Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 3 -
_ ocJtr-2-
The Southern Cross, Septembei 20,1975
“Liberty and Justice for All,” the fall
series of the Adult Education Program
will begin this Sunday and continue
thereafter through November 9,
according to Father Patrick J. Shinnick,
Religious Education Coordinator and
Associate Pastor of Augusta’s St. Mary’s
on the Hill Church. “This series is being
presented in preparation for the
bicentennial year,” said Father
Shinnick. Twin lectures will be given
each Sunday beginning October 5 from
10 to 11 o’clock.
One series “Justice for All,” which
will take place in the Parish Hall, will
open with Charles Walker, Executive
Director of the Augusta Richmond
County Hupian Relations Commission.
Walker will discuss the efforts of the
Commission in bringing harmony to
Augusta.
The other series “Freedom to
Live” will take place in the cafetorium
of St. Mary’s on the Hill School. Dr.
Russell Moores, faculty member of the
Medical College of Georgia, will present
the lecture entitled: “Euthanasia --
Freedom to Die - Should others
determine when your life is over?”
Other speakers in the “Justice for
All” program will be: On October 12,
Robert Cullen, from the Augusta Legal
Aid Society, will deal with the role of
the Legal Aid Society in the community
and the problems it faces. On October
19, Sister Anne Brotherton of Atlanta
will have for her subject “Christian
Non-Violence and Social Justice.” On
October 26, District Attorney Richard
Allen will explore the title “Justice for
All.” On November 2, Judge William
Fleming, in discussing justice in the
courts, will deal with legal aspects of
justice as the courts see them. The
program will conclude on November 9
with Scot McPherson, Director of the
Aikeh Drug and Alcohol Center. He will
describe his work and the time he spent
in prison in his lecture “Looking Out
From the Inside.”
Simultaneously the “Freedom to
Live” series will take place. On October
12, the Reverend Ken Hutchenson will
discuss “The Right to be Born” from a
moral and scriptural standpoint.
Reverend Hutchenson is Pastor of the
Providence Baptist Church. On October
19, “War, A Quaker’s Point of View,”
will be the theme of the talk by Dr. Ellis
Rece, Director of Institutional Research
and Planning at Paine College. On
October 26, in his lecture “Freedom to
Live” Dr. Terrence Cooke will discuss
abortion from a medical viewpoint. On
November 2, Dr. Eugene Howard of the
Medical College of Georgia will give
insights into ecology in his talk entitled
“Freedom to Breathe.” This program
will conclude November 9 with Senator
Eugene Holley who will speak on the
“Legality of Living.” He will discuss the
legality of such topics as euthanasia,
abortion, ecology, war and capital
punishment.
This twin program is open to all
adults and teenagers of St. Mary’s on
the Hill Parish and to the public as well.
Baby sitting services will be provided at
both locations and refreshments will be
served. It is being sponsored by the
Adult Education Committee of the
church. Members are Dr. William Real,
Dr. Nell Callahan, Dr. Edward Cashin,
Dr. Thomas McDonald, Rev. Brother
Richard, John Strelec, Mrs. David Scott,
and Father Shinnick. It has the full
support of the Bishop of Savannah,
Raymond W. Lessard, who has this to
say: “The program invites all of us to
examine our performance as individuals
and as a community in the area of
justice. I strongly urge that as many of
our people as possible take part in the
program.”
Mrs. Jack Hall To Participate In World Consultation
Episcopal House Of Bishops Reach
No Decision On Women Priests
BY TICKI LLOYD
Mrs. Jack (Wilhelmenia) Hall, of
Albany, First Vice-President of the
National Council of Catholic Women,
has been chosen as one of 250 persons
from every comer of the world to
participate in the World Consultation of
the Laity Council to be held in Rome,
October 7-15.
The theme of the Consultation is:
“Towards the year 2000.. . along the
way of the Gospel.”
The persons chosen for the World
Consultation are involved in the
apostolate of the Church in all parts of
the world, and in very different
situations. It is a group expressing the
People of God, and therefore is the
Church united in Christ.
The Consultation will enable those
attending to “take their bearings,” ten
years after Vatican Council II, as to the
effective participation of the laity in the
life and apostolate of the Church. It will
provide a new stimulus to the
movement of “Renewal” initiated by
the Council; to be for all those taking
part a moment of special intensity in
the Holy Year of Reconciliation.
In order to express the People of God
present in all parts of the world, there
must be an adequate proportion of
young people and adults; men and
women from different environments as
well as a representation of the
; movements (general and specialized
apostolate) movements for spirituality,
associations for service and charity, and
groups working for social justice.
During the course of the
Consultation, the “Way of the Gospel”
will be put through various stages. The
community which will grow each day in
ecclesial communion through sharing a
common mission, listening together to
-
Committee of the Albany Chamber of
Commerce and of Alpha Kappa Alpha (
Sorority.
In 1961, Mrs. Hall was named
“Teacher of the Year” at Monroe High
School, and in 1967 was chosen
Catholic Mother of the Year by St.
Clare’s Church in Albany. She was
Monroe High School’s STAR teacher in
1971. Her record of achievement won
her a place in the 1972 edition of
“Personalities of the South.”
In a recent letter, Wilhelmenia told
me she was a member of the National
Pecan Festival Committee of Albany
which is a joint effort of the Chamber
of Commerce. Both Wilhelmenia and
her husband, Jack, are involved in
church and community affairs.
Quoting from Wilhelmenia’s letter of
September 21: “I’ll never get myself
ready for Rome. I’m so excited! I’m
too, so terribly grateful to the many,
particularly DCCW, who have made a
thing like this possible.”
Considering that only about 15 from
the United States have been selected to
attend the World Consultation of the
Laity Council, it is understandable that
Wilhelmenia and her friends would be
overjoyed.
I have Wilhelmenia’s promise that
when she returns she will write a
column for DCCW Notes on her
experiences in Rome.
As Tennyson wrote: “Life is not as
idle ore -- but iron dug from central
gloom -- And heated hot with burning
fears - And dipt in baths of hissing tears
- And battered with the shocks of
doom to shape and use.”
Let us use our lives as a source of
service for man and God.
Series At Saint Mary’s, Augusta
reconciled with God in Christ also
reconciled with our brothers in faith --
and renewed in the will to work with
men and women everywhere for a more
human world.
In the communion of the Holy Spirit,
God’s People seek to trace ways of
ecclesial renewal for the coming years.
The participants, conscious of their
responsibility within the Church, will
formulate recommendations addressed
to the Holy See, the particular churches,
lay associations, etc.
The World Consultation is “A Feast
of Hope: ‘Recommissioning’” the lay
members of God’s people.
The Diocesan Council of Catholic
Women of the Savannah Diocese
congratulate Wilhelmenia Hall on this
great honor and pray to the Holy Spirit
that she will come safely back to us
offering a wealth of material to re-shape
our lives.
PORTLAND, Me. (NC) - The
Episcopal House of Bishops wound up
four days of wrestling with the issue of
women priests here by receiving as the
“mind of the House” a theological
committee report that recommended
either a public act of recognition or
“conditional ordination” as ways out of
its impasse over the unauthorized
ordinations since July 1974 of 15
women.
The action followed two-and-a-half
hours of statements by 21 speakers. The
arguments were set in motion by
Assistant Bishop J. Brooke Mosley of
Pennsylvania, former president of Union
Theological Seminary in New York. He
accused the theological committee of
“leading us astray” by not providing
“strong leadership in this particular
situation.”
A strong proponent of the validity of
the ordination of 11 women in
Philadelphia July 29, 1974 and four in
Washington Sept. 7, Bishop Mosley said
the committee had “rationalized” the
position taken by the bishops last year
in Chicago that the Philadelphia
ceremonies were invalid.
It did this, he said, by speaking of
invalidity as “extreme irregularity.” The
committee should have put greater
weight, he said, on a report of four
theologians pommissioned by Bishop
Robert R. Spears of Rochester, N. Y.,
relating to the status of one of the
women from his diocese who was
BY JO-ANN PRICE
PORTLAND, Me. (NC) - Significant
ecumenical developments between the
3.1 million-member Episcopal Church
and Roman Catholic and Protestant
bodies were dramatized at the
week-long session of the Episcopal
House of Bishops here.
The approximately 150 bishops who
attended the sessions heard reports that
described their church as a “bridge
church” between Protestantism and the
Roman Catholic Church.
In addition to listening and
responding warmly to reports by
Bishops J. Stuart Wetmore of New York
and David Leighton of Baltimore, who
had a lengthy exchange recently with
Cardinal Jan Willebrands, president of
the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting
Christian Unity, the bishops moved on
to take concrete action in the field of
Anglican-Roman Catholic relations.
They authorized Bishop James Pong
of Taiwan to enter into a written
agreement with Catholic Archbishop
Additional Story
On Page 2
Stanislaus Lokuang of Taipei
recognizing the validity of the Baptism
of each of the‘two communions.
In another area of ecumenical
exchange they examined a proposal to
come before the 65th general
convention of the church in September
1976 in Minneapolis, which will affirm
Episcopal church recognition of the
Baptisms of members of seven other
denominations of the Consultation on
Church Union as a mutual sharing “of
membership in the Body of Christ.”
Speaking to the session about
ecumenism generally, Dr. Peter Day, a
layman who is the Church’s ecumenical
officer, noted that the growth of
convenanting Episcopal-Catholic
dioceses and parishes in this country is
yet another indication that “the desire
for Church unity” is not something
imposed from above by national and
international church bureaucrats.
(Covenanted parishes and dioceses
generally engage in joint social action
programs.)
“It is not a Catholic thing or a
Protestant ,thing,” Dr. Day declared.
The fact that ecumenism is being
experienced more and more at the
A little about Wilhelmenia . .. First,
she is well known to Catholics in the
Savannah Diocese. She is past president
of the following organizations: St.
Teresa’s Council of Catholic Women in
Albany; Albany Deanery Council of
Catholic Women, and Savannah
Diocesan Council of Catholic Women.
Presently, she is Parliamentarian of
the Albany Deanery.
Mrs. Hall, a native of Elberton,
received her elementary and high school
education in Albany Public Schools. She
earned a Bachelor’s degree in business
education at Hampton Institute in
Hampton, Va., and has done graduate
work at Florida A&M University.
For many years she served on the
Board of Directors of the Albany USO.
She is a member of the Women’s
ordained. The report concluded that
what occurred in Philadelphia was an
ordinary unratified valid ordination
which would not have to be authorized
or recognized by any form of
reordination.
Views expressed by bishops during
the debate included a plea for eventual
“total amnesty” for the women priests
by Bishop Richard M. Trelease, Jr., of
Rio Grande.
It was repeatedly stated by bishops in
the hallways and on the floor of the
House that the women priests and the
bishops who elevated them from the
diaconate would probably reject a
ceremony of “conditional ordination”
as an insult.
The bishops, who earlier in the week
had censured three of the retired
bishops who fully participated in the
Philadelphia ceremonies and decried the
Ordinations conducted by retired Bishop
George W. Barret in Washington, seemed
confident that they and their church
would muddle through the frustrating
and highly divisive situation until well
after their law-making general
convention meets in September 1976 in
Minneapolis. No matter what happens
there they acted to have an ad hoc
committee named to deal with the
questions of women’s ordination.
The first method of “a public act”
would “recognize the sacramental
elements” of the ordinations in
Philadelphia, state the ecclesial
intention and affirm that the women
diocesan and local level is “the most
glorious thing” about what is
happening, he said.
should be “canonically commissioned to
function as priests in the Episcopal
Church.”
The second possiblity described as
“preferable for pastoral reasons” was
the route of ‘conditional ordination.”
This would assure that “the ordained
person is indeed an authorized channel
for divine grace.”
Before submitting its report to the
House the theological committee
presented the bishops its opinion that
one of the censured prelates, retired
Bishop Edward Welles, had been “too
simplistic” in his analysis that the classic
Catholic requirements for validity had
been satisfied in Philadelphia.
Bishop Welles held that at its
emergency meeting in Chicago last
summer, the Bishops were unclear in
their distinction between invalidity and
irregularity. The House here declined to
consider it.
Bishop Mosley, Bishop Welles and
conservatives such as Bishop Clarence R.
Haden of Northern California said that
the contraditions posed by the
ordinations had brought into focus the
whole meaning of “collegiality” within
the House.
Bishop Mosley rejected any definition
of collegiality as meaning the bishops
were walking in “lock step.” Thinking
through the concept in Anglican terms,
he said, really began with the stormy
censure in 1966 of the late Bishop
James A. Pike for “irresponsible
utterances.”
With each new ordination there
appeared to be a whole new set of
problems put into the laps of about 10
bishops in whose dioceses the women
priests have resided or functioned.
Liberty And Justice
Mrs. Jack Hall
the Word of God and taking part in the
Eucharistic celebration.
The People of God will become more
aware of certain situations of the world
of which it is a part, seeking to discern
in these situations the “signs” and the
“facts,” of the times, the problems that
arise and the forms of concrete
involvement open to Christians.
Reflection based on world situations
will be enlightened by listening to the
Word of God through prayer. A
penitential celebration and the Holy-
Year Pilgrimage will offer an
opportunity for acknowledging personal
and collective sin and becoming
TEACHERS’ COMMISSIONED - In a ceremony, similar to others held
in most parishes of the Diocese, teachers at St. John the Evangelist Parish,.
Valdosta, were commissioned at the 12 o’clock Mass, Sept. 21. The service
was the reenactment of Christ sending His apostles out to teach “Go teach
all nations” (Mt. 28:16). This ceremony concluded the various in-service
programs offered to the teachers (pictured top photo) during the month
of September and the beginning of a new school year. All the teachers, in
the Religious Education Program and the elementary school, were
presented with a scroll (middle photo), a commission to teach. They also
received (right photo) the imposition of hands from the leaders of the
parish programs - Father Gerald Murphy, Sister Margaret Lynch, C.S.J.,
and Sister Mary Joyce Bringer, C.S.J. (Golden Studio Photos)
CHARLES W. WALKER
DR. RUSSELL MOORES
G Who’ll tal$e the thinks
out of auto financing?
We’ll help you with a
lease or a loan on the
new car you want. You get low, hank
rates plus other advantages (includ
ing even lower interest if you have a
Big S Account with us). Just inquire
at one of our 11 offices.
SAVANNAH BANK
Sl TRUST COMPANY
MEMBER FOIC
/ >
Ecumenical Developments