Newspaper Page Text
Contents
Vol. 78, No. 38
Thursday, October 29, 1998
$15.00 PER YEAR
Bishops face large agenda at
November meeting
— SEE page 2
The ft ft
Sou hern
Diocese of £ "I __
Savannah { ^fOSS
News 2-3
Commentary 4-5
Around the Diocese. . 6-7
Faith Alive! 8-9
Notices 10-11
Last But Not Least ... 12
Little Rock Bishop Andrew J. McDonald with
Savannah Bishop J. Kevin Boland at Bishop
McDonald's 75th birthday and 50th ordination
anniversary celebration in Little Rock, Arkansas,
October 24-25.
Bishop McDonald's birthday brings
friends to Arkansas
By Kathy Neal
Little Rock, Arkansas
ore than 40 family members and 50 friends
from Bishop Andrew J. McDonald’s home
town of Savannah showed up last weekend in Little
Rock to celebrate the bishop’s 75th birthday. For
many, it was their first visit to Arkansas, and they
were delighted to travel to Arkansas to express their
sincere love for the bishop. Name tags told the story
of who was who among a host of friends.
Jack and Nancy Schaaf said they knew the bishop
before he was ordained a priest. Jack ushered at his
ordination in Savannah in 1948. Nancy met the bish
op when she was in high school and he called the
principal and asked for two girls to address the bish
op’s Christmas cards. Father McDonald was assis
tant to Bishop Thomas J. McDonough at the time.
“A friend of mine and I went over and we ad
dressed Christmas cards for that bishop. We did
this for three years in a row,” she said. “And then
when Jack and I started dating, I went to him and
I said, ‘What about this guy?’ and Bishop Mc
Donald said, ‘Oh, he’s a good one!’ and so here
we are.”
Patty Michalski, Bishop McDonald’s niece from
Buffalo, N.Y., said the bishop is always there any
time when he is needed. “When my daughter was
bom, she was born with a lot of handicaps, and he
came up and baptized her,” she said. “One of the
things he said to me before one of her surgeries
was, ‘Be not afraid, I go before you always.’ So
every time I hear that prayer, it just brings tears to
my eyes. He’s just a wonderful, wonderful man.”
Lois Haslam was a parishioner of Father McDon
ald’s. He asked her to help with bookkeeping at the
school. “My husband Harry is an accountant, and
Bishop McDonald asked him to keep after me to
keep the books straight,” she said.
Bishop McDonald came back to Savannah to
(Continued on page 11)
Priest shortage
Los Angeles (CNS)
I n an open letter to Catholics in the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the
nation’s largest, Cardinal Roger M.
Mahony said solving the priest short
age in the archdiocese is “our collec
tive responsibility.”
He outlined seven suggestions to
help ease the shortage, and listed steps
Catholics and parishes could take to
bring about more priest vocations.
“Did not Jesus foresee this very
shortage when he spoke these words:
‘The harvest is abundant but the
laborers are few’?” Cardinal Mahony
asked, quoting Matthew 9:37.
“I am fully confident that Jesus
Christ will continue to be with us
along this journey, and that the Holy
Spirit will lead us forward to meet the
pastoral challenges that lie before us,”
he said.
According to the Official Catholic
Directory, the Archdiocese of Los
Angeles had 1,233 active priests, both
diocesan and religious, as of January
1. Only the archdioceses of New
York, Chicago, Boston and Philadel
phia had more.
With 3.1 million Catholics listed offi
cially in the archdiocese — a “rapidly
burgeoning” Catholic population which
Cardinal Mahony put at “well over 4
million” — “it is critical that we all
understand the imbalance between pas
toral needs and the number of priests to
responsibility of all, Los Angeles cardinal says
meet those needs,” he said.
The number of available priests is
affected by some “sobering” statistics
issued by the archdiocese’s priest per
sonnel board: 17 pastors age 70 or
above; seven parishes seeking new
pastors, with the parishes giving up
their priests for those pastorates
unlikely to get replacements; 13 priest
deaths since July 1997; six priests
leaving active ministry this year; and
a maximum of four or five new priests
per year in upcoming ordination class
es.
“More than 60 of our parishes are
served by religious communities, and
almost all of them face the same situa
tion of older clergy and diminishing
numbers,” Cardinal Mahony said.
Already in the archdiocese, he
added, associates are serving simulta
neously at two parishes, and parishes
are being served by priests who live at
another parish.
“I cannot, and will not, ask our
priests to do any more than they are
presently doing in their ministry. Most
are terribly overworked and trying
valiantly to serve impossible pastoral
demands day after day,” Cardinal
Mahony said. “Our solutions must all
focus upon methods that mitigate
these enormous pastoral demands, not
increase them.”
Cardinal Mahony’s suggestions
included:
— Prayer, encouragement and support
for priests who “are already stretched
to the breaking point... lest we have
more premature illnesses and deaths
among our outstanding priests.”
— Efficient utilization of diocesan
and religious priests, with equitable
distribution among parishes and pas
toral regions within the archdiocese.
— Having fewer priests serve a cluster
of parishes than originally intended.
— Increased lay involvement in
parish life.
— An “ever deepening collaboration
between clergy and laity.”
— Openness to “new and creative
ways” to serve people and parishes
“as we experiment with new pastoral
models and initiatives.” Cardinal
Mahony’s letter did not detail what
pastoral service models may be tried.
— Increased prayer for, and promo
tion of, vocations, with each parish
devising a plan to bring this about.
"Each parish should select one day a
month to devote fully to unending
prayer for vocations,” Cardinal Maho
ny said.
“Nothing is more effective than our
ceaseless prayer for vocations.”
“Every parish should establish a
parish vocations committee,” and
“every parishioner needs to become a
vocations recruiter — alert to those
men in the parish who seem to possess
those qualities and commitments we
wish to see in our priests,” he added.
“We are not a people without hope,”
the cardinal said, “and we truly
believe that Jesus Christ is with his
church at this historical moment.”
Father Brett Brannen, vocations
director for the Diocese of Sa
vannah, visits with Johnny John
son, a college seminarian from
Augusta, at the Franciscan Uni
versity of Steubenville. To find
out what the Savannah Diocese
is doing to encourage vocations,
see the special insert to this edi
tion of The Southern Cross.