Newspaper Page Text
The ' <:r | i:r
Soulhern
Diocese of
Savannah
Vol. 79, No. 10
Thursday, March 11, 1999
ross
$.50 PER ISSUE
Contents
News 2-3
Commentary 4-5
Around the Diocese .. 6-7
Faith Alive! 8-9
Notices 10-11
Last But Not Least ... 12
O
Cathedral restoration
begins with windows
Father Douglas K. Clark
Savannah
ifty-two stained glass windows dating
from 1900, and one that survived the
fire of 1898, are being removed one by one
from the upper church of the Cathedral of
Saint John the Baptist. Each window is
being photographed and impressions are
being made of it so that in just over a year
(56 weeks), the thoroughly cleaned and
releaded windows can be returned to their
proper places and fit snugly into newly-
molded frames.
Conrad Schmitt, Inc. of Wisconsin, is in
charge of the meticulous process of restoring
the windows Once the windows have all
been removed they will be taken by truck to
Wisconsin, where the painstaking work on
each panel will be carried out.
The windows are attached to their steel
frames by hardened putty. The steel has been
corroded by sulfur emissions that for most of
the windows’ 100-year history were daily
occurrences in Savannah. Father William O.
O’Neill, rector of the Cathedral, has saved
some of the frames and rotten window sills
for a future display of the condition of the
building that has necessitated the restoration
project.
The removal of the windows is the first
phase of the $5.3 million restoration. The
target date for completion of the whole pro
ject is July 1, 2000. The roof will be
replaced, the walls and ceilings repaired,
new lighting and sound systems installed
and a more authentic decorative scheme
developed, in keeping with the 19th-century
French Gothic style of the building.
A sample of what such a scheme might
look like was prepared by Conrad Schmitt
in one bay (Mural, columns, wall, window
and station of the cross) on the south side of
the church. From the overwhelmingly posi
tive reactions to the sample bay, a final
scheme is being developed for the whole
building.
The upper church will close for repairs on
May 31 after the 11:30 Mass and will
remain closed for a little over a year. In the
meantime, the parish will remain open, with
Masses celebrated in Our Lady’s Chapel,
downstairs. However, Christmas Midnight
Mass this year will be celebrated at the
Savannah Civic Center.
The “One Faith,... One Family” Jubilee
Campaign is funding the restoration of the
cathedral.
Workmen remove the Saint Anthony window from the
south transept of the Cathedral of Saint John
the Baptist. For more photos, see page 6.
Retired Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun dies at 90
Arlington, VA (CNS)
etired Supreme Court Justice
Harry Blackmun, 90, author of
the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that
legalized abortion, died March 4 at
Arlington Hospital in the Washington
suburb of Arlington.
Blackmun, who had retired from
the high court in 1994, died following
complications from the hip replace
ment surgery he had undergone nine
days earlier. He fell at his home and
broke his hip a day before the opera
tion.
Appointed by President Nixon in
1970, Blackmun wrote a number of
significant opinions during his 24
years on the court, covering tax law,
advertising by attorneys, parental
rights and even baseball, but it is the
abortion decision that will be his
legacy.
“History will remember Harry
Blackmun as the architect of the trag
ic U.S Supreme Court decision, Roe
vs. Wade,” said a statement from
David O’Steen, executive director of
the National Right to Life Committee.
“It is a tragedy for someone to go to
his grave best remembered for deny
ing unborn children the most basic
civil liberty — the right to life.”
The Roe vs. Wade opinion threw out
most state restrictions on abortion,
and its companion case, Doe vs.
Bolton, permitted abortions through
all nine months of pregnancy.
Roe, which said women had a con
stitutional right to end their pregnan
cies, generated more than 20 years of
judicial and legislative adaptation, in
addition to vehement and sometimes
violent debates and protests.
The Administrative Committee of
the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops later that year described the
court’s decision as “erroneous, unjust
and immoral.”
“This opinion of the court fails to
protect the most basic human right —
the right to life,” the bishops said.
“Therefore, we reject this decision of
the court.”
They quoted Pope John XXIII’s
1963 encyclical, Pacem in Terris,
which said that “if any government
does not acknowledge the rights of
man or violates them ... its orders
completely lack judicial force.”
The bishops also criticized the court
for failing to understand “scientific
evidence” clearly showing the fetus to
be of “compelling value” as a person.
Each year on January 22, the
anniversary of Roe decision, tens of
thousands of pro-lifers rally at the
Ellipse near the White House to
protest abortion and then march to the
Supreme Court.
And in the years since 1973, Black
mun said he had received more than
60,000 pieces of hate mail on the sub
ject.
In 1983, on the 10th anniversary of
the decision, Blackmun emphasized
in an Associated Press interview that
the decision to legalize abortion “was
a decision of the court, not my deci
sion. There were seven votes.”
In 1994, when Blackmun
announced his decision to retire, he
reiterated his belief that the opinion
was correct.
“I think it’s a step that had to be
taken as we go down the road toward
the full emancipation of women,” he
said.
(Continued on page 3)