Newspaper Page Text
»
A
PAGE 2—The Southern Cross, March 23, 1963
>> ■: .........
MARK FEAST OF ST. JOSEPH—Pictured above addres
sing members of the Savannah Italian Club and their fam
ilies and friends is Fr. Andrew Doris, O.S.B., faculty
member of Benedictine Military School. The occasion was
a celebration and dinner held on Sunday, March 17, in
honor of St. Joseph, patronal saint of Italy. In the left of
the photo is Fr. Lawrence A. Lucree, assistant, Cathedral
of St. John the Baptist.
Compliments Of
Major
League
Lanes
2005 E. Victory
Savannah
COMPLIMENTS
OF
KEN-BLOCK
COMPANY
SAVANNAH
r
THE PRINTCRAFT
PRESS
Quafifa
PRINTING
Commercial And Job Printing
Letter Press & Lithography
345 Abercorn
Savannah
Compliments
Of
MOCK
CO.
BILL MOCK-
Plumbing-Heating
Air Conditioning
Industrial Piping
Utilities & Equipment
Rental
Day or Night Phone
AD 2-1104
925 E. 37th St.
Savannah
Recalls Early History Of Cathedral Parish
(By Very Rev. Joseph D.
Mitchell, V.G.)
Savannah and Augusta are the
two oldest Catholic settlements
in our State which remain to the
present day. The colony at Lo
cust Grove, a few miles from
Sharon, is usually styled the
"cradle of Catholicity” in
Georgia. This claim is true so
far as its being the first or
ganized parish is concerned.
But the first individual Cathol
ics who came to Georgia set
tled in Savannah and Augusta;
and Savannah, being the seaport
town, may rightly claim that
from the beginning, as now,
the Catholic religion radiated
from this place as its center
throughout the other parts of the
State.
Locust Grove was settled
shortly after the Revolutionary
War by a few Catholic families
from Maryland. The oldest rec
ords we have from this place
go back to 1794. The records
of the parish of St. John the
Baptist in Savannah begin with
the year 1796; but there is evi
dence that a little Catholic col
ony existed in this city for sev
eral years before, and its people
were attended from time to time
by a priest from Baltimore or
Freed Prelate
Attends Rites
For Mother Seton
VATICAN CITY, March 18
(Radio, NC)—Archbishop Josyf
Slipyi of Lviv attended the af
ternoon ceremonies (March 17)
for the beatification of Mother
Seton—his first public appear
ance since he was released from
confinement by the Soviet Union.
The 70-year-old Primate of
the Ukraine reached Rome Feb
ruary 9 after 18 years of im
prisonment and house arrest in
the Soviet Union.
Augusta Drive
For $200,000
(Continued from Page 1)
eighty-four were enrolled in
St. Mary’s Elementary School,
tlhirty one. in Sacred Heart
School and one hundred and
fifty-nine in public schools.
This gives the parish 774 chil
dren of grammar school age.
Msgr. Bourke estimated that
50 per-cent of those who attend
ed public schools would enroll
at St. Mary’s if space were
available. This means that, in
effect, 695 sought admission to
Eugene M. Howerdd, Jr.
General Chairman
St. Mary’s school this past fall.
But because of the limitation
imposed by space, only 594
were admitted.
The proposed addition of five
classrooms will give the school
a capacity of 680 students—as
suming 40 per room or a ca
pacity of 765—assuming 45 per
room.
The expansion will permit
two classrooms for each of the
grades one through eight, bring
ing the size of the school up to
a recommended maximum.
Albert von Kamp Gary
Special Gifts
Although the Cathedral of St. John
the Baptist is not yet one hundred years
old, the parish which it serves is one
of the oldest in the State, being or
ganized shortly after the close of the
revolutionary war.
The following is the first of a two-
part historical sketch of Savannah’s Ca
thedral parish, written by Monsignor
Joseph Mitchell in 1920. Monsignor Mit
chell is a former rector of the Ca
thedral and is presently living in re
tirement at the Alexian Brothers Hos
pital Signal Mountain, Tennessee.
Charleston.
It is quite true that Georgia
was the last of the thirteen
English colonies, and that its
charter prohibited Catholics
as citizens. Yet in spite of this
there are evidences that Catho
lics were here from the begin-
WINDOW in Cathedral transept depicts Murillo’s paint
ing of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Shown di
rectly below it is the coat of arms of Savannah’s Bi
shop.
If U. S. Excludes Private Education
Historian Warns Of
High Social Price
44
55
POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y.,(NC)
—A Vassar College history
professor says the nation would
be short-sighted to deny
Federal education aid to
church-related and other pri
vate schools.
Carl N. Degler says that
private schools are permanent
ly a part of American educa
tion, and denial of Federal help
will force them to give a second
-class education to millions of
citizens.
This result, he says, would
be a "high social price” to pay
for "adamant refusal to grant
some government support to
denominational schools.”
Degler, who expresses his
views in the Vassar Alumnae
magazine, is the author of "Out
of Our Past,” a book which
studied the forces that shaped
modern America, and is co
author of a forthcoming col
lege-level American history
textbook. He identifies himself
as a non-Catholic in his article.
The professor says that
inclusion of church-related
schools in Federal aid propo
sals appears to him as "con
stitutionally possible” because
the assistance would "only in
cidentally aid religion while
pursuing a large social pur
pose.”
Noting the sacrifices that Ca
tholics have made to establish
and maintain their school sys
tems, Degler writes that "a
sympathetic understanding of
the burdens which a Catholic’s
conscience imposes upon him is
a far better way to insure social
amity than the continued asser
tion by non-Catholics that the
Catholic sacrifice is beyond
social mitigation.”
Degler writes that because
children in Catholic schools are
not educated at public expense,
this amounts to a 4 ‘definite and
material” benefit to non-Catho
lic citizens.”
Yet, he adds, Catholics also
contribute to the support of a
school system they do not use.
"In view of such solid advan
tages,” he writes, "the Catholic
of average income cannot be
too harshly criticized if he
sometimes doubts the disinter
estedness of his non-Catholic
neighbor’s commitment to sep
aration of Church and State.”
"Moreover,” he writes,
"many Catholics know that the
tradition of separation of
Church and State as it has been
worked out in education is not
simply a result of abstract
principle.
"They know that the principle
historically grew up in a context
of fear of Catholic immigration
in the 19th century. They also
know that today many of the
m6st vociferous defenders of
the principle are also flagrant
ly anti-Catholic in a basic
sense—people like Paul Blans-
hard and organizations like
Protestants and Other Ameri
cans United for Separation of
Church and State.”
Degler also states that "al
though Protestants tend to for
get, Catholics have not forgot
ten” that the history of Catho
licism in the United States is
"one of the most unsavory as
pects of our national past.”
4 ‘No other religion, with the
exception of Mormonism, has
been persecuted at such length
and with such organization and
determination.
"The story begins with the
burning of convents in the
1830’s, goes down through the
American Protective Associa
tion of the 1890’s to the Ku
Klux Klan of the 1920’s” he
writes.
ning, and there is history at
tached to the first Savannah par
ish as interesting and as full of
romance as that of any part of
the country. It is my purpose to
gather together what facts there
are and put them in such form
that they may be preserved by
future generations. Many of the
characters who helped in the
founding of the Church in Sa
vannah are not only deserving of
remembrance, but their lives
will be an inspiration for others
to emulate and follow.
THE EARLY SPANISH
MISSIONS
The first Catholics in Geor
gia, so far as any records show,
were the Spaniards. Our or
dinary school histories, gener
ally written from a New Eng
land Puritan standpoint, either
gloss over their exploits, or
else paint them in colors of
cruelty and avarice. It may
be that many of these early
settlers and explorers were
guided by ambition and desire
for riches and worldly fame,
but they were often accompanied
by holy men of God, whose only
purpose and desire in braving
the dangers of the forest was
the bringing of the Light of
Faith to the savage Indian
tribes. The early story of the
Floridas and Carolinas and
along the Gulf is one of intre
pid zeal for the faith, strong
religious fervor, and heroic
martyrdom. Georgia was the
scene of the first Christian bap
tism on record in the New
World, when, in the ill-fated
expedition of De Soto, two In
dian neophytes were baptized
and received into the Church at
a point about the center of this
State, near where the city of Ma
con is now located.
Along the eastern coast, from
St. Augustine to the Carolinas,
military posts were estab
lished, and from these as head
quarters, Spanish Dominican
and Franciscan Friars labored
among the Indian tribes and
brought many to the knowledge
of the Christ.
Between the years 1650 and
1705, as nearly as we can
guess from the meagre records
preserved, Franciscan mis
sions extended from St. Augus
tine in Florida to the mouth of
the Savannah River. These were
for a time in a flourishing con
dition, until the enroachments of
the English from Virginia and
the Carolinas, and their repeat
ed attacks upon the Spanish
towns and villages, caused them
to be broken up and abandoned,
Under Governor James Moore
of South Carolina, a cruel big
oted and ambitious man, the pa
gan Indian tribes were aroused
to attack and put to the sword
or tomahawk all who offered any
resistance. The Indian missions
were ruined, the converts scat
tered, and the early mission
aries either killed or taken
prisioners or left to wander in
the forests and find their way
back to the Florida settlements
as best they could. This was
from 1701 to 1706.
So far as Savannah is con
cerned, the city at that time had
no existence. The territory of
Georgia, lying as it did between
the Carolinas and Florida, was
claimed by both Spanish and
English. After many years of
dispute and conflict, it was fi
nally ceded to the English in the
early period of the eighteenth
century, and in 1732, General
Oglethorpe obtained from King
George II a charter for the
foundation of a new English
colony, ostensibly as a refuge
for oppressed debtors, but al
so, in the minds of the Brit
ish councillors, to form a “buf
fer state” in order to protect
the Carolinas from any dan
ger of attack on the part of the
Spaniards.
We know something definite of
the missions on the lower Geor
gia coast; but little has come
down to us concerning those
around Savannah. On Tybee Is
land there stood up to recent
years the old Martello tower,
built by the Spaniards as a
fortress to guard the entrance
to the Savannah River. It re
mained up to about six or sev
en years ago the oldest histor
ic relic in this section; but fin
ally, in spite of protests from
those interested in preserving
monuments of the past, was torn
down by order of the United
States military authorities be
cause it was in the way of th6
range. Its foundations still stand
level with the sand at Fort Scre
ven, near the Tybee lighthouse,
a mute testimonial of the Span
ish occupation of Eastern Geor
gia. At Wassaw Island, just be
low Tybee, within the memory
of the older people of Savannah,
there used to be remnants of
one of the old Spanish "mission-
stations” called "the monas
tery.” It has long since dis
appeared, and even its memory
has almost faded away.
There is little else that can
be said concerning the Span
ish missions near Savannah,
except that when John Wesley
tried to convert the Yamacraws
to the Christian faith, he was
told that the "black kings” had
been among them; and these
were supposed to be French. As
no French priests were in this
part of the country at that early
date, the "black kings” were no
doubt the early Spanish mis
sionaries of St. Francis, who
labored in the wilderness long
before the English had set foot
on Georgia soil. In the eyes of
the modern world their work
would be considered a failure,
although they accomplished
much for a time; but the souls
brought to the knowledge of the
faith are of greater value than
any "success” as measured
by the standards of the world.
C. F. POWERS
INSURANCE
120 E. BAY
AD 3-2184
SAVANNAH, GA.
COMPLIMENTS OF
Savannah Coca-Cola Bottling Co.
Congratulations
FROM
BELK-GRIFFETH
Two Stores To Serve You
217 W. Broughton Crossroads Shopping Center
OPEN TIL 9 P.M.
THIS IS BELK’S ‘DIAMOND JUBILEE’
Windy Herrin’s Record Shop
“Decorate Your Home With Music”
Suburban Store
FREE PARKING BOTH STORES
BELK-GRIFFETH
u
Known For Values