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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA _ AUGUSI—
GJljp HJuUpIui
Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen's
Association of Georgia, Incorporated.
, HUGH KINCHLEY, Editor ~
216-2J7 Southern Finance Building, Augusta, Ga.
ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1944-1945
BERNARD S. FAHV, Rome vr^PwSl
MARTIN J. CALLAGHAN, Macon
J. B. McCALLUM, Atlanta freasurM
HUGH GRADY, Savannah treasurer
HUGH KINCHLEY, Augusta Executive Secretary
MISS CECILE FERRY, Augusta Financial Secietary
A. M McAULIFFE, Augusta Auaitor
Vol. XXVI.
August 25, 1945
No. 8
in P Sc < ction Sent
i, 1921 —-
■ ”■ « ». in . p News Service, Relielous News
Association — '
p".,Wished monthly by the p 11 "’! 1 ' MoTrw-
mont. .
A Century of Catholic History
T HE year 1945 brings the one hundredth anni
versarv of the first celebration of the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass in Albany, Georgia.
and members of St. Theresa s P^b^VeAanie!
under the leadership of their pastor. F ?[hfr Darnel
l Rourke are now preparing for a fitting com
memoration of that blessed beginning of a century
of missionary effort which has yielded abundant
U One hundred years ago, Albany was Just a small
village, scarcely ten years old. No raI ^° ad “ ad
yet been extended to the community and its com
merce was carried on by boats on the Throrateeska
[liver, now known as the Hint, or y
wagon trails.
Colonel Nelson Tift, the founder of the village,
had come to Georgia from Mystic, Connecticut
and “selecting the site of the settlement named
il Albany since its location at the head of naviga
lion of the Throrateeska, reminded him of Alba y.
New York, on the Hudson.
ssjsjsrj: ssav-fireiK!
the Atlantic seaboard, from Virginia to the Gulf ot
M There were a number of Catholics among the
pioneer settlers of Albany, and remembered oi
ihrm are Dennis Brosnan, Cornelius^Coffey, Hu
belt O'Kelly, James Curley, Stephen Eagen, Ji *^
Neldon Peter McDonough, P. L. Dunleavy John
B Neundorfer, James Hanlon Dr Barbour,
Walker, General and Mrs. A. H. Brisban
Also among their number was John Valentine
Mock and it was at his plantation home that Mass
was offered for the first time in Dougherty County.
In their devotion to their Catholic Faith, °-
early settlers of Albany can easily be imagined as
welcoming with great joy the ^^‘L^er CunL
miosis like Father Birmingham and ratner v-um
f,"n and Bishop Barry, who would visit among
them at infrequent intervals to minister to their
spiritual needs, to offer Mass for them, give them
oDDortunity to go to Confession and to receive Holy
Communion, baptize their infants, instruct^ir
children, and preach the Word of God to them.
After some years, during which Mass had been
offered in-home of the Mock family Colone
Tift who was not a Catholic, gave a plot of land
to his Catholic friends as the site of the eburcli
which they liad long desired to bmld, and :in 1859
work was begun on the erection of the bttle brick
church within whose hallowed, ivy-clad walls
Catliolics in Albany still gather to worship before
the Altar of God.
In 1861. war between the North and the South
came to cause a delay in the completion of the
edifice, but when the Conquered Banner of the
Confederacy had been furled, the grey-clad war
riors had trod the weary miles back home, and as
with unconquered courage they began to rebuild
their lives, the task of completing the interior of
the church was taken up again.
During the Reconstruction era, priests like Father
O’Neill, Father Bazin, Father O’Reilly, bather
Semmes and Father Quinlan came to Albany un
til the fall of 1875, when Father Stephen J. Beytaugh
was appointed as the first resident pastor of St.
Theresa's Church.
Father Beytaugh had been in Albany just about
a year when he died from yellow fever, contracted
while administering the> Last Sacraments to a
member of his mission parish in Americus
Father John Murphy, who succeeded bather
Byetaugh, died in lest than a year after going to
St. Theresa’s as pastor.
In 1879 Father P. H. McMahon, oi blessed
memory, went to Albany as p..slor, but the rigorous
hardships on the many missions attached to tne
parish impaired his health, and he was succeeded
bv Father Charles Clement Prendergast, who was
pastor in 1882 when St. Theresa’s Church was
formally dedicated by Bishop Gross.
After the death of Father Predergast, in 1896,
Albany and its missions were served by the Jesuit
Fathers from Macon, until 1901, when Father John
J Powers, a Diocesan priest, was appointed as
pastor.
Since that time Albany and its missions have
been served by many zealous priests, pastors and
assistants, among whom were Father Sehadewell,
Father Reich, Father Jeremiah O’Hara, Father Mc
Mahon, Father Schonhardt. Father Dan McCarthy,
Father Clark, Father Hamilton, Father Keenan,
Father Van der Zon, Father Bessemer, Father
Luckie, Father Parker, Father Brennan, Father
Sheehan, Father King, Father Finn, Father Quin
lan, Father Frizelle, Father Malloy, Father Honeck,
Father Olalia, Monsignor Cassidy, and others, in
cluding the present Bishop of Charleston, the Most
Reverend Emmet M, Walsh. ,
Two religious vocations have blessed St. Theresa s
God Hath Given Us the Victory
■vyriTH Japan’s abject admission of defeat, the
YY most devastating and terrible war the world
T has ever known comes to its end, and the
Star Spangled Banner of our beloved country
waves in triumph with the banners of the nations
which were our allies. In humble gratitude let us
offer thanks to the God of battles who gave us the
victory.
Well may we say “thanks be to God, who hath
given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,
for the intervention of the Providence of God is the
only explanation of our victory.
There might have been small cause for us to re
joice today if the Germans '’ad followed up the bat
tle of Dunkirk with an invasion of the, then far
from impregnable, British Isles. Much of the de
struction visited on Poland and England and France
couid have been inflicted upon our own country if
the Japanese had kept on coming across the Pacific
after crippling our fleet at Hawaii on the “date that
will live ir. infamy.’’ There was nothing human
to stop them.
We owe our most profound thanks to Almighty
Gqd that the secret of the atomic bomb was reveal
ed to American and British scientists before the
Germans couid make that discovery.
It must be significant that the news of the sur
render of Japan coincided with the Feast of the As
sumption «f the Mother of God, whose intercession
for peace had been sought throughout the war.
His Holiness Pope Pius XII, since the start of the
war, had set aside the month of May as a period of
special devotion to thd Blessed Mother, and had
urged that her intercession be asked for an early
end of the conflict, a plea which the Holy Father
stressed most strongly this year. It was during May
that Germany surrendered.
A fecent decree of the Sacred Congregation ol
Rites designated the octave of the Feast of the As
sumption as the date for the universal Feast of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, recalling that Our
Lady of Fatima had asked for the consecration of
the world to her Immaculate Heart and for Com
munion in reparation on the first Saturday of each
month, promising that if her requests be heard, her
Immaculate Heart would triumph, Russia would he
converted, and an era of peace would be conceded
to humanity.
Difficult are the days which are ahead when so
lutions will be sought for post-war problems. With
our prayers for peace, let us fervently implore that
God will strengthen Us to make that victory one
which will be a blessing, not for our nation alone,
but for all the world.
An Army bulldozer in far-off
Manila made its final sweep in
ieveling off a track of ground.
When it chugged to a stop, the
internationally famous Manila Ob
servatory, which the Jesuits had
operated for the past eighty
years, has been reduced to a
memory—but a glorious memory.
The Observatory was adjacent
to the Ateneo de Manila, college
and preparatory school for boys
which the Jesuits had conducted
since 1859. During the Battle of
Manila last February the Japan
ese had put the buildings to the
torch and when the battle had lift
ed little more than four walls
were left standing.
Father William C. Uepetti, S. J.,
of Washington, D. C., who has
been in the Philippines since 1928,
is presently at Georgetown Uni
versity, was on the staff of the
Manila Observatory during the
final stages of its existence. He
said that the loss of the Atenoe
and the Observatory constituted
some of the greatest property
damage sustained by the Jesuits
in the Philippines.
Well over $200,000 damage was
suffered by the Observatory, Fa
ther Repetti said. A library of
some 8,000 books was destroyed,
and there was some equipment
which cannot be replaced.
In 1879, one of the priests at
tached to the Observatory made
the first successful prediction of
a typhoon. Since then the services
of the Observatory have constant
ly increased, with the addition of
pilot balloon ascents, radio broad
casts of weather reports, typhoon
warnings and time signals, car
ried with the cooperation of the
U. S. Naval Radio Station at Ca
vite Navy Yard.
The Catholic Church stands as a
1 champion of democracy, and de-
1 mocracy stands, politically for the
! Christian faith, its precepts and
teachings, The Evening World-
Herald, a secular newspaper pub
lished in Omaha, declares in an
editorial which aims at countering
charges brought over the Moscow
radio that the Vatican is a “re
actionary” force striving “to save
fascism.”
“Totalitarianism, in any of its
forms, including communism as
well as fascism, is the enemy alike
of Christianity and democracy,”
the editorial observes. “That is
why Christians are called upon,
by their very creed, to resist it.
“And that is why Moscow, de
voted to its own form of totalita-
riarism, resists and fears the in
fluence not only of the Vatican,
but of Christianity in all its forms
wherever it exists.”
The editorial, entitled “Incom
patible,” begins by comparing
Moscow attacks on the “reaction
ary” Vatican with almost si
multaneous remarks of the Holy
Father in which he warns against
Ihe “fatal consequences” of as
signing unlimited powers to the
State, thus poisoning “the natural
channels of the people’s national
life,” and leaving the stability of
international relations “at the
mercy of the same capricious des
potism.”
parish, Miss Estelle Elizabeth Brosnan and Miss
Catherine Theresa Brosnan, daughters of Mr. and
Mrs. Dennis Brosnan, who entered the Sisters of
Mercy in Macon, as Sister Mary Joseph, who was
librarian at Mount de Sales in Macon at the time
of her death, and as Sister Mary de Sales, who is
still teaching in this Diocese.
In the years when Bishop Walsh was pastor of
St. Theresa’s, the far-flung mission territory of
Albany embraced an area 15,000 square miles m
extent, covering about one-third of the whole State
of Georgia, and including forty-one counties.
There were churches at Albany, Alapaha, Ameri
cus, Bainbridge, Fitzgerald, Moultrie, Thomasville
and Willacooclice, and in other places Mass was
offered in private homes.
In visiting their mission stations, the piiests
traveled by rail, on trains, good, bad and indif-
ferent, by mule-drawn vehicles, and by T-Modei
Ford, which last method of transportation made
possible the celebration of two masses at two dif- ,
ferent places on a Sunday.
Mission stations were Adel, Andersonville, j
Arlington, Cordele, Cuthbert, Cecil, Dosia, Dupont,
Dawson, Douglas, Golden, Haliira, Iron City, Mill-
town, Naylor, Nashville, Ocilla, Quitman, Rhine,
Ray City, Sylvester, Sycamore, Stockton, Tifton,
Valdosta and West Green,
The churcnes in Americus and Thomasville now
have resident pastors who also serve a part of the
mission territory once served from Albany.
Other churches have been erected in Valdosta,
Cordele and Douglas, and a new church has re
placed the ancient structure in Alapaha. rhere
is a resident pastor in Valdosta, and the Oblate
Fathers served the surrounding territory from their
Mission Center at St. Paul’s Church in Douglas.
From Fitzgerald, once a part of .ne Albany mis
sion area, came Father Herman Deimel, now pastor
of Holy Family Church, Columbus, first Georgian
ordained from a city in which there was no resident
'^Trulv the Faith has flourished in Albany and
throughout the Southwest Georgia mission area,
and it is with grateful hearts that the members
of St Theresa’s parish will gather to assist at tne
Solemn Mass of Thanksgiving which will crown
the celebration of the centennial of the Holy Sacri
fice offered a hundred years ago.
The Catliolics of Albany, proud of the record
of the past, are mindful of the future, and are
marking their centennial year with the inauguration
of a building program, according to which they
are proceeding in a practical way toward the erec
tion of a new and more spacious church, a rectory,
a convent and a school, for this fall the opening
of a parochial school will bring the fullness ot
Catholic Life to St. Theresa’s parish.
Through the years, the priests and people of St.
Theresa’s parish have shared in the many progres-
sive activities of the religious, cultural, social and
commercial life of Albany. Parishioners have
served as heads of departments in city and county
governments, in the public school system as
founders of business organizations, as superintend-
ents and nurses in the hospital, and as leaders in
social and civic groups.
Albany is a city of good neighbors, of tolerance.
Its people are people of vision, with faith and a
capacity of service above self. Such has been its
spirit from the founding of the little village in 18J6
to the thriving, progressive city of today.
Such has been the spirit of St. Theresa’s in Al
bany as generations have lived and worshiped anil
passed on. Trough a century has passed since
Mass was first offered in Albany, it may be said,
with the Poet Laureate of Georgia:
“Stili glows the candle flame;
Still stands the altar stone.”
Ralph T. Jones, associate editor
of The Atlanta Constitution, re
cently devoted his column, which
is a daily feature of that news
paper’s editorial page, to a dis
cussion entitled “Photographs
Can Be Not What They Seem.”
In concluding, Mr. Jones wrote:
“I remember when one of the
greatest news photographers who
ever worked in Atlanta received
an order from a news picture
syndicate to get a picture of a Ku
Klux Klan ceremonial. That was
back in the early ’twenties, when
the KKK was news, even though
a shameful outrage. Now the KKK
didn’t permit any pictures of their
ceremonials. They kept plenty of
husky sentries and guards to pre
vent just such an event. But this
photographer wasn’t stumped.
He, with his wife’s help, trans
formed a lot ot old sheets into
sufficiently realistic facsimiles of
Ihe klan gowns and masks and re
galia, hired a bunch of stand-ins,
took them to a field with a good
outcrop of rocks, made them don
(he fake KKK apparel and made
his pictures.
“And labeled them scenes of a
secret KKK ceremonial on Stone
Mountain.
“You may recall the chief shame
of the KKK was that it attracted
dupes into membership — with
their initiation fees in hand—by
pandering to racial hatreds.
I “And the joke was the hired
] stand-ins, inside those imitation
‘ robes and masks, were all Negro
boys.”
The Pontiff’s “unsparing utter
ance” (taken from his address at
an audience granted to Herbert
H. Lehman, Director of UNRRA)
“condemns fascism in much the
same terms” the editorial states,
“and for the Identical reasons,
that champions of human liberty
and dignity of man have ever
condemned and opposed it.”
The editorial continues by
quoting from the last statement
by the Bishops composing the Ad
ministrative Board, National
Catholic Welfare Conference, in
which they declare that “two
strong, essentially incompatible
ways of life will divide the loyalty
of men and of nations in the po
litical world of tomorrow,” point
ing out that Mexican totalitarian
ism is an active enemy against
which “genuine dmocracy must
constantly be on guard.”
“Right here, it appears,” the
editorial in The iweninu World-
Herald begins, “is the reason for
Moscow’s continued denunciation
of the Vatican.”
The editorial concludes by say
ing that “the record needs to be
kept straight, in the laudable and
honorable effort to find a way by
which war between totalitarian
ism and democracy my long be
averted.”
Be lie friend or foe, the Army
chaplain is always at the service
of mankind. Take, for example,
the recent experience of Capt.
Joseph J. Vogel, a priest of the
Diocese of Buffalo and chaplain
of the IBfth Regiment on Oki
nawa.
Father Vogel was returning
from offering Mass for an assault
battalion engaged in mop-up op
erations on the island when lie no
ticed a Japanese soldier in a field
near the road. He stopped his jeep
and approached the soldier. The
Japanese raised liis hands in sur
render, gestured for a drink of
water. Father Vogel searched him
for weapons, gave him a drink and
took him in his jeep back to head
quarters. The Japanese disclosed
that he had had no food or water
for five days,,
Coast Guardsman Donald Mo-
lony, 17-year-old Catholic youth,
hospital apprentice from Detroit,
emerged as one of the heroes of
the Empire State Building tragedy.
After witnessing the bomber strike
the building he rushed to a drug
store, obtained a first-aid kit and
gave medical,aid to the victims.
Crawling through a hole blasted
into an elevator shaft in the sub
basement the youth administered
first aid to a badly-burned eleva
tor operator. Later he climbed the
stairs to the seventieth floor where
he found three injured persons
whom he carried to safety a few
floors below. He also climbed to
the offices of War Relief Service-
N. C. C. W. on the seventy-ninth
floor and helped firemen gather
up the charred bodies.
Father Matrin d'Arcy, S. J.,
Master of Campion. Hall, Oxford
University, has been appointed
Provincial of the Jlnglish Province
of the Society of Jesus. At the be
ginning of the ,.r, Father d’Arcy
was Dean of Philosophy at Ford-
ham University in New York.
A startling coincidence was not
ed between the bomber crash trag
edy at the Empire State Building,
which consumed the lives of eleven
staff members of War Relief Scr-
vices-N. C. W. C., and the prayers
of the Sacred liturgy of the Mass
which offered that morning.
In the Communion of the Mass
taken from the Common of the
Martyrs, the priest prayed: “And
though in the sight of men they
suffered, God hath tried them,
As Gold in the furnace he hath
proved them, and as a holocaust
hath received them.” (Wisflom
1II-4, 5, 6)
The ntense heat spell in Rome
has forced His Holiness Pope Pius
XII to spend part of each day in
the Chinese pavilion located in the
highest part of the Vatican gar
dens. The building was erected
by Pope Leo XIII and was mod
eled after a similar structure in
the Pontiff's birthplace in the
small town of Carpineto, near
Rome.
The Holy Fat.ier works in . le
pavilion for two hours in the morn
ings and then returns to his apart
ments in the Vatican palace. De
spite the insistence of his physi-
c' s, His Holiness has refused to
g~ to his summer residence at Cas-
ted Gondolfo, partly because the
bomb-damaged town has not suffi
cient accommodations for the Pa
pal staff, and because he finds the
air there even more humid than
in Vatican City. —II. K.