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The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 55 No. 2
Thursday, January 10,1974
Single Copy Price — 12 Cents
JAN. 18 IN WASHINGTON
Father Ronald Pachence
HEADLINE
HOPSCOTCH
Doctor Charged
WASHINGTON (NC) -- The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has set
up a defense fund for Dr. Frank Bolles, a Boulder, Colo., physician, who faces criminal
charges for mailing anti-abortion material. The district attorney in Boulder charged Dr.
Bolles with violating a state statute which makes it a misdemeanor to “communicate
with a person . . .in a manner likely to cause alarm.” The material involved included
color photos of aborted fetuses and live babies.
Conscience Safeguarded
LANSING, Mich. (NC) - Gov. William Milliken of Michigan signed a bill which
permits medical facilities and individuals in Michigan to refuse to perform abortions.
The Michigan Catholic Conference praised the governor and the state legislature for
enacting the law. The American Civil Liberties Union had urged the governor to veto
the measure.
Intercommunion
STRASBOURG, France (NC) -- The Lutheran Church of Alsace and Lorraine said
that it will “welcome to Communion” members of the Catholic Church and that
Lutherans may receive Communion at Mass. Last year Catholic Bishop Arthur
Elchinger of Strasbourg, which takes in all of Alsace, authorized limited reception of
Communion by Catholics at Protestant services. He dealt essentially with mixed
marriages and said that in certain cases a non-Catholic could receive the Catholic
Eucharist, if his own Church did not oppose this step.
Berrigan Refuses Prize
NEW YORK (NC) - Father Daniel Berrigan refused the Gandhi Peace Prize after he
learned that the award’s sponsors, Promoting Enduring Peace (PEP), were considering
withdrawing their offer. After Father Berrigan delivered an anti-Israeli speech before
an Arab audience, PEP received protests and decided to take a second poll of its board
to see if they still felt Father Berrigan should be given the award.
Hitler Foe Dies
MUNICH, West Germany (NC) - Auxiliary Bishop Johannes Neuhaeusler of
Munich, a vigorous opponent of Adolf Hitler and a former prisoner in the Nazi
concentration camp at Dachau for more than four years, died here at the age of 85.
Bishop Neuhaeusler also played a role in efforts of the German opposition movement
to work through the Vatican in an attempt to overthrow Hilter and prevent Germany
from going to war.
Seeks Liberty in Spain
MADRID, Spain (NC) - Cardinal Vicente Enrique y Tarancon of Madrid and his
auxiliary bishops issued a pastoral letter urging “the absolute recognition” of human
rights in Spanish laws “and in reality.” The pastoral, issued before the assassination of
Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco, supported an appeal made by Cardinal Narciso
Jubany of Barcelona for “legal guarantees of the rights of every man to associate” and
“to participate effectively in public affairs.” Cardinal Jubany’s appeal came after 113
laymen and two priests were arrested in a Barcelona church and accused of meeting
illegally.
Father Pachence to
be Ordained
Father Ronald Pachence will be
ordained a priest for service in the
diocese of Savannah on January 18th at
the Theological College of Catholic
University, Washington, D.C.
Father Pachence will be ordained by
Bishop Raymond Lessard of Savannah.
He will offer a Mass of Thanksgiving in
Hazleton, Pennsylvania on January 20th
at Most Precious Blood church, and will
celebrate his first Mass in Savannah at
St. Benedict’s church, January 27th.
Father Pachence is the son of Mr. and
Mrs. Anthony Pachence, formerly of
Hazleton, Pa. and now of Baltimore,
Maryland. He has one brother, Dominic.
Although raised in Pennsylvania and
PRIEST-ADVOCATE
Mother
Maryland, Fr. Pachence has ties to
Savannah going back fourteen years. His
high school years were spent at St. John
Vianney Minor Seminary (now St.
John’s Center) at Grimball Point. He
also spent three summers at Camp Villa
Marie as a counselor.
After leaving St. John’s, Fr. Pachence
took a two year hiatus which he spent
in the Peace Corps. He served as a
teacher of English at Kadiloy Maarif
Koleji in Istanbul, Turkey and travelled
extensively in the Middle East.
Upon his return to the United States,
he taught for one year at Mt. de Sales
high school in Macon. For the past three
years while finishing his theological
studies, he has been a graduate teaching
SAYS
Seton’s
Sainthood Near
EMMITSBURG, Md. (NC) - The
bicentennial year of the birth of Blessed
Elizabeth Bayley Seton, foundress of
the Sisters of Charity in the U.S.,
opened here with the news that her
canonization as the first native born
American may not be far off.
According to Father Lucio
Lapalorcia, postulator general of Mother
Seton’s cause for canonization in Rome,
a panel of nine doctors recently
declared that a cure, reportedly brought
about through Mother Seton’s
intercession, was a miracle. If the cure is
declared miraculous by Pope Paul, it
will be the first of two miracles needed
for Mother Seton’s canonization.
“Our hopes should be high,” said the
postulator general at a bicentennial
Mass, “that Blessed Mother Seton’s
canonization will not be delayed for any t
great length of time.”
The Mass at St. Joseph’s Provincial
House of the Daughters of Charity was
attended by 14 bishops, including
Archbishop Jean Jadot, the apostolic
delegate in the United States; Cardinal
Patrick O’Boyle, retired archbishop of
Washington; and more than 1,300
priests, Sisters of Charity and laity
interested in Mother Seton’s
canonization. Cardinal Lawrence
Shehan of Baltimore was principal
concelebrant.
Father Sylvester Taggart, vice
postulator of Mother Seton’s cause, told
NC News that the cure, which doctors
declared miraculous, was performed in
October, 1963, on Carl Kalin of
Yonkers, N.Y. Kalin, a Lutheran, was
suffering from encephalitis compounded
with red measles.
When doctors said his death was
imminent, prayers to Mother Seton
were begun by the Sisters of Charity at
Mt. St. Vincent, N.Y. Three days later,
Mother Seton’s relic was applied to
Kalin and, according to Father Taggart,
all signs of his illness began to disappear.
Elizabeth Bayley Seton, bom in New
York in 1774, was the mother of five
children. An Episcopalian, she became a
Catholic after her husband’s death in
1803. In 1809 she founded what
became the American Sisters of Charity
in Emmitsburg in western Maryland.
Today the six communities of the
American Sisters of Charity have a
combined membership of about 8,000.
Mother Seton was beatified in 1963.
New Clergy Appointments
Bishop Raymond W. Lessard has
announced clerical changes involving
parishes in Port Wentworth, Savannah
and Valdosta.
co-pastor of St. John the Evangelist
parish in Valdosta and Father Daniel
O’Connell becomes associate pastor of
St. James Church, Savannah.
Effective January 6th, Father Patrick
O’Brien became pastor of Our Lady of
Lourdes parish, Port Wentworth.
Father Gerard Murphy becomes
Father John A. Kenneally has been
named Chancellor of the Diocese of
Savannah, with residence at the
Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
Father Murphy Father Kenneally
assistant at Catholic University.
Ordained a Deacon last Spring,
Father Pachence spent the summer
months of 1973 working at St.
Benedict’s parish, Savannah.
In the three months he worked at St.
Benedict’s, he became a familiar and
welcome sight to parishioners of all
ages.
“As often as not,” says Father Fred
Nijem, St. Benedict’s pastor, “when the
door bell rang or the phone rang
during the summer months last year,
someone would ask ‘is Deacon Ron
there?”’
Asked about the kind of future he is
looking forward to in the Savannah
diocese, Father Pachence said that he
hopes to finish graduate studies leading
to a Doctoral degree in Philosophy. He
is also hoping to do teaching and
counseling in the diocese’s Campus
Ministry program.
MRS. LUCY DOMINO, National president of the National Catholic
Society of Foresters is presented a certificate of appreciation by the most
Reverend Alfred L. Abramowicz, auxiliary bishop of Chicago. The framed
scroll recognizes the assistance the society has given to the radio and
television work of the Catholic Church in the United States. Charles
Reilly, secretary of the Catholic communications foundation of New York
was on hand for the presentation.
Editor Lashes Networks
NEW YORK (CPF) - The TV editor
of The New York Daily News has lashed
out at the television networks for
creating the impression that the U.S. is
“a nation of atheists,” gauging from the
amount of religious programming
carried by the three major networks.
“Except for some token
programming on television, one
watching would easily assume we’re a
nation of atheists, spiritually sustained
by year-end reports on our economy
and the latest price of gasoline,” wrote
The News’ TV editor, Kay Gardella. “If
television is to be truly reflective of our
society, religious programming must
figure prominently into the picture
somewhere.”
Miss Gardella dted a recently
completed study by the Broadcast
Institute of North America, which
found a “passive” attitude existing in
TV’s top management toward religious
programs.
The Institute, a non-profit group that
explores areas of broadcasting involving
‘ public interest reported that syndicated
TV religious programs -- those sold to
individual stations by separate
producers -- “far exceeds both network
and locally originated programming in
number of airings and in resources for
production.”
The Institute also found that stations
in the top 100 markets carry the lion’s
share of religious programming, while
there is practically none carried on
stations servicing the bottom 100
markets: i.e., small cities.
Other findings by the Institute:
The highest number of programs of
religious nature were broadcast in the
Southeast and the East Central areas of
the country.
“What religion on television needs is a
miracle,” Miss Gardella commented.
“Religion can be an unending source of
intellectual stimulation as well as being
spiritually uplifting. Television can use
both, God knows.”
She gave special praise to a new
Public Broadcasting Service series titled
Religious America, which has begun
airing on educational TV stations
around the country and which was
produced by WGBH-TV in Boston.
Among the subjects to be covered in
the 13-week series are a Pentecostal
Church service in California, a former
drug addict who is now a minister, an
ex-POW telling how faith sustained him
during his captivity in North Vietnam, a
visit to a Black Baptist church in Gary,
Ind., a study of a Jewish Hassidic sect in
Brooklyn, and a look at a Jesus
commune.
“It’s a series that, if you have any
interest in religion at all, even dormant,
.you won’t want to miss,” Miss Gardella
said.
INSIDE STORY
Catholic Schools
Pg. 2
Priest Guerillas
Pg. 3
Life in Music
Pg. 6
Cook’s Nook
Pg. 8