Newspaper Page Text
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 56 No. 15
Thursday, April 10,1975
Single Copy Price — 15 Cents
PRIESTS PREDOMINANT ON SOCCER TEAM.
Members of the “Irish” Soccer Team which played the
Savannah Soccer Team on March 16, 1975, in Daffin
Park, Savannah: top row, left to right: Rev. Tadg
O’Mahony, Columbus; Rev. Dan O’Connell, Savannah;
Rev. Liam O’ Sullivan, Savannah; Mr. John Fishback,
Savannah; Rev. Michael Delea, Macon; Rev. John
Kenneally, Savannah; Rev. Michael Ring, Savannah.
Second row: Rev. Eamonn O’Riordan, Savannah; Mr.
Harry McMillan, County Down, Ireland; Mr. Edward
Quinn, Cork City, Ireland; Rev. Liam Collins,
NASHVILLE BISHOP RESIGNS
Savannah; and Rev. Frank Patterson, Savannah. Not
present when the picture was taken were Rev. Patrick
McCarthy, Valdosta; Rev. Kevin Boland, Savannah;
and Rev. Barry Stanton, Augusta. The outcome was
five goals to three in favor of the Savannah Soccer
Team. The “Irish” Team consisted of twelve
native-born Irish priests working in the Diocese of
Savannah, two laymen both from Ireland, and one
member from Savannah who was loaned by the
Savannah Soccer Team.
Gossman Named Raleigh Bishop
WASHINGTON (NC) - Pope Paul VI
has named Auxiliary Bishop F. Joseph
Gossman of Baltimore, 45, bishop of
Raleigh, N.C., and Msgr. Norbert
Gaughan, 55, vicar general of the
Greensburg, Pa., diocese, auxiliary
bishop of that See.
Pope Paul has also accepted the
resignation of Bishop Joseph Durick of
Nashville, Tenn., 60, who will devote
the remainder of his ministry to work
with prisoners and their families.
Bishop Durick will be succeeded by
Msgr. Niedergeses, 58, pastor of Sts.
Peter and Paul’s parish in Chattanooga,
Tenn.
Bishop Gossman is a native of
Baltimore. After completing elementary
studies at Shrine of the Little Flower
parish school, he made his high school
and college studies at St. Charles
College, Catonsville, Md. He completed
his studies for the priesthood at St.
Mary’s Seminary, Baltimore, and at the
North American College in Rome,
where he was ordained to the
priesthood on Dec. 17,1955. Following
ordination, he studied canon law at the
Catholic University of America here and
earned his doctorate in 1961.
He served as assistant pastor at the
Basilica of the Assumption, Baltimore,
and assistant chancellor of the
Baltimore archdiocese from 1959 to
1961 when he was appointed vice
officialis. In 1965 he was appointed vice
chancellor and officialis, and in 1966
was named to the faculty of St. Mary’s
Seminary, Roland Park, in Baltimore.
He was appointed auxiliary bishop of
Baltimore in 1968.
Bishop Gossman
Bishop Durick in 1973 called for
sweeping prison reforms in Tennessee
and urged state officials not to reinstate
the death penalty. “Let us treasure life,
not gamble with it,” he said then.
for prisoners, including private visits of
husbands and wives. “This arrangement
would recognize a fundamental human
right in marriage,” he said.
Conjugal visits, he said, would help
reduce the “problem of sexual
maladjustments” among prisoners and
“might stem the otherwise significantly
high rate of divorce” involving
prisoners.
Bishop Durick also called for
adequate health, counseling, educational
and spiritual care and urged an end to
all discrimination, including religious
discrimination, in prisons.
On Christmas of 1973 he spent the
morning with prisoners. “I thought it
fitting,” he said, “to spend part of this
joyous celebration with the men who
have one thing in common with Christ
that many of us do not have: society
has legally judged them to be criminals,
as society once legally judged the Savior
to be a criminal.”
Commenting on his decision to work
among prisoners, Bishop Durick said on
his retirement:
“I intend to move into this new field
on endeavor after a few months of
preparation, because in recent years I
have seen firsthand the heartshattering
despair of those men and women we
have locked away in our prisons. I have
seen the erosion of their hope and the
resulting alienation even extending to
their families. And, saddest of all, I have
seen so many of us who are free do little
to bring solace to those who are not
free. Therefore I have concluded that I
will devote the remaining years of my
pastoral ministry to the pastoral care of
prisoners and their families.”
Bishop-designate Niedergeses was
bom Feb. 2, 1917, in Lawrenceburg,
Tenn., where he attended parochial
school. He studied at St. Bernard’s
College, St. Bernard, Ala.; St. Ambrose
College, Davenport, Iowa, and Mt. St.
Mary Seminary of the West, Cincinnati.
He was ordained in 1944 after which he
earned a master of divinity degree in
pastoral theology from the Athenaeum
of Ohio in Cincinnati.
He called for increased visiting rights
f
INSIDE STORY
Donalsonville Dedication....Pg. 2
Capital Punishment Pg. 3
Life in Music Pg. 6
DCCW Convention Pg. 7
v —
SA VANNAH DEANER Y
Self-Study Underway
The Savannah Deanery Self-Study
steering committee has begun its work
of “planning and programming” to
provide for needs and goals of the
Savannah area Catholic community with
the opening of offices at 220 E. Harris
Street, Savannah, and the scheduling of
a deanery meeting with an expert in city
and regional planning April 18-19.
Father Robert G. Howes, who has a
broad range of experience as a
consultant in pastoral planning, will be
in Savannah, April 18-19, to confer with
Catholic religious and lay leaders as part
of the on-going work of the Self-Study
Steering Committee (SSSC).
The announcement of Father Howes’
visit was made jointly today by Paul
Ramee, chairman of the Self-Study
Steering Committee, and Father Fred
Nijem, executive director of the SSSC.
In conjunction with the
announcement of the visit of Father
Howes, a pastoral letter from Bishop of
Savannah Raymond W. Lessard is being
promulgated in all Deanery churches
this weekend stressing the importance
of the self-study. Bishop Lessard
emphasizes in his letter the need to
avoid an “in isolation” procedure in
facing issues which affect the church in
the Chatham County area. In so doing
he endorses “a broader more inclusive
process of planning and programming
that would provide for the needs and
future goals of the total Catholic
community in the Savannah Deanery.”
Father Howes, who is presently
serving as pastoral planning consultant
for the dioceses of Saginaw, Michigan,
and Charlotte, North Carolina, will
speak at four different meetings during
his whirlwind visit. In addition, he will
deliver the homily at a Deanery-wide
Mass Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at the
Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
The priests of the Savannah Deanery
will meet with Father Howes, Friday,
April 18, at the Blessed Sacrament
Rectory at 9:30 a.m. That afternoon he
will talk to school principals and
faculties at Blessed Sacrament
gymnasium at 2 p.m. At 8 p.m. he will
participate in a meeting of the Savannah
Deanery Pastoral Council to which
members of parish councils and school
boards from throughout the deanery
have been invited. This meeting will be
at the Rose of Sharon Apartments.
On Saturday, Father Howes will
confer with the Self-Study Steering
Committee at 1:30 p.m. in the SSSC’s
office at 220 East Harris Street. This
Official
Appointment
Father Howes
will be followed by the Deanery-wide
mass.
“All sessions involving Father Howes
will be open to anyone who would like
to attend,” Mr. Ramee pointed - >t.
“Because the study is participator,
involving people from the grass roots
up, we hope a large number of Savannah
Catholics will avail themselves of the
opportunity to hear Father Howes. We
also hope that many will attend the
Saturday evening mass to join in prayer
for the success of the self-study and to
hear Father Howes’ homily.”
Father Nijem explained that “by
bringing Father Howes to Savannah and
making his expertise on pastoral
planning available to every segment of
the local Catholic population, it is the
aim of the SSSC to better communicate
to all, religious and laity alike, the goals
and objectives of such a planning
program. It is also our purpose, speaking
from the standpoint of the committee,
to draw on Father Howes’ wealth of
knowledge and experience in order to
more clearly define the role of the
committee as it sets out on this most
important task.”
A priest of the diocese of Worcester,
Massachusetts, Father Howes is a
graduate of Holy Cross College and
holds degrees from St. Louis University
and the University of Montreal. He
earned a Masters Degree in city and
regional planning from Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in 1960.
He was founder and, for seven years,
director of Catholic University of
America’s graduate program in city and
regional planning and has held staff
positions with the Center for Applied
Research in the Apostolate (CARA) and
Felix M. Lopez and Associates. He
remains a fellow of CARA and an
associate of Lopez.
rauier liuWeo “nets* ,r. u».. . ■».
books and papers on pastoral planning
and has served as a planning consultant
to a number of dioceses and religious
orders throughout the country. He is
currently a member of the executive
committee of the National Pastoral
Planning Conference.
Catechetical Directory
Concerned Catholics all over the nation are being invited to read the first draft
of the new National Catechetical Directory, and to send in their observations
and recommendations.
The Directory - an official document to be issued by the Catholic Bishops of
the United States - will be a pastoral and practical document containing
guidelines for teaching religion.
Copies of the first draft, in tabloid form, are available free of charge from:
DEPARTMENT OF CHRISTIAN FORMATION, GRIMBALL POINT ROAD,
SAVANNAH, GA. 31406. Recommendations should be submitted in the correct
format by April 23rd.
/
A
HEADLINE
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HOPSCOTCH
ct-
CRS Pledges Continued Aid
% NEW YORK (NC) -- Catholic Relief Services, the overseas aid agency of U.S.
Catholics, is willing to continue its massive relief work in South Vietnam and
Father Robert J. Teoli has been Cambodia whatever regime is in power. “We ask only two guarantees from whatever
relieved of his duties as pastor of St. government may be in authority,” said Father Robert L. Charlebois, Catholis Relief
Matthew’s parish, Statesboro, “to Services’ regional director for East Asia and the Pacific. “The safety of our
assume additional responsibilities in the international staff must be assured, and our international staff must be able to monitor
area of‘Family Life,”’Bishop Raymond and account for the expenditure of commodities and funds in the refugee areas,
W. Lessard announced last Monday regardless of who controls them.” Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is “hoping to gear up
(Apr. 6). to provide for a half-million additional refugees” in Vietnam, Father Charlebois said.
Father Teoli, who holds a Master’s
degree in counseling from Georgia
Southern College, Statesboro, has been
active in helping to develop diocesan
policies concerning pre-marriage
counseling and teen-age marriages.
He has also been active in efforts of
the Catholic church in South Georgia to
thwart legislative efforts to broaden
present Georgia abortion laws. His new
assignment will enable him to work
more closely with the Executive
Director of the Georgia Catholic
Conference, Mr. Cheatham Hodges,
Father Teoli told the SOUTHERN
CROSS.
Since his ordination in 1955, Father
Teoli has served as associate pastor at
St. Teresa’s, Albany; Blessed Sacrament,
Savannah; Cathedral, Savannah. He was
pastor of St. Michael’s, Savannah Beach;
Nativity, Thunderbolt and St. Teresa’s,
Albany before becoming pastor of the
Statesboro parish.
Archbishop Opposes Thieu
SAIGON (NC) -- Archbishop Paul Nguyen Van Binh of Saigon has added his voice
to a swelling chorus of demands for resignation of South Vietnamese President Nguyen
Van Thieu. The archbishop made his appeal April 3 while South Vietnam’s armed
forces reeled backwards in pell-mell retreat from the central highlands and the major
cities of Hue and Danang. Gloom and even despair seemed to reign in the capital city
of Saigon.
USCC Assures IRS
WASHINGTON (NC) - Citing Church teachings and school enrollment statistics, the
U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC) has assured the Internal revenue Service (IRS) that
Catholic schools do not discriminate against minority group students. “The Catholic
school system is committed by deep and abiding Church policy to refrain from racial
discrimination” and believes that “reasonable methods necessary to implement policies
of nondiscrimination should be followed,” according to a letter to IRS from Eugene
Krasicky, USCC general counsel. The letter was a response to proposed regulations
issued by IRS to guarantee that private schools receiving tax-empt status were
obeying federal civil rights laws. The regulations basically require proof of
nondiscriminatory admission, hiring and loan and scholarship policies, and action to
publicize those policies.