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SERVING 88 SOUTH - GEORGIA COUNTIES
The Southern
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 52 No. 26
Thursday, July 22, 1971
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Single Copy Price — 12 Cents
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PENNSYLVANIA CASE
Clarification Asked On
High Court Decision
WASHINGTON (NC)-The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to reopen a recent landmark case in which the
high court struck down a Pennsylvania law giving state aid to private schools for secular instruction.
Attorneys representing seven nonpublic schools in Pennsylvania said that the Court’s 8-0 decision holding that
such assistance would lead to a church-state “excessive entanglement” was a “standardless standard lacking any
rational basis.”
PAPAL KNIGHT
Requiem For
D. J. Sheehan
Monsignor Thomas I. Sheehan was principal
concelebrant at the Funeral Mass (July 17) for his
brother Daniel J. Sheehan, Sr., Knight of St. Gregory
the Great, who died July 15 at the age of 78. The
services were held at Savannah’s Cathedral of St. John
the Baptist.
A native Savannahian,
Sheehan had long been active
in community and church
affairs, serving at an alderman
from 1949 to 1955 and was a
former member of the
Chatham County Hospital
Authority.
He was named a Knight of
St. Gregory the Great by
Pope John XXIII in 1960. In
1956, Pope Pius XII awarded
him the “Pro Ecclesia et
Pontifice” medal for his
leadership in the bishop s
campaign for diocesan
development.
He was a communicant of
the Cathedral of St. John the
Baptist, t former president of
the Catholic Community
Center and a Fourth Degree
Knight of Columbus.
He was a past president
and vice president of the
Hibernian Society.
(Continued on page 8)
The Supreme Court of
June 20 ruled that the
Pennsylvania law providing
salaries for nonpublic school
teachers of secular subjects
would require continued state
surveillance for enforcement.
“These prophylactic
conditions will involve
excessive and enduring
entanglement between state
and church,” the court said.
Joined by Pennsylvania
Attorney General J. Shane
Craemer, the lawyers filed a
petition for reargument in the
Lemon vs. Kruzman case on
July 21. The Pennsylvania
Association of Independent
Schools was scheduled to file
a similar but separate petition
within a few days.
Citing an “urgent need for
clarification” of the decision,
the attorneys argued in their
petition that:
-The court’s entanglement
concept tended to suppress
religious liberty.
—The ruling suggested
disapproval of “free, political
expression” by religious-
(Continued on Page 2)
INSIDE STORY
TV Listings
.Pg. 3
'Underground’ Paper...
Pg. 3
Suenens Interview
Pg. 5
Oppose Nat’l Council
Pg. 6
THE “LITTLEST ANGEL” shown here was photographed at
the recent Kenmore Mercy Hospital Alumni party for babies
bom at the hospital. Sister Mary Patricia, R.S.M., RN, attempts
to make friends with one-year-old Kristen Zdziarski. The
hospital is located in Kenmore, a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. (NC
PHOTO by Harasty, courtesy The Magnificat)
PRIEST TELLS OF ADVENTURES
Two Lions Were Not More Than ‘Five Leaps’ Away
By Grace T. Crawford
Knight Newspapers
Staff Writer
He was sneaking through
the bushes to photograph the
Uganda kob when he saw the
two lions not more than “five
leaps” away.
With quaking heart, he
kicked the starter pedal of his
Honda - once, twice, three
times. Nothing happened. He
looked around in terror. The
huge beasts were still eying
him. He said a prayer, then
remembered to turn on the
ignition. The little “piki piki”
roared off through Elizabeth
Park, a mile south of the
Equator in East Africa.
The teller of this, and
other real-life adventures was
Father James McCown, a
Jesuit priest who has been
around the world since he left
Macon 13 years ago.
Known to hundreds of
Middle Georgians, Father
McCown is spending a
portion of his summer at St.
Joseph Catholic Church,
where he was an associate
pastor for five years. He was
SOME FRIENDS IN MACON ...
Father James McCown, Jesuit priest formerly assigned to St. adventures to former parishioners. Tracy Hams and Mis. Agnes
Joseph Catholic Church, prepares to show slides of his African Simmon?.
one of the last members of
his order to leave the parish
when, in 1958, the Jesuits
were replaced by diocesan
priests after 71 years in
Macon.
It was not until 1966 that
Father McCown’s big
adventures began. His first
years after leaving Macon
were spent conducting
retreats in Mississippi, Texas,
Louisiana and for a time in
Atlanta. As he put it, “for
me, life began at 55.”
In just two years, the
husky Alabama-born priest
covered thousands of miles in
two remotely distant areas of
the world, serving Africans,
Indians, Mexicans, and
English-speaking people from
several nations. He rode
horseback in the mountains
of Mexico, serving more than
40 village churches on the
country’s west coast. In the
latter part of 1967, his work
there was interrupted when
his provincial needed a man
to send for a year’s serice in
Tanzania, East Africa,
replacing a Jesuit priest on
leave.
“The most exciting years
of my life,” he descirbes
them, then tells of enough
happening to fill a book.
There was oyster diving in the
Pacific, festivals and feast
days, and a “wonderful
rapport” with Spanish-speak
ing people. He tells of a year
of “great contentment in East
Africa,” where he lived in a
huge retreat house on a
rocky, wind-swept hill
overlooking Lake Victoria, of
being chased by baboons,
snorted at by an angr>
buffalo, and charged by a
wild elephant.
In Mexico, he was Padre
Jaime, filling a long-desired
assignment. “I had always
wanted to work there,” he
said. Speaking \diat he calls
“hodge-podge Spanish”
learned from Puerto Rican
friends while in Macon,
Father McCown traveled
about Mexico on horseback,
holding services daily,
performing \neddings by the
hundreds. “A regular
‘Marrying Sam’ I was,” he
said, then noted that “in
Mexico, everyone is baptized,
with families walking
(Continued on page 8)
AND SOME IN AFRICA
Father McCown stops for a drink with a friendly Sucumu family in East Africa, where the priest spent a part of the 13 years
since he left Macon.