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The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 55 No. 18
Thursday, May 2,1974
Single Copy Price — 12 Cents
JUDGE BLATT ADDRESSES DCCW:
Elizabeth Seton Seen Catholic Woman’s Model
Good Shepherd Chapel, Hazlehurst
MOTHER’S DAY
Hazlehurst Dedication May 12
Members of Good Shepherd Catholic
Chapel in Hazlehurst, have chosen
Mother’s Day as their dedication day.
Bishop Raymond Lessard will bless the
new building, administer Confirmation
and offer Mass at 3:00 P.M. Sunday,
May 12.
Hazlehurst, a mission station of
McRae is served by the Glenmary
Missioners. Fr. Joseph Dean is pastor.
The chapel serves Jeff Davis County and
the Lumber City area in Telfair County.
Brother Larry Jochim, of the Glenmary
Building Crew, designed and built the
structure with volunteer labor.
Fr. William Smith established the
INSIDE STORY
Communications
Pg. 2
Silver Jubilee
Pg. 2
'Know Your Faith’
Pg. 5
Entertainment
Pg. 6
parish in 1967 and began services, first
in a funeral home, and later in a small
chapel trailer. The new building is
located just south of Hazlehurst on the
Baxley Highway, route no. 34.
The furnishings, donated by St.
John’s Center from the St. John Vianny
Chapel, include the seminary altar,
tabernacle, pews, stations, organ, and
the statue of Madonna and Child. Local
groups, especially the Willard Bennett
Concrete Company, donated much of
the material used.
A generous donation was also made
in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Francis
Lewis through the Catholic Extension
Society.
All in the Savannah Diocese are
cordially invited to attend the
celebration. Refreshments will be served
by the ladies of the parish in the social
room after Mass.
The Honorable Genevieve Blatt,
Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court
Judge, feels that Blessed Elizabeth
Seton is the ideal model for the
American Catholic woman to follow.
The Jurist also commended Pope Paul
VI for his recent letter on the subject of
“Devotion to Mary.”
Speaking in the Savannah Diocese,
she said, “Catholic women everywhere,
but especially those of us here in the
United States, should be grateful to
Pope Paul for bringing Marian Devotion
into its proper perspective.”
Judge Blatt was the speaker at the
closing banquet of the Savannah
Diocesan Council of Catholic Women’s
Annual Convention at the Downtowner
Hotel in Albany last Saturday evening.
“And,” she added, “because our
American Catholic Bishops made Mary
our national patron saint over one
hundred years ago, I have two
suggestions to make as we approach the
celebration of our National Bicentennial
in 1976:
“1) that we pray earnestly to Mary to
intercede with God for our country in
these difficult times and 2) that we also
pray for the canonization of Blessed
Elizabeth Seton as our first
American-born citizen saint and ask her
intercession as well, for she lived in our
country in times as difficult as ours and
imitated Mary so closely that she, in my
opinion at least, is the ideal model for
the American Catholic woman to
follow.
“Yet there is a problem here,” she
continued, “While the Holy Father sees
Mary as a woman for our times, some
people may not. And, while I see
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Elizabeth Seton also as a woman for our
times, perhaps other people do not. As
the lovely Little Flower, Saint Therese
of Lisieux, once said of her own
inability in her early years to feel truly
drawn to the imitation of Mary, this was
because of the way in which writers of
her day described Mary. The sugary
piety which was supposed to
characterize the Blessed Mother of
Christ, the perfection in every quality
which was always glowingly ascribed to
her, made her seem simply unbelievable
as a human being to Saint Therese, she
said.
“And I am afraid that Mary has also
been made to seem unbelieveable in
human terms to too many people today,
especially to our younger people, who
can be no more readily ‘turned off’ by
anything than by talk of exceptional
piety or of nicey-nice or goody-goody
behavior. The same has been
unfortunately true of Elizabeth Seton.
“Pope Paul is asking us to see Mary as
she was,” Judge Blatt said, “as a young
Jewish woman living during the Roman
occupation of her country, having
loving but ordinary parents and a kind
but hard-working husband, living an
ordinary happy life as a homemaker,
then, as a widow, following her only son
of His wearsome journeys all the way
from Cana to Calvary, and finally
serving as a trusted counsellor for His
apostles and disciples, after His death
and resurrection.
“She was perfect,” the speaker said,
“yes, but she was also human. She was
submissive to the will of God, yes, but
she was not necessarily submissive to
everyone else. She spoke out when she
thought it necessary, even to her Divine
Son, as at Cana where she urged Him on
to His first miracle, and symbolically to
the whole world when she stood loyally
by Him as He carried a criminal’s cross
to Calvary. Mary was a strong woman
with a mind of her own, which she used,
a compassionate, one, too, a woman
who cared about other people and who
did for them what she could, whether it
was her distant kinswoman Elizabeth or
the underestimating bridegroom-host at
_ — >
Second Place Award
THE SOUTHERN CROSS was cited in two categories by judges for the 1974
Catholic Press Association Journalism Awards.
The Savannah Diocesan paper was ranked second in the “General Excellence”
competition (Up to 13,000 circulation). In “Best Front Page” category THE
SOUTHERN CROSS received third prize.
In the “General Excellence” critique the judges said: “THE SOUTHERN
CROSS second place winner last year, wins second prize again. It was praised for
its “very attractive make-up. Excellent use of pictures. There are some routine
“stand-up” photos, but otherwise the use of pictures would do credit to any
metropolitan paper. Good use of spot color.
Regarding the third prize or “Best Front Page” the judges said:
“THE SOUTHERN CROSS has mustered the deft use of color for its
reverse-plate nameplate and its “Headline Hopscotch” heading as well as for a
screened index box. And, almost always there’s that big dramatic photo to pull
the reader into the page.”
THE CHURCH-WORLD, Portland, Maine was the “General Excellence”
Winner. In the “Front page competition, MISSISSIPPI TODAY, Jackson
Mississipi placed first with THE CATHOLIC BANNER, Charleston, S.C. taking
the second prize.
Cana or the fearful group of apostles in
a locked-up room in Jerusalem after
Christ’s crucifixion.
“And I am suggesting that we see
Elizabeth Seton as she was, too, as a
woman who grew up in New York City
as our country was being bom, who
lived through the hard times of the
Revolutionary War and its aftermath,
who raised five children of her own, on
her own, after her husband died, and
who later founded the first American
religious order for women and opened
the first Catholic school and the first
Catholic orphanage in this country,
which her followers have multiplied into
the hundreds across the length and
width of the United States.”
Judge Blatt said, “at the National
Convention of our Catholic Women last
October in New Orleans, we
unanimously adopted a Resolution
urging prayers for Elizabeth Seton’s
canonization, and we did that for two
reasons: 1) that she might thus be called
to the attention of American women,
who would then hear about her and
adopt her as their model and 2) that,
the more women our country could
have like Elizabeth Seton, true followers
of Mary, the better off our country
would be.”
She continued, “and think of this:
“Elizabeth Seton’s 200th birthday will
be August 28, 1974. Our country’s
200th birthday will be July 4, 1976. If
we could all pray extra hard in these
next four months as a birthday gift for
Mother Seton and if these prayers
happily resulted in her early
canonization - and they could - what a
great birthday gift that would be for
America in 1976!
“What a double reason for national
celebration we all then would have: the
independence of our great country, and
the fact that, after two hundred years,
one of its very own American women -
one of its very first citizens, too - has
been recognized at last as a Saint.”
SR. M. DENISE CRA VEN
Golden Jubilee Marked
Saturday, April 27, was a gala day in
the life of Sister Mary Denise Craven,
for it marked the 50th Anniversary of
her Religious Profession in the Institute
of the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of
the Immaculate Conception.
The highlight of the day was a
Concelebrated Mass of Thanksgiving to
God for giving her the grace and
strength to reach this milestone in her
life. The chief celebrant of the Mass was
Rev. Terence Kernan, Pastor of St.
Michael’s. Concelebrants were Very
Rev. Aelred Beck, O.S.B., Rev. Brinstan
Takach. O.S.B., and Rev. Liam Collins.
Also attending were Rev. Francis
Nelson, Rev. James Costigan, Rev.
Daniel O’Connell, and Rev. Robert
Manning, Pastor of All Saints Episcopal
Church at Savannah Beach.
The homily was delivered by Rev.
Liam Collins. Music was provided by the
combined choirs from St. Francis
Convent and St. Pius X Convent in
Savannah and St. Michael’s Convent at
the Beach, under the able direction of
Sister Carol Reed of St. Pius X Convent.
After Mass a reception was held in
City Hall. Sister’s brother, Mr. Frank
Craven, and sister, Mrs. P. Harold
Ready, both of Lowell, Massachusetts,
and cousins, Mrs. Priscilla Chapman of
Rowley, Massachusetts, Mrs. Catherine
Dunnigan, Mr. Jerry Dunnigan, Mrs.
Frank Dunnigan Taibi, friends and
parishioners shared in the happy
occasion.
At 5:30 P.M. a dinner was served in
(Continued on page 8)
Sr. M. Denise Craven
HEADLINE
HOPSCOTCH
Abortion Attack
LONDON (NC) - The bishops of England and Wales have launched an attack on
Britain’s abortion policy and its new free-for-all contraceptive service that could lose
precious votes for Harold Wilson’s weak Labor party government. Cardinal John
Heenan of Westminster said that “the bishops would be failing in their duty if they did
not point out that official policy is offensive not only to the Catholic minority but to
many other citizens.”
Committed to Aid
WASHINGTON (NC) - The Nixon Administration is committed to aid nonpublic
schools but admits that there are substantial constitutional problems. Health,
Education and Welfare Secretary Caspar Weinberger said the Administration still
desires an educational system which offers variety and choice. But he noted that most
state plans to aid nonpublic schools have been found to be unconstitutional.
Priests Deny Claim
ROME (NC) - Italian missionaries expelled from the Portuguese African territory of
Mozambique have denied that Bishop Manuel Vieira Pinto of Nampula left the
terrority voluntarily. The Portuguese embassy to the Vatican issued a statement saying
that the missionaries had been expelled but that the bishop departed voluntarily
because he was in danger from mob violence.
New HEW Regulations
WASHINGTON (NC) - New regulations for nontherapeutic sterilizations performed
with federal funds on adults have been issued here by the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare. Consent orders signed by patients must now be accompanied
by clear assurances that a decision “at any time not to be sterilized” will not result in
the withholding of any welfare benefits. A federal court order, which HEW may
appeal, previously banned sterilizations of minors and the mentally incompetent.