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The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 55 No. 39
Thursday, November 7,1974
Single Copy Price — 15 Cents
Ecumenism After 10 Years:Where the Action Is
BY GILLIAN BROWN
“The local church is where it’s at!” is
the comment one hears constantly from
top-level theologians and Church
officials involved in the drive for
reunion of the Christian churches.
(Savannah Bishop Raymond W.
Lessard announced last week that the
10th anniversary of the Vatican Council
Decree on Ecumenism will be
commemorated in Savannah by an
ecumenical service on Nov. 24th at the
Cathedral of St. John the Baptist at
7:30 p.m. Invitations have been sent to
all Christian churches in the city and to
major state representatives of at least
ten Christian denominations.
Acceptances have already been received
from eight regional, State and National
f groups. A planning committee
consisting of Bishop Lessard, Fr.
Lawrence A. Lucree, Rector of the
Cathedral; Fr. J. Kevin Boland, Vicar
General; and Fr. John Keneally,
Chancellor has been formed.)
Catholic groups within the Savannah
Diocese are taking part in many
different forms of ecumenical action,
and in some cases have been doing so
for several years.
In MACON the annual Institute of
Religion brings together Jews, Catholics
and Protestants, laymen and ministers,
black people and white. The Institute
runs for four consecutive Tuesday
evenings in February, and is held each
year at a different church. The Institute
■- helps to lead community thinking on
issues which seriously affect all
participants. Community leaders play an
important part at each session.
Normally a talk is followed by group
discussion, coffee, informal contact and
sometimes singing by public and
parochial school choirs. Meetings are
popular (4,500 came to the Institute
this year), vital and full of interest,
made even more lively by the
participation of faculty from Mercer,
Wesleyan and Macon Junior College.
For the 1975 Institute, Bishop
Lessard will give the first talk of the
series, a Rabbi the second. The third wil
involve leaders of the Black community;
the fourth will be led by a group of
senior citizens who will answer
questions on aging.
(The Institute is sponsored by the
Macon Ministerial Association. Active in
helping to plan it is Father Tom Healy,
whose day-to-day work in campus
ministry brings him in touch with
people of many different religious
backgrounds. Father Healy has twice
visited the Ecumenical monastery of
Taize, in France, where a recent youth
council brought together some 35,000
young people from more than 100
countries.)
ON THE ISLE OF HOPE, in
Savannah, the Baptist, Methodist,
Episcopalian and Catholic churches have
jointly sponsored an Interfaith group
which brings together people living in
the area. Initially the people met for an
interfaith worship service the fifth
Sunday of every month containing five
Sundays.
More recently the services have been
arranged on a seasonal basis, for
Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. The
group has sponsored a number of
community projects, including a Youth
Employment Service for teens in the
area (led by a member of the Jewish
community), a summer series of movies
for young people, and - the most recent
venture - a highly successful Vacation
Bible School with volunteer teachers
drawn from all the churches involved.
A special attraction each year is the
joint Easter Sunrise Service, held on a
sloping lawn which leads down to the
Ski da way River.
ST. BENEDICT’S CHURCH, in
Savannah, has initiated a non-profit
Corporation of 10 churches in the area,
known as the East Side Community to
Help Ourselves. Of the other churches
belonging to the group one is
Congregational, two are Methodist, and
the rest are Baptist. The Corporation
has formed a Co-operative and a Credit
Union. Members of the Co-op band
together to buy food (principally
produce) from wholesalers.
The Credit Union now has 125
members and aims for a membership of
200 by the time it completes its first
year. The Corporation has sponsored a
recreational league for summertime
activities for children in the
neighborhood.
A Bible School held at St. Benedict’s
Father Mayer Dies
Father Stephen T. Mayer, pastor of
St. Mary, Star of the Sea parish, St.
Mary’s, Georgia, died suddenly
November 5th. He was sixtv-four years
old.
A native of Towner, North Dakota,
Father Mayer was ordained in 1939 at
the Cathedral in Washington, D. C. after
studies with the Clerics of St. Viator.
In 1944, he entered the military
service as a Chaplain in the United
States Air Force, remaining on active
duty until his retirement in 1965 at
Warner Robins AFB. He held the rank
of Colonel. Upon his retirement, he
accepted an appointment as pastor of
the St. Mary’s parish.
A Rosary service was held last
Wednesday evening (Nov. 6). Savannah
Bishop Raymond W. Lessard
concelebrated a Mass of the
Resurrection on Thursday morning at
St. Mary’s Church with a number of
diocesan priests.
Fathers Brendan Timmins and
Lawrence Lucree will attend burial
services at the National Cemetery,
Arlington, Virginia.
Father Mayer is survived by two
sisters: Mrs. Pearl Hayes of St. Mary’s
and Mrs. Rose Englehardt of Kalispell,
Montana.
Bishop Lessard Visits Way cross
BISHOP’S WAYCROSS VISIT. Bishop Raymond
Lessard (1) and Father Michael O’Keefe in Waycross
Journal Herald office with Miss Cathy Herndon, the
paper’s religious news editor. (Journal Herald Photo)
in the summer time attracts children
from many different religious
backgrounds. St. Benedict’s celebrated
its 100th anniversary this year with an
ecumenical service, and will hold
another interfaith service at Christmas.
Working behind the scenes to keep all
these activities going is Father Fred
Nijem, Pastor.
UNITED CHRISTIANS ON CAMPUS
is a small but active student group at
Armstrong State College, in Savannah.
Its members belong to different faith
backgrounds and work with other
student organizations on campus, such
as the Baptist Student Union.
UCC organizes seminars, movies,
talks, discussions and retreats each
(Continued on Page 2)
AT SACRED HEART
“Family” Program Scheduled
*
The second session of the “FAMILY”
religious education program will be held
at Sacred Heart Church, Savannah, on
Sunday November 10th. The theme for
the evening will be “Thanksgiving,” and
the meeting will be led by Father John
Kenneally.
Over 100 people attended the first
session of the program on October 6th,
and the response of adults and children
proved very encouraging.
“The people are still talking and
asking questions about the new
understanding of the biblical Creation
stories they got from the session,”
Father James Costigan, Pastor at Sacred
Heart, reported.
The parish Religious Education
Committee sponsors the program, which
takes place the second Sunday of each
month, from 5:00-7:00 p.m. The first
INSIDE STORY
Bishops’ Mooting
Pg. 2
Opinion
Pg. 4
Equal Pay
P9* 7
NCCW Statomonts
Pg. 8
hour of each session provides classes for
pre-school, primary, intermediate and
junior high members of the families
attending. High school students attend
the same classes as their parents.
Instruction is thematic, so that the
entire family is studying the same topic,
each at his own level. During the second
hour, members of the family come
together to discuss what they have
learned and to work on projects which
symbolize their understanding. The
evening concludes with the Mass, which
will be celebrated in the church.
The “Family” program - from Paulist
Press - may be used throughout the
year or for occasional study sessions in
smaller parishes. The Department of
Christian Formation library has
available a complete set of the materials
used for the first Cycle: Creation,
Thanksgiving, Covenant, Reconciliation,
Penance, Eucharist, Life/Death
(Sacrament of the Sick), Community.
SISTER CAMILLE COLLINI looks over materials for use in the
“Family” religious education program to be held at Savannah’s Sacred
Heart parish Nov. 10, with Mr. and Mrs. Lemuel Campbell and their
children, Lemuel Jr. and Tonja.
Condensed from article
by Cathy Herndon
St. Joseph’s parish, Waycross had an
associate pastor for the weekend of Oct.
27. He was Bishop Raymond Lessard,
who visited the parish, celebrated Mass,
preached and met with the people and
the parish council. On Monday morning,
the bishop visited students at St.
Joseph’s Academy, spoke with their
teachers, visited a local hospital and
stopped by the office of the Waycross
Journal Herald for an interview with
Miss Cathy Herndon, religious news
editor for the paper.
In his interview with Miss Herndon,
Bishop Lessard spoke about the 10th
anniversary of the Vatican Council
Decree on Ecumenism. “The ecumenical
movement,” he said, “has made it
possible for our church to become
involved with other churches on social
and moral issues.” He cited St. Joseph
pastor, Michael O’Keefe’s efforts in
enlisting the aid of area churches in
raising funds for drought-stricken Africa
as an example of the churches becoming
involved together with the “real world.”
The bishop also declared that the
Catholic Church must deliver an
authentic and sincere message to the
nation’s youth.
freely and intelligently. “They shouldn’t
feel that joining the church is what they
‘should do,”’ he said, “but rather what
they ‘want’ to do.”
He said a great challenge to the
church today is “the ever growing
awareness on the part of the people of
justice in society - such as political
rights, totalitarianism and amnesty.”
He said churches should work
together in communities, although there
are important disagreements which
shouldn’t be ignored, and that the
disagreements shouldn’t come between
churches.
X HEADLINE f*'
HOPSCOTCH 'A
Protest Arafat Invitation
WASHINGTON (NC) -- Nineteen Catholic and Protestant religious leaders in the
United States have protested against the United Nations’ Oct. 14 decision to invite
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader, Yasir Arafat, to address the UN
General Assembly. The religious leaders questioned the appropriateness of singling out
the PLO, “a terrorist organization” that “is publicly dedicated to the destruction of
the state of Israel, a member of the United Nations,” as the representatives of
Palestinians before the UN. Among the eight Catholic signers of the protest statement
were two officials of the U.S. Catholic Conference. All were expressing their own
personal views.
Bernardin on Food Shortage
“I don’t think the church should
‘win’ youth over, just as parents
shouldn’t have to ‘win’ youth,” he said,
“but the church must be authentic and
sincere because young people can catch
us in any hypocrisy.”
He said young people are not “turned
off by Christ” but are turned off by a
“joyless church people who claim to
have a message of good news. We should
all be full of joy.”
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The world’s current food shortage will not go away until
consumers change their eating habits and governments adopt generous policies,
Archbishop Joseph Bernardin of Cincinnati said in a Vatican Radio interview. Noting
that all people living on a “limited globe” are interdependent, Archbishop Bernardin
said that in such a world social justice “is a responsibility which makes an appeal to
the consciences of all.” He said the alternative to seeking social justice “is the specter
of a world where many watch color television while others die for want of being able
to satisfy basic human needs.”
Papal Press Conferences?
Bishop Lessard said parents have the
same trouble with youth in that “the
old generation isn’t accustomed to
applying principles of the gospel to new
situations.”
He declared that “there is a great
ecumenical spirit of good will and
mutual respect” in the world now and
that people must choose the church
SPOKANE, Wash. (NC) - Msgr. George Higgins, the U.S. Catholic Conference’s
secretary for research, told Northwest Catholic journalists here that he hopes “to live
long enough to see the day when the Pope will agree to hold an occasional press
conference.” He added: “In other words, I can’t understand why we assume that the
Church can be in the modern world and at the same time be exempt from its rules and
demands.” He also said the Church was not communicating effectively on the issues of
women’s liberation and abortion. “We run away from the question of the ordination
of women as though it has already been settled that this would be absolutely in
violation of the divine law,” he said.