Newspaper Page Text
Contents
Sou
Diocese of
Savannah
☆
116111
(JTOSS
VOL. 79, No. 31 $.50 PER ISSUE
Thursday, September 16,1999
News 1-3
Commentary. 4-5
Around the Diocese 6-7
Faith Alive! 8-9
Notices 10-11
Last But Not Least .12
Jubilee Campaign goes over goal
A goal of $10 million.. .pledges of
over $15 million! “The Jubilee
Campaign, One Faith...One Family,
has been an overwhelming success,”
said Bishop J. Kevin Boland.
“We have been extremely
blessed,” said Bishop Boland. “The
economy has been strong and the
people have responded with extraor
dinary generosity. This has been the
single largest campaign we have
ever conducted and the most suc
cessful. I am grateful to the people
of the diocese who supported the
campaign financially, and also to the
many parish campaign committee
members who worked hard to see
their parish succeed.”
Pat Signs, Director of Stewardship and
Developoment for the diocese, echoes these state
ments, but also credits Bishop Boland for a large part
of the success. “It was pretty grueling for him for
awhile,” she said. “Anyone who has not traveled the
37,000 square miles of the diocese, has no idea of the
time it takes to get to the different parishes. The
bishop made it to many of them — sometimes two in
one evening. His intense involvment in the campaign
was integral to its success.”
Since this was the first campaign with a goal of
$10 million, diocesan officials were not sure what
the outcome would be. “I had some anxiety in the
beginning,” admits Signs. “We had never done
anything of this magnitude before. It was an enter- '
prise undertaken in faith.”
It was a faith that was well rewarded. Of
the $15.5 million pledged, just about
$4.5 million has been collected. Signs is
pleased with the overall 29% redemption
rate since it has only been a few months
since the campaign was conducted in the
Albany and Valdosta-Brunswick deaner
ies. In Savannah and Augusta where the
campaign was conducted a full year ago,
39% of the monies pledged have been
collected.
The Parish Sharing was one of the
important aspects of the campaign. Over
$3.5 million is going back to the individ
ual parishes. Twenty percent of all the
money collected up to the parish goal,
then 50% of everything above that
amount is returned to the parish. Even if a parish
failed to meet its target, 20% of what is collected
still goes back to that parish.
Guidance in Giving, Inc. was the firm the diocese
hired to conduct the campaign. They work exclu
sively with Catholic dioceses, parishes, schools,
etc. and provided two full time account executives
and a director for eleven months. “Their profes
sional guidance and management of the campaign
kept everyone who was involved on schedule dur
ing the process,” said Signs. “With the size of our
diocese, it would have been almost impossible to
have conducted the campaign without them.” Steve
Babcock, the director from Guidance in Giving,
was delighted with the final figures. A native New
Yorker, Babcock declared that “the church is cer
tainly alive and well in south Georgia.”
Four parishes— Saint Anne, Columbus; Saint
Augustine, Thomasville; Saint John the Evangelist,
Valdosta; and Saint Paul, Douglas, had large building
projects of their own and conducted a “campaign
within a campaign” to take care of their needs and
those of the diocese. Four parishes — Saint Teresa,
Albany; Saint Mary, Americus; Sacred Heart, Warner
Robins; and Christ the King, Hamilton, have not yet
conducted the campaign, but have guaranteed their
portion to the diocese. When all is said and done, it is
anticipated that over $20 million will have been
raised throughout the diocese.
Father William O. O’Neill, Rector of the
Cathedral, can take special pride in the success of
the campaign in his parish. Cathedral parishioners
pledged $860,000 on a goal of $235,542 —
pledges equalled 365% of their goal. “I told my
people,” said Father O’Neill, “that since the cathe
dral was going to be one of the big beneficiaries of
this drive, we should lead the way. I guess they lis
tened to me.”
“During the campaign, I said we were riding a
winning horse,” said Bishop Boland. “I knew we
were going to win the race, I just didn’t anticipate
the extraordinary margin of victory. I am grateful to
all who played a part in demonstrating that we are
‘One Faith, ... One Family’.”
Articles concerning the restoration of the Cathe
dral of Saint John the Baptist, the expansion of the
Hispanic ministry and technology, and parish shar
ing — all elements of the Jubilee Campaign — will
appear in next week’s edition of The Southern
Cross.
(See Progress Report on page 11)
Front healing bodies to healing souls
By Tom Corwin
oon it will all disappear — his 26-
year career in medicine, his home
and most of his possessions. But in its
place, Dr. John C. Markham III of
Augusta will have a new life and in
four years will have a new title: the
Rev. John Markham.
Dr. Markham has seen his last
patient and on August 31 he reported
to Pope John XXIII National
Seminary in Weston, Mass., to begin
studying for Catholic priesthood.
Oddly enough, he is one of three
former physicians in his class of 25
and will room with a former vascular
surgeon from Boston.
The declining number of men seek
ing the priesthood has begun to swing
back up in recent years, in part
because of men like Dr. Markham who
choose to leave their secular careers
for a spiritual life.
Nationally, about 20 percent of those
slated for ordination as priests this
year had advanced degrees, including
3 percent who were lawyers and 1 per
cent who were doctors, according to a
survey by the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops.
“Oh definitely, second career is the
trend right now,” said Sister Mary Ann
Walsh, spokeswoman for the confer
ence. “Sometimes, it’s the is-that-all-
there-is syndrome. Or people have
thought about pursuing this before but
couldn’t pursue it until now.”
In Dr. Markham’s case, it built up
over time. Bom a Southern Baptist, he
became a Presbyterian while at Duke
University and discovered a love for
religious studies, in which he earned
his undergraduate degree.
“That really whetted my appetite, so
to speak,” Dr. Markham said. In med
ical school and his later internships
and fellowships, there was little room
for studying anything but science and
medicine.
“But the seed had been planted
(back then), and now it’s bearing
fruit,” Dr. Markham said.
Working at Saint Joseph Hospital
since 1973, and later serving on vari
ous administrative boards and as
(Continued on page 3)
Dr. John C. Markham, III