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History Of The Church In South Georgia
W (Ninth in a series prepared by The
Savannah Diocese’s Department of Christian
Formation.)
Tourists today, visiting the City of
Savannah, flock to see the Cathedral of
St. John the Baptist, which dominates
the skyline with its twin towers. It is a
familiar part of the Savannah scene, and
recently, when high winds partially
dislodged a cross on top of one of the
£ spires, the story of the mishap made
headlines in the local newspapers.
A much greater disaster took place
toward the end of the last century,
when the former cathedral, which stood
on the same spot, burned down. The
catastrophe took place on a Sunday
evening, February 6th, 1898, between
10 and 11 o’clock. Next day, the
SAVANNAH MORNING NEWS
reported:
^ “The Cathedral of St. John the
Baptist, one of the most magnificent
and imposing structures of Savannah,
upon which years of toil and thousands
of dollars have been spent, is a mass of
ruin, and nothing remains but its four
walls and indestructible parts of its two
tall spires.”
When the alarm came, firemen were
already hard at work fighting another
fire which raged along the riverfront.
Two or three hose wagons arrived, but
the pressure was so low that the streams
of water from the fire plugs barely
reached the sills of the windows. The
SAVANNAH PRESS stated: “Years of
work by scores of men burned in the
presence of thousands in less than two
hours.”
The catastrophe took place during
the last part of the administration of the
sixth Bishop of Savannah, Thomas A.
Becker. It became the task of his
successor, Bishop Benjamin Keiley, to
build a new cathedral, more beautiful
and impressive than the last.
During his long administration,
which lasted until 1922, Bishop Keiley
saw great progress in the Church. New
parishes and schools were established in
Savannah, Atlanta, Augusta and
Brunswick, and St. Joseph’s Church in
Macon was consecrated.
A former Confederate drummer boy,
Bishop Keiley was nevertheless very
sympathetic to the needs of the Black
population in his diocese. It was under
his aegis that the Society for African
Missions came to the area, led by the
indefatigable Father Ignatius Lissner, a
remarkable missionary who - with his
gutteral accent and grizzled beard --
became a familiar figure here for many
years.
Father lissner began his work in
Savannah, taking over responsibility for
the small parish of St. Benedict the
Moor. His letters describe his humble
beginnings:
On January 15th, 1907, I took up
the work in Georgia as the first delegate
from the Society ... I rented one room
of a boarding house in Savannah ,...
When I had obtained a sufficient footing
I rented a little house near the Church
and associated with me the priest sent
by the Society to help me. The Catholic
negroes numbered only twenty-five
persons as the average attendance, and
the collections were poor in proportion.
I was told that if I did not get friends to
help me we must face the alternative of
starving or abandon the attempt. I,
however, was not ashamed to beg, nor
would I have refused to dig. I was ready
to work, and work hard.”
Help came, with the assistance of
several more priests from Lyons,
France, and before too long a good
two-story building had been erected at
St. Benedicts, for use as a church and
school. The Franciscan Sisters came to
staff the school, which soon had more
students than it could manage. A new
building, dedicated to the Most Pure
Heart of Mary, became the center of a
second parish. Before long, a third
parish was established on the West Side
of Savannah. This was St. Anthony’s,
situated on a charming stretch of farm
land lying on Route 17, then the major
road to Florida.
Not content with his work in
Savannah, Father Lissner and his
companions next went to Augusta,
where they established a church, school,
rectory and convent. Once again, the
Franciscan Sisters were called upon to
staff the school. Next, the SMA Fathers
moved on to Macon, where the Jesuits
had already laid a solid foundation. In
Macon, the parish and school of St.
Peter Claver were soon established.
Funds for St. Peter Claver, as for the
establishment of other schools and
churches for the Black population, were
partly provided by Mother Katharine
Drexel, foundress of the Sisters of the
Blessed Sacrament. Mother Katharine
took a personal interest in the work of
the missionaries and made generous
grants from her own considerable
fortune. Her Sisters staff St. Peter
Claver School to this day.
Determined that leadership would be
the key to the progress of the Faith
among the Black population, Father
Lissner encouraged vocations among his
people and was responsible for the
foundation of a small congregation of
Black Sisters, the “Handmaids of the
Most Pure Heart of Mary.” This
congregation, headed by Mother Mary
Theodore Williams, eventually moved
from Savannah to New York City,
where it is still in existence today.
Beginning with social work in the
Harlem area, the congregation's work
has grown to include teaching,
organization of summer camps for girls,
the administration of a day nursery, and
visitation of the sick and elderly.
The SMA Fathers gave over sixty
years of service to the Diocese, working
among the Black population in
Savannah, Augusta and Macon. It was
not until the late sixties, with the influx
of additional young priests from Ireland
to take over many of the responsibilities
of parishes in South Georgia, that most
of the SMA priests withdrew. They are
remembered with warmth and affection,
particularly by the Catholic families in
the parishes they served for so long.
RESOURCES*:
Archives, SMA Fathers, Tenafiy, N. J.
“History of the Cathedral Parish,” Cathedral
of St. John the Baptist. ”The Church in South
Georgia,” William V. Coleman, Diocese of
Savannah. “History of the Catholic Church in
Georgia,” Patrick Adams, OFM.
The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 59 No. 32 Form 3579 To: 601 E. 6th St. Waynesboro, Ga. 30830 Thursday, September 14,1978 Single Copy Price - 15 Cents
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JOINT MEETING HELD
Religious Planning Education
Programs OnWorld Problems
CLEVELAND, Ohio (NC) - “The
call for solidarity with the poor and
oppressed echoes in our lives,” said
more than 1,000 members of male and
female religious communities at the end
of their meeting.
The focus of the first joint meeting
of the Leadership Conference of Women
Religious (LCWR) and the Conference
of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM) was
oppression and injustice in the Third
World and in the U.S. The meeting was
held in Cleveland Aug. 27 to Sept. 1.
The delegates, representing over 500
religious communities, pledged to:
-- Live more simply, be sparing in use
of goods and rid themselves of affluence
for the sake of a more just world.
- Initiate national and regional
education and mass communications
programs to deepen awareness and
stimulate efforts for global justice.
- Use more energies for solidarity
with oppressed peoples in the U.S. and
other parts of the world.
Delegates heard bishops, priests and
nuns from Third World countries
describe problems of economic
exploitation, colonialism, racism, sexism
and classism.
In Latin America, “The enormous
and heartbreaking social cleavages make
up the most salient and most painful
fact that hits the eyes of everyone
approaching our countries,” said Father
Cesar Jerez, Jesuit provincial of Central
America.
“There are among us powerful
minorities who live in luxury and waste,
the cost of which is being paid by large
majorities who live in economic, social,
political, cultural and religious
oppression,” he added.
In Asia, “according to United
Nations studies, 20,000 children die
each year of hunger,” said Bishop Julio
Xavier Labayen of the Philippines.
He asked for improved social analysis
of problems to avoid self-defeating
.development projects.
PAPAL MEDALIST
Mrs. Walter M. (Mary Miles)
Crawford, widely known throuhgout
the Savannah Diocese for her work on
behalf of St. Mary’s Home, died
September 6 at Azalealand Nursing
Home.
Mrs. Crawford was honored in 1964,
when Pope Paul VI bestowed the Papal
Medal “Pro Ecclesia Et Pontifice” on
her for her many outstanding services to
the Church. For many years she
solicited funds for the Female Orphan
Benevolent Society working with and
carrying on the work of her mother,
who was treasurer of the Society for 37
years.
Her greatest interest was St. Mary’s
Home and she was treasurer and
“This means we must use the social
sciences as tools. We have too many
examples in Asia of work for
development which is
counter-productive: for example, social
action programs to promote poor
farmers that end up benefitting the rich
farmers at the expense of poor
farmers,” said Bishop Labayen.
“A special benefit of social analysis is
that it helps us see what is authentically
(Continued on page 2)
membership chairman of St. Mary’s
Home Guild from its creation, in 1958,
until her last illness. She was known for
her volunteer activities fojr the church,
serving for many years as volunteer
bookkeeper at the Cathedral.
Mrs. Crawford was married to the
late Walter M. Crawford who was also
known for his work for his Church.
Father Christopher Srhreck and
Father Daniel O’Connell were
concelebrants of a Mass of Christian
Burial for Mrs. Crawford on Saturday
morning, September 9, at the Cathedral
in Savannah.
She is survived by a number of nieces
and nephews from Florida. Burial was in
Catholic Cemetery.
Funeral Mass In Savannah
For Mrs. Walter Crawford
Carter Demonstrates That He Is Papal-Minded President
WASHINGTON (NC) - When Pope
Paul VI died Aug. 6, President Jimmy
Carter praised him in a statement and
sent a telegram of condolence to each
American Catholic bishop. The next
day, Carter stopped during a trip to
New York City to sign a loan guarantee
bill to pay his respects to Cardinal
Terence Cooke.
On Sept. 7, Vice President Walter
Mondale met with seven reporters from
the religious press to discuss his half
hour audience with Pope Paul’s
successor, Pope John Paul I.
The White House handling of the
death of one pope and the election of
another between those two dates was,
on one level., the kind of ceremonial
response expected of a president.
But it was also a small political
campaign in which Carter sought to
shore up his support among Catholics
and maintain ties to a foreign policy
ally.
The White House consulted outside
experts, including Bishop Thomas Kelly,
general secretary of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops, in
drawing up the delegations to the papal
funeral and inaugural.
Bishop Kelly says Carter handled the
papal transition with exceptional
“dignity.”
“He managed it very well,” he said.
“It was a good political event and a
good diplomatic event. The people who
went to Rome (in the official
delegations) represented our country
very well.”
Two bishops who are personal
friends of Vice President Walter
Mondale - Archbishop John Roach of
Minneapolis-St. Paul, the NCCB vice
president who preached at Carter’s
inaugural, and Bishop James Rausch of
Phoenix, Ariz. a Minnesota native --
accompanied Mondale as part of the
official U.S. delegation to Pope John
Paul’s inaugural.
Carter picked the political figures in
the delegations to the funeral and the
inaugural with an eye toward showing
sensitivity toward the Catholic Church
and various Catholic ethnic groups. His
choices also indicated he used the events
to reward his political friends.
The two delegations included Irish
Catholics such as Sen. Edward Kennedy
(D-Mass.) and New York Gov. Hugh
Carey, Italian Catholics such as Rep.
Peter Rodino (D-N.J.), Robert Giaimo
(D-Conn.) and Mario Biaggi (D-N.Y.),
Hispanic Catholics such as the U.S.
immigration commissioner, Leonel
Castillo, and Eastern European
Catholics such as Rep. Clement
Zablocki (D-Wis.) and Mayor Michael
Bilandic of Chicago.
Several of those in the delegations,
such as Carey, Sen. Thomas McIntyre
(D-N.H.) and Sen. William Hathaway
(D-Me.), face tough election fights this
fall in states where they may be helped
by their participation in the official
delegations.
The Carter administration also
showed that it recognized the Vatican
was an important foreign policy friend
under Pope Paul and could be again
V
under Pope John Paul. As Mondale
noted in his interview with the religious
press, the Church is a major voice in
defense of human rights and social
justice in countries where the United
States has similar concerns.
(After Pope Paul died, Father J.
Bryan. Hehir, the U.S. Catholic
Conference’s top foreign policy adviser,
received a call from a friend at the State
Department looking for an insight into
the choice of a new pope. “I told him
our system does not lend itself to
conventional American political
analysis,” Father Hehir said, with both
good humor and good insight.)
(Continued on page 6)