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PAGE 2 - The Southern Cross, August 17,1972
Peter Claver
Knights Meet
LAFAYETTE, La. (NC) -- The first
woman to* address the annual banquet of
fourth degree Knights of Peter Claver has
urged the members of that organization
to adopt an optimistic view of social
changes.
The appeal by Dr. Aline Garrett came
at the 57th annual national convention
here of the Knights of Peter Claver, a
predominately black Catholic fraternal
organization.
In her address at the convention
banquet, Dr. Garrett, a black educator,
said, “Optimists view upheavals not as
chaos, but as the coming of a new day.”
The psychologist and educator cited
the 1972 democratic convention as “a
striking contrast” to the 1968
convention. She asked, “what happened
in the intervening four years? Certainly
not chaos if you’re a woman, black, poor,
young, or other minority person.
“The complement of reform is
action,” Dr. Garrett told the Knights,
“And many reforms die because
advocates lack personal commitment.
People are needed with a sense of
personal commitment, and with such
people meaningful reform can come
about.”
COVERUP AT ST. PETER’S -- Women in mini skirts donned coats which enabled them to cover up enough to pass inspection at St.
Peter’s Basilica. Hoods up (right) they approached the Church. (NC Photos)
She recommended that the
organization’s members determine the
goals of the national convention in terms
of the needs of their home communities.
Dress Code a La Vatican
In the sermon of the convention Mass,
Father John LaBauve, national chaplain
of the Knights of Peter Claver, also asked
the 2,000 delegates and members of the
Ladies’ auxiliary to think positively.
BY FATHER LEO E. MCFADDEN
“We have been reactors too long,”
Father LaBauve told the congregation.
“We’ve felt the whip of the slavemaster.
We were reactors to things outside of our
control.
VATICAN CITY (NC) — It was just a
casual suggestion, but it seems that I may
be behind the controversial new cover-up
strategy at St. Peter’s Basilica.
happy,” she said smilingly. “It’s
church, so I will obey their rules.”
their
“Now that we have the ability to
achieve things,” the Houston, Tex., priest
urged, “when we propose action let us do
this with building in mind, not
destroying.”
The Vatican on Aug. 6 began making
black, floppy, hooded raincoats available
for tourists seeking entrance to St. Peter’s
who are judged insufficiently attired.
Not so complacent was Judy Simmons
of Flushing, Long Island, who stood in
the sun at the main door rather than go
the hundred yards to a Vatican office to
rent a coat.
young man and woman from Nijmegen,
in the Netherlands, took to the raincoat
with some joviality.
“Look at Loes,” Mark said, “does she
not look funny in her choir robe? I really
think Jesus is smiling at all of this.”
He suggested to the Knights, “I’m
afraid we don’t have the proper type of
militancy. Let us coordinate our activism
with the values we hold inside.”
Last summer, at the height of a furor
over the posting of nuns at the doors of
the basilica to turn away women and girls
wearing sleeveless or not-to-the-knee
dresses, I suggested to a Vatican official
that some kind of loose fitting gown be
made available.
While her husband was inside looking
at the basilica she told me of her
indignation at being banned from
entering.
“I purposely dressed in a travel dress
with sleeves and a hem almost to the
knees because I respect the Catholic code
which demands propriety,” the pretty
blonde said.
The harried personnel at St. Peter’s
who must make the judgment on dress
from an Italian viewpoint and who, of
course, must take the abuse heaped on
them by indignant tourists, are happy
with the raincoats.
“You can take all the credit for this
idea,” the official director of the basilica
told me after the raincoats appeared.
“And
asked.
do I take all the blame?” I
“But when the guard turned me away
and let people go in with hardly any
clothes on, well, I just question their
judgment.”
It has removed the sometimes ugly
situation of forbidding entrance to
persons who may have come a long way
to see St. Peter’s. Instead, the personnel
can offer an option to tourists.
“We will share the blame,’
laughingly.
he replied
The idea to rent gowns to scantily clad
tourists so they could enter St. Peter’s
with decorum may be acceptable to some
but differing cultural viewpoints on
decent dress and the inconsistent
judgment of Vatican guards continue to
infuriate many.
'Much. more mortified were two
Canadian girls who were loudly ordered
out of the basilica by a shouting
custodian, having been allowed to enter
without question by the guard at the
door.
A Vatican guard who has worked at
the main door for nine years said that the
situation is “much betteir for everyone”
this year.
Enrico Battista, head of the Vatican
Tourist Information Office, where the
raincoats are rented, said that everyone
he had encountered is happy with the
new setup.
When I encountered them, June Larkin
of Chatham, Ont., was wearing a rented
raincoat, while Linda Zeppa of Sault
Sainte Marie, Ont., had slipped on a pair
of levis under a short dress.
“A man comes to me and says his wife
cannot enter the basilica,” Battista said.
“Before this, I had no solution for him.
Now, for a small coin, everyone is
happy.”
“Religiously, the idea is okay,” said
Linda Peterson of Plainfield, N.J., “but
what gripes me is to get in here wearing
this thing and see lots of people
wandering around who need it more than
I do.”
Because June was close to tears, Linda
explained their reaction.
“He screamed at us in English that we
were disrespectful, but he was much more
disrespectful by shouting in chapel.
A sign in
donation for
giving 100 lire
six languages asks for a
use of a coat. Most are
- about 17 cents.
She added that she was content to
wear the coat “as long as it gets me in
here.”
“We were wearing normal, ordinary
dresses which are proper in society and he
told us to shut up and get out.”
The raincoat rental, an idea I
borrowed from a church near the beach
in Hawaii, is off to a good start in easing a
perennial problem for the Church in
Italy.
SISTER W. COLUMBA Hourigan of Our
Lady of Lourdes convent in Columbus
recently completed academic
requirements for a Bachelor’s degree
during summer sessions at St. Bernard
College, Cullman, Alabama.
Setting a new style in raincoat-wearing
was Gertrude Verghen of Wuerzburg,
Germany, who used the arms of the coat
to tie it to her waist.
The girls agreed that the raincoat
necessity was okay if that is “the price of
admission,” but they thought the
custodian “just lost his cool.”
£ I am comfortable and they are
Mark van Meurs and Loes de Munck, a
Any employe, of course, can lose his
temper, but this is certainly not the
normal practice in the Vatican. While
some Vatican employees remain openly
indifferent, the majority are cordial and
helpful.
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SAVANNAH
Legion Of Mary Sponsors
MinirCongress In Savannah
By Msgr. Daniel J. Bourke
I have been to many functions of the
Legion of Mary in the past forty years. I
have attended praesidium meetings in
Dublin, visited the hostels, the Regina
Coeli and the Morning Star conducted by
the Legion in the city of its foundation,
have conversed with legionaries who have
participated in the annual Irish Invasion
of Great Britian, the great Perigrinatio
pro Christo, to bring back the fallen away
and to present the good news of the
Gospel to those of goodwill. But never
have I witnessed anything quite like the
Mini-Congress sponsored by the
Norristown Comitium on Saturday, July
22, at Blessed Sacrament Church,
Savannah.
I had the good fortune to run into John
Murray an Irish Legfon leader who spent
ten years organizing the Legion in the
United States and who established the
first praesidium in Savannah in 1939.
The fourteen members from
Norristown ranged in years from sixteeii
up to sixty. A number of them had taken s x,
a special course in Legion work in Dublin
under the direction of the founder, Frank
Duff. One couple had spent their
honeymoon in Dublin doing Legion
work. No wonder that couple and, indeed
the entire group, was the happiest you
could find.
/
■/
r
Led by their Spiritual Director, Father
Francis Lendacky, thirteen members of
the Norristown Comitium, s?ven women
and six men, took a two weeks vacation.
And what a vacation it was! Only Legion
of Mary members would think up such an
idea.
The visitors were first entertained at a
buffet supper by the Savannah
legionaries. After the repast we all sat in a
circle and talked about the Legion. They
told us of some of their experiences. In
turn they drew out the local members.
They spent the two weeks going from
city to city, from Pennsylvania to
Florida, visiting praesidia of the Legion to
learn how to be better legionaries
themselves and perhaps to impart some
knowledge of the Legion apostolate to
those they met with on their way.
They had with them a Legion of Mary
Song Book composed by themselves. It**"
came into being as a result of a visit of
two of them to Dublin some years ago.
They attended an operetta composed by
legionaries for legionaries about a high-up
Legionary who was engaged to a
charming fellow — Legionary for fifteen
years but was unable to find the time to
marry her.
There have been conventions and
seminars without number in recent years
in Savannah and elsewhere. Much money,
as well as time and labor have been
expended on them. It is to be hoped that
good came from them.
At length she sued him for breach of
promise.
William Peffley, the compiler of the
song book, led the singing, and played th^^^
accompaniment on his guitar.
About the Legion Mini-Congress there
can be no doubt.
Everyone who attended came away
with a new love of Our Lady and a more
fervent desire to spread the kingdom of
her Son. The only pity of it was that
more people were not there to learn and
love and resolve to do.
We have been encouraged to study the
Legion, to work it and to spread it. The
Norristown legionaries taught us how to
sing it. At the Mini-Congress there were
psalms and hymns and modern Marian
ballads as we sang with gratitude in our
hearts to God.
Where were our nuns?
Where were so many of our priests?
Bishop Designate McDonald was there.
He knows of and appreciates the work of
the Legion. Father Liam O’Sullivan, the
Savannah Spiritual Director was there.
Illness kept Father Hurley, a great Legion
apostle, away.
We learned there that we must take on
Mary’s joy as well as her concern for
souls; that, in the words of the song book
“A Christian should be an Alleluia from
head to foot.”
I was there through a happy accident.
I read about the Congress in the Southern
Cross after my return from Dublin where
May God’s blessing go with those
inspiring Legionaries from Norristown.
They have left us a memory we shall
never forget. If we ever doubted it, we
now know for sure that the Legion of
Mary is, par excellence, the Apostolate
For Souls. May it attract many new
members and prosper in the Diocese of
Savannah.
/
Catholic Women Of Columbus
Hold Summer Board Meeting „
The Summer Board meeting of the
Columbus Deanery Council of Catholic
Women was held on Saturday, 5 August
1972 at 2:00 P.M. at the Holy Family
Parish Hall, Columbus, Georgia.
in September, in order to acquaint all
women with the Deanery work, and with
the 1972-1973 plans for the various
Commissions.
/
Mrs. F.B. Miller, President, chaired the
meeting, and the Columbus Deanery
Women agreed to portray the five Council
Commissions in the form of a “Skit”
using pictures and graphs, at the Fall
Deanery Meeting to be held in October,
with Our Lady of Lourdes Parish acting
as host for this meeting.
It was also agreed that the Columbus
Deanery will have a cake sale, sell candy,
and sell notepaper in order to raise the
necessary funds to sponsor the Diocesan
Convention in Columbus, Georgia, next
March.
A brochure will be prepared outlining
the duties, activities and projects of the
five Commissions, and will be attached to
each Parish Bulletin distributed at the
different churches on the second Sunday
Commission Chairmen are: Mrs.
Robert J. Stewart, Organization Services;
Mrs. LeRoy Cunningham, Church*.
Communities; Mrs. J.P. Mabry,,
International Affairs.
Mrs. Donald Ford, Family Affairs;
Mrs. Norris W. Curry, Community
Affairs.
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