Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 56 No. 14
Thursday, April 3,1975
Single Copy Price — 15 Cents
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BY JOHN MUTHIG
VATICAN CITY (NC) - As the
largest crowd within recent memory
flooded St. Peter’s Square, Pope Paul VI
proclaimed in his Easter “Urbi et Orbi”
message that Jesus’ Resurrection has
infused “new, original and inexhaustible
life” into a world of dashed hopes.
Speaking from the central balcony of
St. Peter’s Basilica following an open-air
Mass, the Pope told about 400,000
people standing in the sun-soaked
square:
“It does not matter, brethren, if the
experience of the frailty of human
powers daily disappoints our fragile
hopes for a stable ordering of human
society.
“Nor does it matter if from the very
progress generated by modem
development and from the sovereign
exploitation of the useful secrets of
nature there seems to derive for man
not fullness or certainty of life, but
rather the torment of unsatisfied
aspiration. It does not matter.
“For a new, original and
inexhaustible source of life has been
infused into the world by the risen
Christ.”
As street vendors and balloon sellers
passed through the fringe of the crowd,
the Pope in his message “to the city and
the worid” called the Resurrection a
“victory over sterile and deadening
selfishness.” jfc/
He added that some men, “oriented
as they are toward the elimination of
effort and duty,” are afraid of the Cross
which led to the Resurrection and are
hindered by it from accepting Christ.
“who have an insight into the truth and
who are hungry for a happy and sincere
interior life.”
The Pope, vested in white and in a
buoyant mood, said that the
Resurrection provides the “example and
the energy for the continual moral,
spiritual and social renewal of the
present life.”
The Pope also gave Easter greetings in
12 languages. His greeting in Vietnamese
was followed by loud applause.
The Easter message and apostolic
blessing climaxed the Vatican’s Holy
Week celebrations in which Pope Paul
participated fully.
On Holy Thursday, the Pope
concelebrated the Mass of the Lord’s
Supper in St. Peter’s Basilica with eight
cardinals, including American Cardinal
John Wright, prefect of the Vatican’s
Congregation for the Clergy.
In his homily the Pope called the
priesthood a “ministry of service,” with
a special character which is
“intentionally social and defined by
charity.”
He said that priests, though shaken
by present-day troubles and doubts,
should be able to say, “I am happy.” He
asked them: “How can we question our
calling to such a ministry while
remembering that the call comes from a
preferential initiative taken by Christ
which meets with our free, personal,
loving response?”
14 v
After his talk, the Pope washed the
feet of 12 boys age 10 through 12, who
came from the five continents. The
ceremony commemorates the action of
Christ, who washed His disciples’ feet at
the Last Supper.
polygamist. Most of the baptized were
from Third World developing countries,
including Thailand, Vietnam, Korea and
several African nations.
About 95 Holy Year pilgrim groups
Ordination
Rev. Mr. Clark
here for Holy Week had made their
presence known to Vatican officials.
Some tourism officials in Rome
estimated that the number of Holy
Week visitors was about 20 percent to
30 percent above last year’s total.
Scheduled
The ordination of Rev. Mr. Douglas
Clark to the Order of Diaconate on
April 10 will bring to four the number
of deacons ordained this year for the
Savannah diocese.
Mr. Clark, son of Mr. and Mrs.
Delmon Bower Clark of Kettering,
Ohio, will be ordained to the Diaconate
at the Pontifical North American
College in Rome by Bishop James A.
Hickey of Cleveland, Ohio. Bishop
Hickey is a former Rector of the North
American College.
Mr. Clark began his studies for the
Savannah diocese following his
graduation from Fairmont West High
School in Kettering.
He undertook his college studies at
William and Mary College, Virginia and
entered the North American College for
Theological studies in 1972. He will
remain at North American until his
ordination to the Priesthood in 1976.
• 4 •
HEADLINE |
PttyiH ^
HOPSCOTCH
Father McCown, (R.), Autographs Book for Dennis Beall
Priest’s Book to Aid
BY GRACE CRAWFORD
Macon News Staff Writer
The African adventures of a Jesuit
priest formerly assigned to Macon will
help provide summer camp for hundreds
of underprivileged Mexican children.
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It was a wild, angry elephant that
frightened Father James McCown
within an inch of his life and inspired
the title of his 191-page travelogue,
“Elephants Have the Right of Way,” a
Lugori publication.
Father McCown, who was assistant
pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church for
five years, is back in Macon to visit his
former parishioners and to tell of his
work in Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish,
one of the largest in San Antonio, Tex.
It is the extreme poverty of the
people he serves that motivated Father
McCown to write what novelist Walker
Percy has called “a charming and
delightfully eccentric journal, a
pilgrimage wizzing along one moment at
Honda-90 speed, the next with the
quiet, loving open-eyed wonder of
Gerard Manley Hopkins looking at a sea
shell.”
The sale of the books will go to
support Wolff Trail Kids Camp, made
possible by Texas cattleman Nelson
Wolff, who allows the children the run
of his huge ranch not far from San
Antonio.
The husky Alabama bom priest was
riding horseback in the mountains of
Mexico serving more than 40 village
church retreats in the latter part of
1967 when his provincial needed a man
for a year’s service in Tanzania, East
Africa, replacing a Jesuit priest on leave.
So Father McCown swapped his horse
for a motorcycle, and in only 10
months, traveled 9,000 miles in Kenya
and Uganda, conducting retreats for
English-speaking Scumu teen-agers,
Dutch and Irish nuns, for laymen and
members of religious orders.
An elderly priest there told him,
“Father, you’ve seen more of this
country in 10 months than I have in 30
years.”
In “Elephants Have the Right of
Way,” he tells of a year “of great
contentment” in East Africa, where he
lived in a huge retreat house on a rocky,
windswept hill overlooking Lake
Victoria.
And he writes of some spectacular
adventures -- of being chased by
baboons, snorted at by an angry
buffalo, and charged by a wild elephant.
“I only wanted to photograph him,”
he said, “so I told the driver of my car
to circle around. Then I found out why
one gives elephants the right-of-way.
This one suddenly flattened his ears,
thrust out his trunk, let out a wild
squeal and charged the car. Luckily we
outran him, but I was never so
frightened in my life.”
For such a busy man, one wonders
how Father McCown found the time to
take so many notes, and how one priest
could become involved in so many
unusual situations.
On the pages of his small book, there
are humor, warmth, pathos, imagery, as
INSIDE STORY
DCCW Convention .....Pg, 2
Bishops, President Pg. 3
Movies Pa* 6
Death and Resurrection Pg. 7
“But not the young,” he added,
he writes about the cities, the
mountains, rivers, Africa’s vast animal
kingdom and most of all, her people.
“Very good natured, responsive, lovable
people,” he said. “They were fascinating
in their customs and religions and very
honest in their business dealings. My
sadness was that I spoke Swahili so
poorly.”
When Father McCown notified his
friends about his literary efforts, he was
swamped with requests for the
recently-released book.
If sales continue, he said, the Mexican
children soon will have their first
newly-constructed camp building on the
big ranch. It will be a 2,500 square foot
facility, to fill a variety of needs.
Pope Paul presided at the liturgy on
Good Friday at St. Peter’s Basilica.
During the service, a barefoot man
entered St. Peter’s Square carrying a
heavy, rough-hewn wooden cross.
Answering few questions, he said he
began walking to the Basilica of St.
John Lateran several miles away and
was fulfilling a vow.
The Passion according to St. John
was chanted by three Canadians, and
the part of Christ was taken by a Black
Dominican priest, Father Martin
Skinner.
The Pope then prayed for those “still
suffering from warlike political and civil
conflicts and for all those for whom
misfortune and sickness make life
bitter.”
At a 10 p.m. Easter Vigil ceremony,
Pope Paul personally baptized 21
people, including the 71-year-old
president of a Japanese shipping firm
and a Zairean welder whose father was a
Children
Dr. Jackson Honored
The Boston College Alumni
Association presented one of its first
Awards of Excellence to Dr. Prince A.
Jackson, Jr., President to Savannah
State College in Savannah, as part of the
University’s opening day of Bicentennial
activities last Tuesday (Apr. 1).
Dr. Jackson, a native of Savannah,
received the award from Boston
College’s president, Rev. J. Donald
Monan, S.J.
He is a member of St. Benedict’s
parish Savannah. He has served as
President of the Parish Pastoral Council
and the Holy Name Society. He is also a
lay Minister of the Eucharist for St.
Benedict’s
During his 26 years in administration,
teaching and research writing, Dr.
Jackson has received numerous
academic honors and fellowships and
has been published widely. He has
taught mathematics, physics, chemistry,
graduate courses in science education
supervision, modem math for teachers
and has supervised graduate and
undergraduate science education
programs.
He is a member of 16 professional
and honor societies and is listed in many
volumes of prominent Americans
including “Who’s Who in America.”
Dr. Jackson and his wife, Marilyn,
live in Savannah with their five children,
Rodney, Prince III, Julia, Anthony and
Philip.
Dr. Jackson
Pope Alarmed on Vietnam
VATICAN CITY (NC) -- Pope Paul VI, alarmed at the breakdown of the Paris peace
agreements and renewed blood shed in Vietnam, made a strong plea March 26 for
“universal solidarity” in relieving the suffering of countless Vietnamese. Loudly
exclaiming, “Everything is beginning again, the bloodshed is beginning again,” the
Pope spoke of “our sorrow and our anxiety for all those dear people.” He begged his
listeners: “Let us do everything we can to alleviate the tragedy of those people and to
prove to them that the world is not indifferent to the cries of our brethren.”
Governor Appeals Ruling
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (NC) - Gov. Edmund G. Brown, Jr., has ordered the state
attorney general’s office to appeal immediately a court ruling barring California from
paying its employes for time off for the three-hour observance on Friday. The
governor also said he would permit state employes to use compensatory time-off for
observance of Good Friday and ordered supervisors to grant them this “to the fullest
extent possible,” while still providing the necesary state service to the public.
Decline to Censure Bishops
WASHINGTON (NC) - An Episcopal board of inquiry has decided not to call for
any disciplinary action against four Episcopal bishops who ordained 11 women priests
in Philadelphia in 1974. The 10-member board, made up of both clergymen and laity,
said that in the specific charges levied against the ordaining bishops by four other
bishops “the core of the controversy is doctrinal.” The vote is 8 to 2. According to
Episcopal canon law, doctrinal matters must be handled by the House of Bishops after
formal charges are made by 10 bishops and approved for action by two-thirds of the
House.
Deplores Faisal’s Death
WASHINGTON (NC) -- Bishop James S. Rausch, general secretary of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), has deplored the assassination of King Faisal
of Saudi Arabia and said he prays that recent events will “not lead to a new outbreak
of hostilities in the Mideast.” “Decent people everywhere deplore the assassination of
King Faisal,” the bishop said in a statement on King Faisal. “Besides condemning such
violence, I share the widely felt concern that this incident may contribute to further
destabilizing the troubled and tense situation in the Mideast.”
Gulf Nominates Nun
PITTSBURGH (NC) -- The Gulf Oil Corporation, criticized in the past by church
groups for the social consequences of some of its corporate activities, has nominated
Sister Jane Scully, president of Carlow College here, to its board of directors. Sister
Scully, 57, of the Sisters of Mercy of Alleghany County, who has been prominent in
Pittsburgh civic affairs, once participated in a demonstration asking for equal
employment opportunity at the United States Steel Corporation.
Schools Promote Justice
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (NC) - Archbishop Peter L. Gerety of Newark, N.J., told
Catholic school teachers here that what they impart in spiritual values can bring an
extra dimension to the nation’s quest for a just society as the United States approaches
its bicentennial. The archbishop spoke at an opening liturgy of the four<lay 72nd
annual convention of the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) at
Convention Hall here. The meeting’s theme was “Seeking a Just Society.”
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