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DECEMBER 24, 1955. THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA THIRTEEN Savannah’s second parish, St. Patrick’s, had Father John S. McCarthy as pastor from 1894 until his death in 1920, when Father Emmet M. Walsh suceed- ed him. Father McCarthy at the time of his death was one of the oldest priests in service in the Diocese; his priestly career start ed nearly 40 years before at the Cathedral in the days of Bishop Gross. After some years in' At lanta at the Church of the Im maculate Conception, he return ed to Savannah, and was for a long generation pastor at St. Patrick’s. He also was a Diocesan consultor. Father William Quin lan was assistant at St. Patrick’s from 1886 to 1906. followed by Father Schohhardt for a short period. Father Jeremiah O’Hara was at St. Patrick's from 1910 to 1920; Father Walsh as pastor had no assistant. BENEDICTINE SCHOOL Savannah’s Sacred Heart Church experienced phenomenal growth during the regime of Bishop Keiley. Father William Mayer, O.S.B., was succeeded as pastor in 1901 by Father Aloysi- us O'Hanlon, O.S.B. The year following, Father Bernard Haas, O.S.B., rector of the college at Belmont, went to Savannah as prior. The little community com- sisted of Father Bernard, prior, Father Aloysius, pastor of Sacred Heart Church, and Father Greg ory Windschiegel, O.S.B., pastor of St. Benedict’s Church, minis tering to the colored people. Father Bernard put into effect the Benedictine Fathers’ and the Bishop’s plan of an academy for boys. He renovated the old building erected by Father Osw ald, called it Benedictine Col lege, and started sessions Sep tember 29, 1902, with 21 pupils and one instructor, himself. He introduced the military feature, with Col. Jordan F. Brooks as commandant. In February, 1902, a tract of land between Bull, Whitaker, 33rd and 34th Streets was ac quired and the building of a church a priory started. Bishop Keiley laid the cornerstone that fall, assisted by Bishop Leo Haid, O.S.B., Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina and Abbot of Belmont, and Bishop Northrop of Charles ton; Bishop Keiley dedicated it February 12, 1905. In the mean time work on the new Bene dictine College was inaugurated; Bishop Keiley officiated at its dedication June 16, 1905. The name was later changed from Benedictine College to Bene dictine School. In 1916, Father Bernard acquir ed a site for a parish school at Abercorn, 38th and Drayton Streets, and remodeled the two buildings on the property, one as a school and the other as a convent. The Sisters of St. Jos eph, who had come to Savannah originally in 1867 and moved to Washington in 1876 to establish St. Joseph’s Home, were given charge of the school. The first enrollment was 125, in five grades; Sister Angela, superior, and five other Sisters constitut ed the community. FATHER BERNARD IN SAVANNAH Father Bernard remained pas tor of Sacred Heart Church and prior of the community until the last days of the episcopate of Bishop Keiley. He was also rec tor of Benedictine School until 1919, when the increasing work in the parish required him to release his scholastic post. Fath er Ambrose Gallagher, O.S.B., was his successor as rector of the school. Assisting him during his generation as prior, pastor and rector in addition to Father Aloysius, who went to Pennsyl vania in 1906, were the Bene dictine Fathers Jerome Finn, Anthony Meyer, Matthew Gras, Ambrose Gallagher, Cornelius Diehl, C. Rettger, Lawrence Mc- Hale, Eugene Egan, Dominic Vol- lmer, Philip Fink, Basil McKee, Maurice McDonnell, Raphael and Wilfrid Foley. They w'ere aided by lay teachers, the first of whom was Walter J. Hoxie, instructor in sciences. After. the retirement of Colonel Brooks, Capt. John A. Dailey succeeded him as commandant of the Bene dictine Cadets. An era at Sacred Heart Church and Benedictine School ended with the retirement of Father Bernard in 1922. He came to Savannah in 1902, the year in which the cornerstone for the new church was laid. As pastor and prior, he directed the erec tion of the new church, founded and developed Benedictine School with its splendid facili ties, and established Sacred Heart Parish School, securing the Sisters of St. Joseph to teach in it. His final • contribution to the parish was the preparation he made for the new parish school. PIONEER AT BELMONT Born in Erie, Pa., June 6, 1866, he entered the Benedic tines at St. Vincent Abbey; he was one of the little group of pioneers who came to North Carolina with Bishop Haid in 1885 to lay the foundations of that apostolic work. Ordained at Belmont December 20, 1889, he did missionary work in North Carolina and from 1896 to 1902 he was rector of the Abbey Col lege, where he had previously taught. He spent himself in the work in Savannah; returning to Belmont, he died there in 1933 after a long period of ill health. His funeral was held there De cember 2 from the Abbey Ca thedral he had helped to estab lish. The growth of Sacred Heart Parish made a new congregation in the rapidly developing Vic tory Drive section advisable; in 1919 Bishop Keiley appointed Father Daniel J. McCarthy, for merly pastor at Milledgeville and recently a chaplain in World War I, to establish it. The de velopment Qf native vocations was one of the most important achievements of Bishop Keiley. Vocations among native or resi dent Georgians had not been numerous through the years; af ter a lapse of some years Father McCarthy was the first of a long line of zealous native Dioce san clergy. NATIVE OF SAVANNAH The son of Mr. and Mrs. Michael C. McCarthy, his grand father, Daniel O’Sullivan, was one of the founders of Cathedral parish after the erection of the Diocese, when the church be came a Cathedral instead of a merely parish edifice. He was educated at Cathedral School, Savannah High School, Belmont Abbey College and St. Bernard’s Seminary, Rochester; he was at St. Bernard’s when the famous Bishop McQuaid guided it and when men like Dr. Edward J. Hanna, later Archbishop of San Francisco, were members of the faculty. Ordained February 16, 1910, he was , assistant at Albany and, from 1912, pastor of Sacred Heart Church, Milledgeville, and the Central Georgia Missions. From the earliest days of the Church in Georgia, the care of the colored was of great concern to the Bishops, priests and reli gious. A number of the slaves of the early French settlers were Catholics. They were a special consideration of Bishop Eng land, who braved public opinion by starting a school for them in Charleston. Bishop Barron, for mer Vicar Apostolic of Liberia, who died in Savannah in 1854, made them the particular object of his ministrations. The Cath olic Directory of 1855 reported that at Jekyl Island there was “a small frame chapel erected by Negroes on the Island, who form a principal part of the con gregation. Attended from Sav annah. SCHOOLS FOR NEGROES When the Sisters of St. Joseph arrived in 1867, they established a school for Negro children in Savannah, thus augmenting the work of the Sisters of Mercy. The Benedictines in 1875 found ed a school for Negro boys at Skidaway Island and received them as novices in their monas tery there; they established St. Benedict’s Parish for the color ed in Savannah when they were laying the foundations of Sacred Heart Parish. The Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Im maculate Conception had an orphanage and school for Negro children in Augusta in 1880; it suspended for a time but was re-established in 1901. In Aug usta and Macon the Jesuit Fath ers had special priests assigned to the work. No class or race has a mono poly on the Church and all with in the confines of a parish have equal rights in the parish church. But persons of the same language or racial background like to as sociate with one another, a hu man tendency the Church recog nized by permitting the formation of parishes predominantly Irish, German, French, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, etc. The success of St. Benedict’s Parish in Savannah under the Benedictine Fathers and the slower progress among the colored people elsewhere in the Diocese made it evident that if the Negroes were to be won to the faith in large numbers, it would ,be necessary to provide them with their own churches and parishes. SOCIETY OF AFRICAN MISSIONS Bishop Keiley therefore invited into the Diocese the Society for African Missions, an association of secular priests founded in Ly ons, France, in 1856 by Msgr. de Marion-Bresillac for work among Negroes. They were given charge of the Vicariate of Benin, Africa, in 1860, and later of the Gold Coast, Nigeria, the Delta of the Nile and the five prefectures Apostolic of the Ivory Coast. With preparatory seminaries in France and Holland, seminaries at Cler mont-Ferrand, France, and Cork, Ireland, and a motherhouse in Lyons, the Society for African Missions had been sending a stream of missionaries to Africa for fifty years when Father Ig natius Lissner, who was to be pro vincial of the new American Pro vince, Father Gustavus Obrecht and Father Dennis O’Sullivan ar rived in Savannah in 1907 to start the Georgia work. Father Gregory Windschiegel, O.S.B., was then pastor of St. Benedict’s Church, having suc ceeded Father Gregory Meier, O.S.B., in 1897. Bishop Keiley in 1907 assigned the parish to the Society of the African Missions. Father Obrecht was named pas tor, remaining in that capacity until 1944, when he was named pastor emeritus. His assistants in Bishop Keiley’s time were Fath ers Joseph Dahlent, John B. Thu- et, Eugene Peter, J. L. Ehret, Pet er Hess and J. Schomnesser. ST. ANTHONY'S PARISH The work flourished so that a second parish, St. Anthony’s, was founded in 1909, with Father M. Pfleger, S.M.A., as pastor, and Father F. Herrbrecht, S.M.A., as assistant. Father Joseph Zimmer man, S.M.A., succeeded as pastor in 1911 and Father Alphonse Barthlen, S.M.A., in 1920, when Father Zimmerman became pas tor emeritus. Assistants during those years included Fathers Con stant Viau, J. B. Thuet and A. Reber, all of the Society of Afric an Missions. An indication of the progress of the work is the manner in which the school developed. When Bishop Keiley retired in 1922, the school of the original parish for Negroes, now known as that of St. Benedict the Moor, had 201 boys and 314 girls. There were also 60 boys and 72 girls at the new St. Anthony’s School, and a third one had been started at the Mission of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; the schools were taught by 13 Missionary Francis can Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and a Sister of the Immacplate Heart of Mary, a new order founded by Father Lissner. THE ATLANTA PARISHES In Atlanta, Father Louis Bazin, who had succeeded Bishop Keiley as pastor of the Church of the Immaculate Conception when he went to Savannah as Cathedral rector in 1896, likewise succeeded him as vicar general in 1900. When Father Bazin went to St. Patrick’s Augusta, in 1907, Fath er Robert F. Kennedy became pastor of Atlanta’s mother church. A native of Savannah, where he was born in 1861, Father Ken- nedy attended \ St. Patrick’s School there, and St. Mary’s Se minary, Baltimore; he was or dained in 1888 by Cardinal Gib bons. After a short stay as as sistant in Atlanta, he was pastor in Milledgeville for five years, then returning to Atlanta as as sistant to Father Keiley. When Father Keiley went to Savannah as rector of the Ca thedral, Father Kennedy soon fol lowed; when Father Keiley be came Bishop, Father Kennedy succeeded him as rector, also serving as chancellor. He was pas tor of the Church of the Imma culate Conception, Atlanta, from 1907 until failing health occasion ed his retirement in 1924; he died March 12, 1930, after 42 years in the priesthood in his native Doce- se. Assistants to Father Bazin as pastor of the Church of the Im maculate Conception were Fath ers O. N. Jackson, W. A. McCar thy and Joseph Hennessy; Father Kennedy’s assistants included Fathers Edward McVeigh, Wil liam Quinlan, Emmet M. Walsh, Timothy A. Foley and Joseph E. Moylan. FATHER JOHN E. GUNN, S.M. In the latter days of Bishop Becker’s episcopacy Father John E. Gunn, S.M., had succeeded Father Gibbons as pastor of Sacr ed Heart Church, Atlanta. Father Gunn was one of te outstanding scholars of the Society of Mary. Born March 15, 1863, in County Tyrone, Ireland, he was educat ed in the Marist Houses of Study in Ireland, England, and France, at the Catholic University in Dub lin and at the Pontifical Gregor ian University in Rome, where he was awarded his doctorate, in theology. Ordained in Rome Feb ruary 2, 1890, by the Patriarch of Constantinople, he spent two years in parish work in the Arch diocese of Westminster, London. Coming to the United States, he was for the next six years a mem ber of the Faculty of the Marist House of Studies at the Catholic University of America. From there he went to Atlanta in 1898. EXPANSION OF THE PARISH There was a substantial debt on the new church, which also had a growing monthly deficit. The new edifice was a commodi ous and attractive one, but it lacked-such necessities as a serv iceable organ, a good furnace and many furnishings. The little rec tory was too small. Father Gunn was stricken with typhoid; he spent his time in St. Joseph’s In firmary planing the future of the parish. He bought the organ, in stalled the furnace and other nec essary furnishings, added a sec ond story to the rectory and, through a loan from Dr. R. D. Spalding, bought for over $6,000 the adjoining property of a neigh bor who had made himself ob jectionable. But this was only a beginning. The Sisters of Mercy Academy in Immaculate Conception Parish educated girls through the high school grades. The Sisters of St. Joseph at Loretto School taught boys in the grammar school. There was no high school for boys. The need for one was felt long before, when the Jesuit Fathers received permission to start one. But they centered their efforts elsewhere, and Father Vincent Brennan’s history of the Marists in Atlanta says that they fell heir to this permission. On the First Friday of June, 1901, a favorite day for starting projects in the parish, Father Gunn had work on Marist College inaugur ated. In October it welcomed its first students. The Marist mem bers of the faculty had their liv ing quarters in the school until the erection of the new rectory. MARIST COLLEGE FOUNDED The difficulties of starting the school were increased by a mounting wave of anti-Catholic ism sponsored by the most notori ous anti-Catholic of his day, Tho mas Watson, publisher of The Jeffersonian and, when that got into trouble with the government in the war days, of the Columbia Sentinel. But despite all handi caps, Marist College was a suc cess from the first day; not only Catholics but members of leading non-Catholic families of the city entered their sons there. By 1907 it had 125 students enrolled. Father Gunn then felt that a parish grammar school was nec essary; he secured two houses on Courtland Street, remodeled them, and threw their doors open in October, 1909, to 150 pupils in six grades, taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph; In 1910 he could report that practicaly every child in the parish of school age was in the parochial school. (To Be Continued) (Copyright 1955)