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Diocese of
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Vol. 79, No. 43 $.50 per issue
Thursday, December 9, 1999
Diocese sends 107 to National
Catholic Youth Conference in
Saint Louis, page 7
Local sisters benefit from
Retirement Fund for Religious
By Rita H. DeLorme
Savannah
4 4tt rhen we brought sixteen retired sisters to
VV Mercy Convent in 1974,” says Sister
Mary Finbarr Kane, RSM, “we wanted everything
to be so nice for them. Each sister selected her own
room. Then, we planted flowers in the garden:
tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and crocuses. The fol
lowing spring, the garden was beautiful.”
Sister Finbarr, who is now retired and gets about
with a walker, made the comments as she and Sister
Mary Felice Byrnes, a religious for almost 65 years,
welcomed a visitor to Mercy Convent near Saint
Joseph’s Hospital.
Other sisters living at the convent include mem
bers of the Mercy order whose names are familiar
to generations of Catholics in the Savannah dio
cese: Sister M. Annette Kennedy, Sister M. Rosarii
Kennedy, Sister M. Consolata Manning, Sister M.
Cecilia Coleman, Sister M. Clarice Millett, Sister
M. Comile Dulohery, and Sister M. Graziana
Sumner. Mrs. Mickey McNamara, administrator for
eighteen years, and Gina McNamara, assistant
administrator, head the staff.
Sister Finbarr, a native of Dublin, Ireland, can
relate all the facts about the convent; for it was she
who made arrangements for older sisters under her
care to be individually transported to their new home
from Saint Vincent’s Academy. Sister Finbarr, who
will be 90 next May, came to this country in 1926 as
a girl of 16, eager to serve the Lord in these “foreign”
surroundings. Sister Finbarr did not see her homeland
again for 21 years. She served in many capacities
throughout her career: teaching at Saint Vincent’s
Academy, Cathedral Day and Blessed Sacrament
Schools, and helping to found Nativity of our Lord
School. Later, she began to work with the elderly reli
gious and continued to do so for some time.
Sister Felice, a native Savannahian, has had many
“careers” since her reception into the Mercy Order
in Baltimore on March 12, 1935. As she relates, she
has taught “up and down the eastern coastline,” at
sites including schools in Baltimore and Salisbury,
Maryland; Birmingham, Alabama; Hopewell,
Virginia; and Savannah. Sister Felice did “home
work” for twelve years at Saint Mary’s Home in
Savannah. She became known to many of the chil
dren who lived there as “Mommy Felice.” She
served as assistant mistress of novices and mistress
of postulants in Baltimore, and later worked with
older religious of her order at both Mercy Convent
in Savannah and Mount de Sales Convent in
Macon. Sister Felice later served in pastoral care
and visitation of the sick and homebound. Presently
in retirement, her sixth “career,” Sister Felice says,
“now that I am in the twilight of my years, I pray
my sixth career will lead me where the angels will
meet me and lead me into paradise as a continuance
and fulfillment of my loving God, who has been the
joy and happiness of my earthly life.”
This year’s campaign for the Retirement Fund for
Religious is a reminder of the role played by reli-
Sisters Mary Finbarr and Mary Felice, RSM
gious such as Sister Finbarr and Sister Felice and
other sisters, brothers and priests of the diocese in
their ministry. In 1998, the Diocese of Savannah
received $71,187.66 in contributions for this cause.
The theme of this drive says it all: “I have been
young and now am old” {Psalm 37:25). The collec
tion will be taken up December 11-12.
Much like the flowers planted so many years ago
in the garden of Mercy Convent, the holiness of
these religious continues to produce blooms. “The
flowers remaining are stragglers like ourselves,”
says Sister Finbarr. Mercy Convent remains fruitful
and lovely like the lives of those who live there. “I
love this place,” says Sister Finbarr, smiling. “Who
wouldn’t?”
Participants process into Saint Matthew Church, with parishioners
walking behind their parish's banner
Statesboro Deanery Millennium Celebration
The people tell their story
By Father Michael H. Smith, V.F.
bout 150 people from 13 parish
es and missions of the
Statesboro Deanery gathered at their
mother church, Saint Matthew,
Statesboro, on Saturday, December 4,
from 10:00 to 2:00 p.m. The purpose:
to share the story of being Catholic in
rural south Georgia, to celebrate the
work of God in building up a Catho
lic family of faith and to strengthen
their faith to move together into the
third millennium.
When Father Charlie Hughes and the
Glenmary missionaries moved into
what is now the Statesboro Deanery in
the mid 1940’s, there was not an estab
lished Catholic community between
Augusta and Savannah. He remembers
almost literally being swept off the
porch of one lady who thought Catho
lics were too complicated and clut
tered. But most welcomed the “new
comers” and Father Hughes testified
that their questions made him think
more deeply about practices he had
taken for granted as part of his Catho
lic heritage. “Now,” he feels, “most
Protestants recognize we are Christians
too, not out to conquer them, but share,
grow and work together as disciples of
Jesus. We’ve entered a new stage in
our relationship.”
Ronnie Ruffo of Saint Matthew,
Statesboro, is one of the minority of
(Continued on page 11)