficulties. I do not conceive it to be the duty of a handful of members to bear this burden alone, when all they do is for the benefit of all. I call on all the laity, then, to get behind the Lay men’s Association. When you do, one of the first things the Association plans to do is to convert its monthly publication, The Bulletin, into a weekly of such a character as to en title it to wide circulation through out the Diocese. It will be our Diocesan newspaper. It will give us a voice with which wc can speak to and for and through 'he Church. As all who join the Confraternity will be enrolled as members of the Catho lic Laymen’s Association, they will enjoy the privilege of receiving The Bulletin regularly without further ex pense during the two-year period covered by their coneributions to the Confraternity. O- FORWARD IN THE NAME OF GOD! — O We are confident that all will realize and appreciate the greatness of the task which'Mies before us. It presents a glorious opportunity to devote our best energies to the ad vancement of the work of God. It is a test of our faith in God, our loyalty to Holy Mother Church and our love for our oven souls, as well as for our fellow-man. The secret of success will lie in the united action of every member of the Diocese in manifesting a spirit of devotion and sacrifice for the great cause. When many share the burden, it will be light, and the joy of a success will be universal. Therefore, we plead with you and urge you, in the name of God, to take up this great work and carry it to final victory. May God bless every phase of it and reward every person who may have a share in it, according to our means and circum stances. still more, according to the measure of our love for God and our Holy Religion!.