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Vol. 48, No. 41 SAVANNAH, GEORGIA. THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1968 $5 Per Year
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MESSAGE TO BISHOPS
Negro Priests
Think Church
White, Racist
BY JOHN R. SULLIVAN
DETROIT (NC) — The Catholic Church in the United States is
“primarily a white, racist institution,” and unless it reverses its
present practices and rejects all forms of racism within American
society it “will become unacceptable in the black community.”
This was the message delivered by nearly half of America’s
Negro priests almost on the eve of the spring meeting of the
National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
It was delivered to
Detroit’s Archbishop John F.
Dearden, president of the
NCCB. Among those who
prepared the indictment was
another prelate, Auxiliary
Bishop Harold R. Perry,
S.V.D., of New Orleans.
The black priests drew
attention to two trends in the
Church. They noted:
The priests were members
of the Black Catholic Clergy
Caucus which met in Detroit
in conjunction with the
annual meeting of the
Catholic Clergy Conference
on the Inter-racial
Apostolate.
-“The Catholic Church
apparently is not cognizant of
changing attitudes in the
black community, and is not
making the necessary
meaningful and realistic
adjustments.
The caucus was attended
by 58 of the 130 Negro
priests active in the U.S.
There are 59,803 priests in
the U.S.
-“The Catholic Church is
rapidly dying in the black
community. . .The black
community no longer looks
to the Catholic Church with
hope.”
They said it is imperative
that the Church recognize
change in the black
community.
The black caucus-closed
to all whites-followed on the
heels of similar meetings at
recent Protestant Church
conventions.
“White persons. . .must be
educated to these changing
attitudes and must be
prepared to accept and
(Continued on Page 2)
INSIDE STORY
Power Of Resurrection
ICC Track Meet
Celibacy Issue
CY.0. Workshop
CONVENTION LEADERS at next week’s Diocesan Convention
at Callaway Gardens Top Row (1. to r.) Are: Bishop Gerard L.
Frey, who will attend and be principal concelebrant of
Convention Mass and Mrs. P. D. Joines president of Savannah
D.C.C.W. Bottom row (1. to r.) are: Dr. Louis Castillian who will
introduce Banquet speakers and George Gingell, president
Savannah D.C.C.M.
REVEREND CLARENCE RIVERS, noted authority on Church Music and expert on social
problems, is pictured as he addressed Communion breakfast at Catholic Youth Convention held last
Sunday in Savannah. Also pictured is the Rev. William Simmons of Savannah’s Blessed Sacrament
parish. Hidden by lectern is the Rev. Herbert J. Wellmeier, pastor of Augusta’s Sacred Heart parish,
and Diocesan Director of Youth. (Staff photo by Bob Ward)
“FAMILY-COMMUNITY OF LOVE” IS THEME
Callaway Gardens Site Of
Joint Diocesan Meetings
Bishop Gerard L. Frey, of
the Diocese of Savannah, will
be in attendance at the
gathering of his Diocesan
family as the Councils ofMen
and Women and the Christian
Family Movement hold their
first joint Convention on May
4-5 at Holiday Inn of
Callaway Gardens, using the
theme, “The Family -
Community of Love”.
the Province of Atlanta.
Following the banquet
entertainment will be
provided by singing star, Miss
Fredye Marshall of
Columbus, her repertoire
including Negro spirituals,
songs of inspiration,
dixie-land jazz and operatic
arias.
Bishop Frey will give the
concluding remarks at the
Saturday evening banquet
and will be the principal
celebrant at the
Concelebrated Mass to be
held in the Penthouse at the
Inn pn Sunday morning.
Pre-convention activities
include a hospitality hour on
Friday evening at which the
Columbus Deanery Council
of Catholic Women will be
hostess and on Saturday
morning a tour of the famous
Callaway Gardens.
On Sunday morning the
8:30 Mass will be followed at
9:30 by a breakfast meeting
of the Christian Family
Movement. At 10:30 the
DCCW and DCCM will hold
separate meetings at which
convention committees will
report and election and
installation of officers will
take place. The convention
will come to a close at the
conclusion of these meetings.
are: Nominations, Mrs.
Melvin Hardy of Columbus,
Chairman, Mrs. James Flynn
of Savannah, Mrs. Ralph
Kahler, Albany, and- Mrs.
Richard Craig, Augusta;
Resolutions, Mrs. J. Harry
Persse of Savannah,
Chairman, Mrs. Polk Land,
Columbus, Mrs. Hal A. Davis,
Valdosta, and Mrs. Vance
Logan, Augusta; Credentials,
Mrs. Clifford Herzberg of
Augusta, Chairman, Mrs. Jack
F. Hal!, Albany, Mrs. Earl
Miller, Savannah, and Mrs. J.
M. Connolly, Columbus;
Elections Board, Mrs. R. E.
McCormick, Sr. of Albany,
Judge, Mrs. Jack Sheppard,
Savannah, Mrs. Janet A.
Cowan, Macon, and Mrs.
William Brown, Augusta.
Convention committees, as
announced by Mrs. P. D.
Joines, President of SDCCW,
Convention chairmen are
Mrs. Henry F. Gallman and
Mrs. Melvin Hardy, both of
Columbus.
The convention will open
on Saturday, May 4 with
registration from noon until 2
P.M., with separate business
meetings of the SDCCW and
SDCCM following. At 3 P. M.
concurrent workshops are
scheduled. Mrs. Edmond B.
Anderson, DCCW Family
Affairs Commission
Chairman, will moderate one
on “Changing Family
Patterns” in which CFM
members will participate
while William T. Gaudry,
DCCM Vice President, will
serve as moderator of the
Social Action workshop with
DCCM members as panelists.
HEADLINE
HOPSCOTCH
NATION
"Great Day”
Highlight of the
Convention is the banquet at
7:30 P.M. on Saturday.
Featured will be an address,
“Families in the World
Today”, by Mr. and Mrs.
Patrick J. Crowley of
Chicago, secretaries of the
CFM. Greetings from the
National Council of Catholic
Women will be extended by
Mrs. Thomas F. Palmer of
Miami, National Director of
NEW YORK (NC) - It was a great day for New York-one of
hard work, constructive dialogue and happy celebration. Along 45
streets in the Manhattan and Bronx boroughs (April 20) some
50,000 Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Italians, Jews, Slavs, Orientals and
people of other nationalities were joined by some 5,000 guest
volunteers from suburbia and other middle class areas. They spent
the day cleaning, renovating and decorating the inner city streets
and alleys, buildings and residences. Together the men, women
and children residents worked shoulder to shoulder with priests,
nuns, laymen and women volunteers. They cleaned backyards and
basements, did carpentry work, made plumbing repairs, painted
doors, windows and building facades.
EUROPE
Intercommunion
STOCKHOLM (NC) - Swedish Catholics were warned against
permitting the ecumenical spirit to result in an
“intercommunion” with “separated Christian brethren” that the
practice of intercommunion by Catholics, individually or
collectively, with Evangelical (Protestant) Christians in this
country damages the cause of ecumenism and is opposed to the
will of the Catholic Church.
FATHER CLARENCE RIVERS:
Workable Social
Order Needed For
Survival Of Man
BY JOHN MARKWALTER
Man cannot survive unless he loves his neighbor, the Rev. Clarence Rivers, noted Church Music
expert and lecturer on social problems, told more than 350 in attendance at last Sunday’s C.Y.O.
Communion Breakfast. The breakfast climaxed the two-day convention for Youth of the Diocese
held in Savannah.
“We cannot survive together,” Father Rivers said, “unless we can find a workable social order that
is far superior than the ones under which we have been living. We cannot maintain twentieth Century
technology and Twentieth Century population alongside caveman morality.”
Father Rivers said that he
felt that the days of extreme
nationalism had passed. “We
have been forced, almost for
the sake of survival, to try to
find and to try to make work a
United Nations. Our progress
in methods of transportation
and communication have
brought home to us the fact
that the world is a small place,
that the day of the isolationist
is past. California is but a few
minutes away from New York
by jet plane and Moscow is but
a few minutes away from
Washington by rocket. We
realize that during this very
day it is possible for this
world, in which we live, to be
consumed in a rocket
propelled nuclear holocaust,
and that, even by accident. It
has become impossible for any
reasoning man to consider any
country, any tribe or any
individual something or
someone far from himself and
therefore not a cause for
herself to kiss it, and to say the
magic words “I love you.” It
was at this moment that the
beast was transformed into a
handsome young prince.
to keep us from destroying
ourselves, .it is a matter as
simple as this- we must love,
or we will perish.
He said that today’s world
has many beasts. “To
America, Russia is a beast. To
industry and capital, labor is a
beast, and vice versa. To
Negroes, the White man is a
beast, and vice versa, but
under the skin of every beast is
a princely human being who
must sometimes be loved, be
cared for, before he can appear
lovable.” He continued, “Call
this love anything you
will-call it altruism,-call it
generosity, call it sacrifice, call
it charity or call it love, it is the
morality, the way of
acting. . .the only way. . .by
which the world can be
saved.”
In his sermon at the
Convention Mass, Bishop
Gerard L. Frey stressed the
need for Faith, remarking
that, “never before have we
needed Faith more. . .Faith in
God and Faith in our
fellowman.”
The Bishop said that the
Gospel of the day held an
interesting object lesson as it
told of Thomas who, because
he had not seen Christ himself,
had doubted that he had risen
from the dead and demanded
proof. He said that many of us
also try to demand proof
before we make a sincere Act
of Faith in God.
concern.
The Cincinatti priest said
that the world we live in is at a
particular crisis. “It is like a
young eagle, with untried
wings, now tottering on the
brink of a deep abyss with the
next moment of its life finding
it soaring upward toward
celestial grandeur, toward a
golden age of political
utopia-the heavenly
Jerusalem, or plunging
downward in a bone crushing
fall toward the rocks of
nuclear destruction.”
What is needed to save the
world, he continued, is the
morality of love-“love as it
was taught to us by Christ
when he told us to love even as
he had loved. And he said that
this was to be the sign of his
church-that it was to be
known for its love.”
Concluding his remarks
Father Rivers said, Christians
are supposed to know by their
Faith the saving power of love
and should be able to lead the
world, for Christ has given
them the example-“That if a
man forces us to go with him
one mile, our generosity
should prompt us to go with
him two; That if a man needs
our coat, we should be willing
to give him anothergarment as
well; That even if we are struck
on the cheek, there are
circumstances in which we
ought to turn the other and
not offer violence for violence;
That we must love even our
enemies and if necessary make
the supreme sacrifice for
Christ. . .We (Christians) then,
are the men of the hour if a
new social order is to be built
Bishop Frey said that we
are constantly making Acts of
Faith and that we cannot live
without them. He said, “we
make an Act of Faith every
time we enter a car driven by
another person - we are
placing our Faith in his driving
skill. Everytime we eat bread,
we are making an Act of Faith
in the baker who baked it. .. If
it is impossible to endure
without making these Acts of
Faith with our earthly
contacts, how much more true
it must be with our Faith in
God.”
Awards at the Convention
Communion Breakfast were as
follows:
“Eagle of the Cross”
awards to: Robert Young, St.
(Continued on Rage 3)
DUBLIN- MAY 10 & 11
Father Rivers felt that the
love needed today is one
capable of embracing even
one’s enemies. “It is a creative
love-one by which a person
cares for something or
someone, not for what he
finds in that person or thing,
but for what he can do for that
person or thing by reason of
his caring.” He used the
example of a mother caring for
her child, saying, “A mother
does not love her child because
it is neat and clean and has
good manners. Quite to the
contrary. She keeps it neat and
clean and teaches it good
manners because she loves it
first.”
Newman Leaders
Conference Set
Diocesan Newman leaders
indicate that the Annual
Savannah Diocesan
Leadership Conference
(Dublin - May 10 & 11) will be
a most important meeting for
the Newman Apostolate.
Statesboro’s St. Matthew’s
Church and Chaplain of the
Newman Apostolate of
Georgia Southern College, will
introduce a plan for a United
Campus Ministry. Other
methods will be discussed.
Father used the story of
Beauty and the Beast to
illustrate how sometimes a
thing must be loved before it
can appear lovable. He told of
the princess who was sent to
live with and to care for the
ugly beast. That she hated it
and would have nothing to do
with it, but that the beast
loved her. . . .loved her so
much tfrat he was pining away
and almost at the point of
death when finally the
princess pittied it, forced
Last August, at the
National Newman
Convention, changes in accord
with the recommendations of
Vatican Council II were
presented. These proposals
will require Diocesan
structural alterations and
these propositions will be
introduced at this meeting by
the Very Rev. William V.
Coleman, Diocesan
Coordinator of the Newman
Apostolate.
Registration for the
conference will be held from
5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on
Friday, May 10, at the Holiday
Inn, located at the junction of
1-16 and U.S. 441 South. The
Conference will be conducted
at Immaculate Conception
Parish Hall in downtown
Dublin. It will conclude at
3:00 p.m. on Saturday, May
11.
One method of
implementing these
propositions will be suggested
at the conference: the Rev.
George C. James, pastor of
Each Newman campus
organization is asked to send
two delegates. All New
Chaplains are asked to make
every effort to attend. Food
and lodging will be provided
free of charge.