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PAGE 7—The Southern Cross, March 9, *972
OLD ELEVATED MAKES NEW ALTAR: Brooklyn, N.Y.: Artist Carol Dykeman looks at the altar she made for St. Michael’s and
St. Edward’s out of pieces of the Myrtle Avenue El which was tom down recently. The altar and other parts of the church are now
constructed from the girders of the elevated mode of transportation. NC Photo, courtesy, the Brooklyn Tablet.
BROOKLYN TRAIN SYSTEM
66 Moitel Avenue El”
Enshrined In Church
BY JO-ANN PRICE
BROOKLYN (NC) - When Brooklyn
was Brooklyn and the Myrtle Ave.
Elevated -- the celebrated “Moitel Avenue
El” -- growled regularly across the
borough, the people in its shadow grew to
love it, to hate it, and to make awesome
predictions for its future.
It wasn’t pretty. But it was as much a
part of life here as Coney Island hotdogs
^ or a Sunday walk through Prospect Park.
It would never become so famous as
The Streetcar Named Desire. Or even the
Toonerville Trolley.
It rattled, lurched, shook and squealed
as it transported brooding segments of
Brooklynites from one part of this city to
the other. But it worked.
Its’ midnight grumble would wake
many a resident in the Fort Greene
neighborhood and elsewhere, causing him
to kick his bedcovers, stuff a pillow over
his ear, and mutter:
“No good will ever come of the Myrtle
Avenue El!”
At last, the Myrtle Avenue El was torn
down in December 1970. The noise
became a silence. And the nighttime
grumble of the trains was gradually
replaced by other sounds -- the shriek of
the police siren, a raucus drunken laugh
on a summer night, an overhead jet roar,
and sometimes the scream of human
attack.
In fact, it was the end of the line, if
not the last stop, for the famous overhead
contraption.
In tearing down the landmark,
however, the Metropolitan Transit
Authority did not quite anticipate
members of St. Michael-St. Edward
Catholic Church in the now largely
Spanish-speaking Fort Greene section.
They wanted part of the girders, spikes
and ties of the “Elevado de Myrtle
Avenue” before it disappeared. They
wanted them to support an altar and two
lecterns, and to make a wooden cross.
They wrote to William J. Ronan, Transit
Authority chairman. Astonished, the
authority said yes.
Now it is two years later, weeks and
months during which Father Anthony J.
Failla, 40, administrator of the battered
gray church in the middle of the Fort
Greene housing project, has seen this
dream come true.
Parts of the 80-year-old pillars were
sandblasted and polished by a woman
sculptor and welder, Carol Dyckman, art
coordinator of the Brooklyn Diocesan
elementary schools, and Robert Zakerian,
of the Pratt Institute faculty.
Gleaming and gray and beautiful, they
now support an altar that weighs about
2,000 pounds.
Stained and oily wooden ties form a
six-foot cross over a side altar, into which
five spikes have been driven in the
appropriate places.
The pews of the church have been
re-arranged to form a semi-circle around
the strange new table for the Bread of
Life.
And -- piece de resistance - the altar
and lecterns were not only consecrated,
incensed and dedicated in mid-February
by Bishop Francis J. Mugavero, a smiling
son of Brooklyn himself, but it was done
at a special Spanish-English liturgy for the
occasion.
“Bishop: .. .We ask that you renew
these pieces of steel which has served so
long at the Myrtle Avenue El. From now
on give these lecterns meaning to be used
to preach the Word with faith and
courage . ..”
Quite a bit has been said and written
about the Myrtle Avenue El over the span
of eight decades of Brooklyn history.
But a liturgy? Would you believe? But,
of course.
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AT ATLANTA MEETING
Bishops To Vote On Plan
To Remodel USCC, NCCB
WASHINGTON (NC) - The nation’s
bishops will vote at their April 11-13
spring meeting in Atlanta on a
reorganization plan to streamline the
inner workings of the U.S. Catholic
Conference and the National Conference
of Catholic Bishops.
The plan is designed as well to put
brakes on the operating budget of the
two conferences, which this year stands
at $3.7 million including an $800,000
deficit, and move toward a fully balanced
budget for 1973.
USCC-NCCB officials explained that
the idea is to go beyond a thorough study
of the conferences done in 1968 by a
professional management consultancy
firm and come up with both tighter
internal administrative efficiency and
more effective channels for working with
the 162 dioceses in the United States.
According to conference officials, the
1968 management study by Booz, Allen
& Hamilton, Inc., left a number of
administrative areas open-ended for
further implementing.
Executives of the two conferences,
which employ about 350 persons,
decided a year ago that more
restructuring would have to be done in
1973.
The need for austerity budgeting
became apparent last fall, however, when
the bishops voted at their November
meeting to end deficit financing at the
USCC-NCCB and tailor national-level
programs to fit available funds.
Among the steps that the bishops will
consider at their spring meeting next
month are consolidations of closely
related departments of the USCC-NCCB
and mergers of divisions within some
departments.
For example, one proposal is that the
USCC Social Development Department
and the International Affairs Department
be combined, on grounds that social
justice cannot be neatly divided into
national and international segments.
Also being proposed is a merger and
restructuring of the Adult Education
Division and the Division for Religious
Education/CCD (Confraternity of
Christian Doctrine). At present the two
are among five separate divisions within
the Education Department of the USCC.
Another major change would involve
department directors. The office of
“department director” would cease to
exist in its present form, with supervision
and coordination of the realigned
departments and divisions to be done
instead by special secretaries within the
Office of the General Secretary.
Conference officials said one goal is to
come up with a recommended 1973
budget about 25 percent lower than this
year’s budget for those USCC-NCCB
agencies which are funded from diocesan
quotas. Some of the offices and agencies
do not get quotas but generate their own
funds, such as NC News Service, the
Division for Latin America, and the
Division for Religious Education/CCD.
Budgetary matters are decided by the
bishops each year at their fall meeting in
Washington. If they approve the
reorganization in April, officials
explained, gradual implementation could
be started June 30 - and a realistic look
at pay-as-you-go spending would be
possible by the time the 1973 budget is
acted on in November.
Bishop Joseph L. Bernardin, who as
general secretary of USCC-NCCB is the
A special Mass honoring St. Patrick will
take place on March 17th at 8:30 a.m. at
the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist,
Savannah. Principal concelebrant of the
Mass will be the Most Rev. Gerard L.
Frey, Bishop of Savannah.
He will be assisted in the celebration
by the following priests, the majority of
whom are native-born Irish, the Rev. J.
Kevin Boland, Rector of the Cathedral of
St. John the Baptist and his brother, Rev.
Msgr. Raymond J. Boland, pastor of St.
Hugh’s Church, Green Belt, Maryland;
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor of the
Southern Cross; Rev. Patrick O’Brien of
the Cathedral; Rev. John Kenneally, St.
James; Rev. Timothy O’Mahoney, Sacred
Heart and his brother, Rev. Dermot
O’Mahoney from Augusta; Rev. John F.
Hurley, Blessed Sacrament Church; Rev.
Patrick McCarthy, Benedictine; the Rev.
Daniel O’Connell from Valdosta, Rev.
Ronald Madden of Albany; Rev.-
top executive of the two national
conferences, sent a letter in February to
the 56 bishops serving on the NCCB
Administrative Committee and the USCC
Administrative Board. He told them that
half a dozen meetings have already been
held in the past few months by the
Committee on Research, Plans and
Programs to explore reorganization
methods.
“There is no perfect way of
accomplishing this -- a way which will
please everybody,” he said in his letter
outlining the reorganization proposals.
Bishop Bernardin described the plan as
evolutionary, one that “brings us a step
beyond” the 1968 management study
rather than a step away from it.
One division is already being phased
out, in a separate action decided last
September. The Division for United
Nations Affairs, based in New York City
and part of the International Affairs
Department, will be terminated June 30.
The UN Affairs Division was set up
before the Vatican had its own
permanent observer at the UN and before
the USCC Division for Justice and Peace
was created.
Laurence Goulding of Sylvania.
A special St. Patrick’s Day sermon will
be delivered by Monsignor Boland and a
musical program will be provided by the
Junior Class from St. Vincent’s Academy
under the direction of Mrs. Joseph C.
Schreck.
Special guests at this Mass will be the
Grand Marshal of St. Patrick’s Day Parade
and his aides. Traditionally for many
years they have attended this Mass and
after a short breakfast at the Cathedral
Rectory have set out for Forsyth Park
where they lead the Parade down
Abercorn Street, starting promptly at 10
A.M.
It is expected that members of the
Hibernian Society, the Knights of
Columbus and the Sinn Fein Society will
be in attendance at this Mass and the
public is also invited to attend.
AT CATHEDRAL
St. Patrick’s Day Mass
r
v
Rapping With The Reverend
By Fr. John Kenneally j
LET IT RAIN
SWEET MARY JANE: PART II
Since my last column, many have been
rapping “at” me by letter, phone and
conversation about my apparent
approach to the phenomenon of
marijuana.
Such is life. I deliberately wrote in the
manner that I did to provoke a response,
and I knew what that response would be -
concerned but very negative. Of all the
letters and calls I received, only one
agreed with my assessment of the
marijuana problem. The others were, in
varying degrees, critical of my approach.
I do not say this petulantly as a result
of valid criticism, but to point out that
drugs, even marijuana, are a real threat to
people. Neither do I want to give the
impression that I possess infallibility in
dealing with the topic of marijuana; we
must respect others feelings and ideas.
Again, I wish to stress that the topic
being dealt with is marijuana, not heroin,
uppers, downers or the danger of aerosol
sprays. Also, I want to go on record and
state that I “personally” do not smoke
marijuana or advocate its widespread use.
A government survey, due to be made
public on March 22, reveals that 24
million people have tried marijuana at
least once and that 8 million use it more
or less habitually. These are startling
figures, and they show, whether we like it
or not, that marijuana is part of our
situation. The extent of these figures
shows that present legal sanctions do not
act as effective deterrents to prevent the
use of marijuana.
It is not true that marijuana leads to
the use of harder drugs, it is not
physically addictive and, taking present
evidence into account, its use is no more
harmful than smoking tobacco or
drinking alcohol. This evidence, of itself,
does not exclude the fact that marijuana
could be dangerous, only time will tell. I
am fully aware that two wrongs never
make a right, but the fact that two
wrongs exist must not make us close our
eyes to the problem and hope that it will
go away.
Apart from illegal drugs, our society is
very drug (in the good sense)
orientated. There are drugs to make us
sleep, to wake us up, to calm us, to help
us lose weight, to relieve pain, to keep us
awake so that we can work or study - the
list could go on and on. There is nothing
wrong in using drugs within this context.
What frustrates and confuses young
people who use marijuana, is that a drug
orientated society denies them the right
to the use of it. In many cases marijuana
is a much safer drug, apparently, than
those whose use is sanctioned by society.
It is this dilemma that confuses and
angers those who use marijuana.
To assess the morality of marijuana
and its use within this context is, I think,
very difficult. Its use is not reconcilable
with my own philosophy of life. That is
my individual point of view. Many claim
that the use of marijuana leads to the use
of more dangerous drugs. This is true, not
because an individual smokes marijuana,
Editor:
On St. Patrick’s Day the Irish and
friends of the Irish will participate, in
Savannah, in the oldest and second largest
parade of its kind in this country.
As a native born Irishman and a proud
citizen of these United States, I appeal to
all Irish participants to hold their heads
high and march with dignity. They are
members of a race that has suffered much
for freedom. Their ancestors have
oft-times been beaten down, but
generation after generation, they have
risen against their oppressors and handed
on to their children the torch of freedom.
They came to this land in their
hundreds of thousands, and the welcome
they received was not always cordial.
They had to strive against the old enemy,
but for the reason “why” he smokes it. If
he is psychologically dependent on
marijuana, then the probability is that he
will graduate to harder drugs.
This is a result, not of the use of
marijuana, but of a “need” for drugs. It is
similar to the person who is totally
dependent on alcohol, and the person
who can take it or leave it.
There are many unanswered questions
regarding the use of marijuana and its
legalization. I do think that we must be
open to this problem, and it is a problem.
It is essential to approach this with an
open mind, and not jump to hasty or
general conclusions. I still believe that the
legalization of marijuana is a problem
that we, as individuals and as a
community, will have to face in the
future.
The next issue will deal with other
facets of this question. I again would
appreciate any reaction, especially from
the young adult readers. As always, my
wish for you is God’s PEACE and
happiness.
and the old prejudice. Never, however,
did they lose faith in this nation, or its
way of life. They have given more than
generously in gratitude for the blessings
they have received a;> citizens. May it be
ever thus!
As they march on St. Patrick’s Day,
they will, please God, remember their
kith and kin in the old land, who still
strive for freedom, and who resent being
regarded as inferior subjects in Mother
England’s Commonwealth. Certainly a
prayer and a financial contribution will
be in order to aid the cause of an Ireland
united and free.
May you enjoy the blessings of God, of
Mary, and of Patrick.
Msgr. D. J. Bourke
Savannah
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