Newspaper Page Text
I
PAGE 3—Thp Southern Crnss fWr»hf>r 11 1Qfta
Volume 64 No. 35
Thursday, October 11, 1984
$10 Per Year
Nothing New
Religion + Politics = Historical Relationship
'STATESBORO ^
• JA
BRUNSWICK (M
Cathedral/Confraternity Drive
To meet the urgent need posed by the
emergency repairs to the Cathedral of St.
John the Baptist in Savannah, this year’s
Confraternity of the Laity Appeal is
! combined with the Cathedral Fund drive, for
| a total target of $2 million.
To remind Catholics of the work that is
carried out by the Diocese year round, with
assistance from the Confraternity collection,
THE SOUTHERN CROSS is running a series
of articles on four top priorities: Spiritual
Renewal, Religious Education, Social
Ministry and Youth Ministry.
See page 3 of this issue for our Special
Report on Spiritual Renewal.
Father Patrick J
Father Patrick Joseph Breheny, who served the
Glenmary Home Missioners of Cincinnati, died September
24 at the age of 54 after a long battle with cancer.
Father Breheny was born in Brooklyn, New York, on
April 13, 1930. After attending Cathedral Preparatory
Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Brooklyn, Mt.
St. Mary of the West Seminary in Norwood, Ohio, and
Our Lady of the Fields Seminary in Glendale, Ohio, he
was ordained to the priesthood on June 1,1957. He later
received a Master of Education degree from Iona College
in New Rochelle, New York.
During his 34 years of association with the Home
Missioners, Father Pat served a wide variety of positions
integral to the development, support, and continuance of
the Glenmary apostolate. His major assignments included
the following:
Assistant Pastor of St. Bernard Church in Gate City,
Virginia 1957-’62; Vocational Director of the Glenmary
House of Studies in Fairfield, Connecticut, 1962-’72;
Pastor of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Winfield,
Alabama, 1972-’81. After completing a Year of Renewal
in August 1982, he was named Pastor of Holy Redeemer
Church in McRae, Georgia, a post Father Pat held until
WASHINGTON (NC) -- Religion in politics this year
“has drawn some rather shrill cries” but is nothing new,
according to Msgr. John Tracy Ellis, dean of American
Catholic church historians.
He referred specifically to the presidential campaigns of
1928 and 1960 when Alfred E. Smith and John F.
Kennedy, both Catholics, headed the Democratic Party
ticket.
“There is a sort of built-in tension” between the
church’s aims and the state’s, “and in one form or other it
will be with us to the end of time,” said Msgr. Ellis, who
teaches church history at The Catholic University of
America.
He said history offers a “modest” but nevertheless
“real” contribution to the 1984 debate over the place of
religion in politics.
Msgr. Ellis made his comments in an opinion article
published Oct. 4 in the Catholic Standard, newspaper of
the Archdiocese of Washington.
Msgr. Ellis said the church has a duty “to speak out on
political questions that have a direct bearing on matters
relating to the moral order” because “there is no such
thing as a total divorce” between the two realms.
He also defended the U.S. bishops’ stance of addressing
such issues but refusing to align themselves with political
parties or candidates.
Statements by the leadership of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops this year, he said, mirror
the admonition issued in 1858 and repeated in 1884 by
. Breheny Dies
this past winter when his health necessitated his return to
Glenmary headquarters in Ohio.
The funeral took place on Friday, Septmeber 28, at
Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenhills, Ohio,
followed by burial at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in
Montgomery. The Rev. Frank Ruff, president of
Glenmary, served as pricnipal celebrant and homilist.
Elsewhere, a Mass of Christian Burial was held on
September 26 at St. Catharine Church in Glen Rock, New
Jersey, the home parish of the Breheny family. Also a
prayer service was conducted on September 27 at Our
Lady of the Fields Chapel, located on the grounds of
Glenmary headquarters. Various other memorial Masses
were celebrated throughout Glenmary’s mission territories
in Appalachia and the South.
Father Pat was the son of Josephine J. and the late
James Breheny. One of eight children, he is survived by
his mother in Glen Rock, New Jersey; a brother, James, of
Fairlawn, New Jersey; a sister, Mrs. Thomas (Mary) Levin,
of Serverna Park, Maryland; a sister, Mrs. Robert (Joan)
Burke, of Glen Rock, New Jersey; and another sister,
Ellen, also of Glen Rock.
the U.S. bishops assembled in Baltimore: “Do not, in any
way, identify the interests of our holy faith with the
fortunes of any party.”
He noted, hoever, that bishops have not always
followed that injunction. “For example, Bishop John
Hughes of New York in 1841 put up a Catholic ticket . . .
in an attempt to gain some measure of fairness for
Catholic children in the public schools then largely
dominated in New York by Protestant influence.”
Msgr. Ellis also recalled that in 1894 Archbishop John
Ireland of St. Paul, Minn., had “actively campaigned for
the Republicans” in New York, provoking public ire from
New York bishops, and that in the 1930s Father Charles
Coughlin was an ardent political partisan, eventually
founding his own political party.
However, partisanship of that kind by church officials
was the exception rather than the rule, Msgr. Ellis said.
He held up as “the nearest thing to an ideal” the stance
of Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, who died in
1921. “Nationally famous for his conspicuous adherence
to his duty as a citizen, yet as a bishop of the church he
never publicly tipped his hand in favor of a partisan
position,” the historian said.
If there are new elements in the current religion and
politics debate, said Msgr. Ellis, they are due to the
(Continued on page 11)
Rev. Patrick J. Breheny
Macon - October 26-27
Abbot David Geraets Spiritual Renewal Speaker
Abbot David Geraets, principal speaker at the Spiritual
Renewal Conference which will take pace at Mount de
Sales, Macon, October 26-27, is a native of Wisconsin Who
is now Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey at Pecos, New
Mexico. During the Conference, he will be developing the
main theme, “Inner Healing, Prayer and Reconciliation”
in four general sessions.
Abbot David has been actively involved in giving
retreats, counseling, spiritual direction and evangelization
on a world-wide basis since 1967. He was elected the first
Abbot of the Monastery in Pecos in 1973. Currently, he
divides his time between his Benedictine community of
men and women at Pecos, directing an on-going six-week
School for Spiritual Directors, and sharing the Good News
with as many people, in as many places, as possible,
through retreats and missions.
Bom on a farm near Elmwood, Wisconsin, which is
about fifty miles from St. Paul-Minneapolis, Abbot David
was one of fourteen children, including a brother who
became a Dominican priest and two sisters who joined the
Benedictine order at St. Bede’s, Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
In 1968 he received his doctorate in Missiology, having
written his doctoral thesis on music and catechetics. He
became involved in the pentecostal renewal movement
while teaching Theology at the Dominican College in
Racine, Wisconsin. He came to Pecos in the summer of
1969, when several monks from Benet Lake, Wisconsin,
joined the small community there on an experimental
basis.
Abbot David will develop his main theme in four talks,
“Vision and the Spiritual Journey,” “Prayer and
Relationships,” “Reconciliation with God and One
Another,” and “Inner Healing and Spiritual Growth.”
As an underlying theme which will run through his
talks, he notes that “we can almost always measure our
(Continued on page 12)