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PAGE 3—The Southern Cross, September 9, 1976
Extension Has Served Home Missions 70 Years
As the United States entered the 20th
Century, seven out of 10 small
population centers had no Catholic
churches. In two out of 10, where the
Catholic Church did exist, the resident
priest was in serious need and had no
hope of outside help.
Into this religious climate a young
Canadian-born priest, named Francis
Clement Kelley, was assigned to a small
parish in Lapeer, Michigan. While
building a sorely-needed church for his
parish at the same time two Protestant
churches were going up, Father Kelley
became aware of a great difference.
His parish was going into serious
debt; the Protestant churches were not.
The reason: they were being helped
financially by their church extension
societies.
To finance his church Father Kelley
took to begging tours during which he
became convinced that affluent
Catholics should help establish their
Church in this country’s more needy
areas. Finally, on Oct. 18,1905, Father
Kelley and 18 other men - two
archbishops, two bishops, eight priests
and seven laymen - laid the foundation
for the Catholic Extension Society.
On Dec. 28, 1905, the Catholic
Church Extension Society of the United
States of America was incorporated as a
non-profit organization in the State of
Michigan, with Father Kelley as first
President.
From then until now, the history of
the Society is one of creative genius
with one purpose: to bring the plight of
the home missions to the attention of
more affluent American Catholics.
Thus, in 1906, Extension Magazine was
first introduced.
In 1907, the Society acquired a
railroad coach and converted it into a
chapel. In 1909, Father Kelley
established the Order of Martha to enlist
the aid of Catholic women across the
country. In 1912 and 1915, two more
chapel railroad cars came into service,
and so on.
But, Father Kelley’s genius also
extended to fund raising. In 1920, he
published the first Extension calendar
which became an important part of the
Society’s fund raising efforts. But this
rewarded by being elevated to the rank
of bishop. Under his leadership, the
Society had assisted in the construction
of 2,471 chapels and distributed over
$1.3 million in Mass stipends to home
mission priests.
From 1924 until 1962, the Society
was led by Bishop William O’Brien, who
/
j
Since its founding in 1905, the Extension Society has provided more/than
$61 million to home missions, including $830,000 in grants to parishes
and missions in South Georgia.
wasn’t the end. In 1922, he established
the Dollar Club and the Charitable Gift
Annuity program.
By 1924, Msgr. Kelley’s achievements
had become legend, and he was
continued the innovative leadership first
exhibited by Father Kelley. The
Millionaries’ Club and the Extension
Lay Volunteer Program are but two of
the major program contributions made
by Bishop O’Brien during his 38 year
tenure as President.
Bishop Faces Charges, Possible Death Penalty
WASHINGTON (NC) - Bishop Donal
Lamont of Umtali, Rhodesia, has
informed NC News that he is facing
government charges for which the
maximum penalty on conviction could
be death.
From another source NC News
learned that since the bishop’s
communique he has been charged on
four counts and faces trial Sept. 20.
In a handwritten letter received here
Aug. 26 but dated Aug. 18, the
outspoken critic of Prime Minister Ian
Smith’s white minority regime in
Rhodesia said:
“Today I have been informed that
the attorney general is pressing charges
against me. Four charges are mentioned,
each of them carrying the death
penalty. Two of the charges are for not
reporting the presence of ‘terrorists’ at
our missions and two for advising my
missionaries not to inform on such
people.”
He also wrote, “One of my African
diocesan priests has been in prison
without any charge against him for the
past week. He has no bed, mattress,
chair, table - even his shoes and socks
have been taken from him.
“This is a Christian government for
you!” the bishop added.
The same day that the letter arrived,
the Justice and Peace Commission of
the Rhodesian Bishops’ Conference in
Salisbury telephoned Bishop James S.
Rausch, general secretary of the U.S.
Catholic Conference here, to inform
him that the charges had been filed
against Bishop Lamont and Sept. 20 had
been set as the trial date.
Bishop Rausch said the commission
MACON
informed him that Bishop Lamont faced
two charges of crimes against the Law
and Order Maintenance Act and two
charges under the Criminal Procedure
and Evidence Act.
The two acts, part of Rhodesia’s
“treason laws” designed to stifle dissent
and quash anti-government guerrilla
activity, are among laws that make
virtually any form of aid to
anti-government forces a crime
punishable by death.
Government spokesmen in Salisbury
said the charges were unrelated to a
searing indictment of Rhodesian policies
that Bishop Lamont had written a few
days earlier and sent to Prime Minister
Ian Smith and the members of the
parliament.
In that letter the bishop charges that
injustices by the government were the
cause of the violence in Rhodesia. While
the Church does not condone any form
of violence, he said, it cannot deny its
ministry to the dissenters because they
are fighting for justice.
Bishop Lamont is to be tried in a
regional court, and the Catholic agency
in Salisbury told Bishop Rausch that the
death penalty did not seem likely. A
more likely penalty if he is convicted,
the commission said, is imprisonment of
up to five years. Although charges have
been brought, he is not in jail.
The 65-year-old bishop, though born
in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland,
invariably means primarily the
oppressed blacks of Rhodesia when he
speaks of “my people.”
He was ordained a Carmelite priest in
1937, was made head of Umtali when it
became an apostolic prefecture in 1953,
and was named its first bishop when it
was raised to the level of a diocese in
1957.
Long one of the most outspoken
critics of apartheid, or strict racial
segregation, in southern Africa, Bishop
Lamont levelled his first major salvo
against the Rhodesian regime in 1959
with a 46-page pastoral letter entitled
“Purchased Land.”
The pastoral, which was published in
14 other languages in less than three
years, said that, on the basis of
fundamental Christian social teaching,
racial segregation “is utterly to be
condemned.” The white domination in
Rhodesia, the inequality of educational
opportunities, and the denial of equal
land rights to blacks were
fundamentally unjust, the pastoral said,
and “the Church must support” those
who wish “to be treated by the state as
equal citizens, and not as second-class
citizens.”
Since then Bishop Lamont has
frequently castigated Rhodesian
apartheid in pastoral letters and
passionate pleas for justice in various
international forums.
Last year, at a “Liberty and Justice
for All” regional hearing sponsored by
the U.S. bishops in Washington, he
challenged the United States to drop the
Byrd Amendment that allows this
country to import chrome from
Rhodesia despite United Nations
sanctions prohibiting such trade
between Rhodesia and UN-member
nations.
“When other countries imposed the
sanctions,” he said, “your country
found a way to wriggle out of it - for
selfish reasons.” He quoted Pope Paul
VI calling avarice in international
dealings “a sign of moral
underdevelopment” in a country.
During his testimony at that hearing,
the bishop moved many in the audience
to tears as he alternately proclaimed in
ringing tones the dignity and noblest
aspirations of man and cited the squalid,
inhuman living conditions under which
he said many non-white Rhodesians are
forced to live because of the present
laws maintained by Rhodesia’s
five-percent white minority.
General Absolution For Prisoners?
New Staffers For SERVE
SERVE, the Macon Social
Apostolate, has recently added two new
members to its staff. They are
volunteers from two programs
sponsored by ACTION, the U.S.
Government agency for volunteer
service.
Tom Dial, from Bishop, Georgia, is a
University Year in Action volunteer.
Under the U.Y.A. program, Dial
combines community service with
academic study.
He will work with SERVE full time
for a year and at the same time be
responsible for his course work at
Mercer University where he is a
sophomore. His work with SERVE
includes crisis intervention,
co-ordinating tutoring programs for
disadvantaged children and consumer
education.
Mary Pat Tracy, from Springfield,
Pennsylvania, is a VISTA volunteer.
VISTA (Volunteers in Service to
America) is an ACTION program
designed to use volunteers to help
alleviate human, social, and
environmental ills related to poverty.
Miss Tracy, who has a B.A. in
sociology from Westchester State
College, is assigned to SERVE’s housing
repair program. In operation since 1973,
this program uses volunteers and men
on probation to repair hazards in homes
owned by elderly and disabled Macon
residents. With the assistance of Miss
Tracy and a second VISTA volunteer
who will arrive in September, it is hoped
that over fifty homes will be repaired
during the coming year.
Any nonprofit organization engaged
in anti-poverty work is eligible to
become a sponsor for ACTION
volunteers. The two volunteers assigned
to SERVE will permit the development
of new programs and the expansion of
existing programs to help Macon’s poor.
DENVER (NC) - U.S. Catholic
prison chaplains agreed here to ask the
National Conference of Catholic
Bishops to consider the use of general
absolution in correctional institutions
with the approval of the local bishop, a
spokesman for the chaplains said.
The prison chaplains took the
position that the moral, psychological
and physical restraints of penal
institutions and the uniqueness of their
ministry warrant the use of general
absolution, said the spokesman, Oblate
Father Richard Houlahan, south central
and southeast regional chaplain for the
Federal Bureau of Prisons.
General absolution without prior
individual confession is authorized in
extraordinary situations in consultation
with the local bishop, according to the
new rite of Penance which is to become
mandatory in the United States on the
first Sunday of Lent next year.
The chaplains’ decision was made
during the meeting here of the
American Catholic Correctional
Chaplains’ Association during which the
new Rite of Penance was discussed.
The new rite requires that those
receiving general absolution “should go
to individual confession” before they
receive general absolution again “unless
they are impeded by a just reason.”
The chaplains emphasized the
necessity of continued catechesis of
prisoners about their obligation to make
an individual confession when released
from prison, Father Houlahan said.
During the meeting, the association
honored Father Houlahan as “Chaplain
of the Year.”
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During the decade of the Sixties, the
Society reflected the general changing
tone of society as it had four different
men as President; Msgr. Joseph Lux,
1962-66; Msgr. Kenneth Stack,
1966-68; Bishop John May, 1968-69;
and Father Joseph Cusack, who became
the Society’s president on April 22,
1970.
Father Cusack brought accountability
to the Society. In the June, 1975 issue
of Extension Magazine, the Society
became one of the first Catholic fund
raising organizations to account for its
income, disbursements and fund raising
costs. And the story was impressive.
Since 1905, the Extension Society had
raised $61 million to aid the home
missions.
Under Father Cusack’s leadership, the
Society today lists seven major areas of
involvement and dedication:
1. Chapel grants to help in building or
restoring small mission churches and
catechetical centers.
2. Monthly financial aid to needy
home mission priests.
3. Support of seminarians studying
for the home mission priesthood.
4. Mass stipends sent to the Society
by Extension readers.
5. Church furnishings of every kind
for missions.
6. Scholarships in religious education
at Fordham University for future
teachers in home mission areas.
7. Emergency aid for specialized
home mission needs.
MACON RECEPTION - Father Ben Swiderek (left) and Father Patrick
Shinnick are shown at a reception given recently at St. Joseph’s Parish,
Macon, to welcome Father Swiderek and say farewell and thank you to
Father Shinnick. Father Shinnick left Macon on September 1 to take over
his new assignment as pastor of St. Anne’s Parish, Columbus. Father
Swiderek is the new assistant pastor of St. Joseph’s, his first assignment
since being ordained in June.
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