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Contents
Sou
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Diocese of,
Savannah
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hern
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News 1-3
Commentary 4-5
Around the Diocese 6-7
Faith Alive! . 8-9
Notices 10-11
Last But Not Least 12
Vol. 79, No. 45 $.50 per issue
Thursday, December 23, 1999
Christmas, 1999
My dear friends in Christ,
O n Christmas Eve, our Holy Father, Pope John Paul
n, will solemnly open the Great Jubilee of the
Year 2000 by tapping on the bricks covering the
Holy Door at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The door
will be opened to welcome the Jubilee pilgrims who will
come to pray at the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles.
From the beginning of his ministry as Saint Peter’s successor 21 years ago,
Pope John Paul has consistently returned to the theme, “Open wide the doors
to Christ.’’ He has challenged regimes, philosophies and ideologies to be
open to the Gospel. He has challenged individuals to open their hearts to the
Lord. He has challenged believers to open their whole lives to the influence
of God’s grace.
Toward the end of November 2000, we will open the doors to the
Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Savannah, after a massive year-and-a-
half restoration. As we reopen this glorious church for the worship of God, it
is my hope that our hearts will be opened anew to his service.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your overwhelming generosity
in contributing to our “One Faith... One Family” Jubilee campaign. Thanks
to your outstanding support, our diocesan family will enter the new
Millennium with our Cathedral restored, our parishes enabled to minister the
Gospel more effectively, our ministry to the Spanish-speaking expanded and
our diocesan technology plan in the process of implementation.
As we approach the Jubilee year, I pray that God the Father may open our
hearts and minds to Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit during this Christmas sea
son and into the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.
Your friend in Christ,
Bishop of Savannah
Mary cradling the infant Jesus is depicted in a 17th-century paint
ing by Carlo Maratta. Christians mark the celebration of the birth
of Christ on Christmas Day, December 25.
Social Apostolate offers the face of love to those in need
By Jan Skutch
i 6 Twant the last thing you see to be the face of
Xlove,” Sister Helen Prejean tells a condemned
murderer preparing to die in the movie Dead Man
Walking.
What actress Susan Sarandon brought to the silver
screen, Sister Pauline O’Brien seeks to bring to
Savannah.
“That line has really stuck in my mind,” said
Sister Pauline, director of the Social Apostolate of
Savannah. “That’s what I want to see continue to
happen here—that people coming here see the face
of love. I think if we continue to do that we will
have fulfilled our mission.”
Sister Pauline arrived here in June, bringing with
her 31 years in the order of the Missionary
Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception.
Most of that time has been spent in social ministries
like the Social Apostolate.
With her comes a passion for her work and an acute
realization that she is following the 31-year legacy of
her predecessors Sister Mary Catherine Moore and
Sister Mary Therese Brown and support from the
mission’s friends in the Catholic community.
“I’m coming in and continuing the policies that
have been set in place here,” she said. “What we
have is what people give us.” Her focus is seeking
those in need and filling those needs.
As a Franciscan, Sister and her order take the
vow of poverty—both in their personal and work
day lives. “That’s who we are,” Sister Pauline said.
She lives with two other Franciscan sisters in the
old Saint Pius X convent in Savannah’s inner-city
Area C—an area characterized by all of the ills of
social deterioration.
The three-decade history of the Social Apostolate
is, in large part, the story of the Franciscan sister in
charge.
Sister Mary Catherine spent 25 years building the
mission before retiring in 1993. She turned the
work over to Sister Mary Therese Brown, who held
it for six years before falling ill early this year.
Sister Pauline was called to take over, returning to
the town she served as a 24-year-old sister in the
early 1970s.
Her philosophy is simply put: “There’s only one
report card—how did you treat your fellow human
being? We already know the one question. I try to
live in God’s presence, one day at a time,” she said.
For Pauline, the decision to become a sister at age
20 in her native Ireland seemed natural. She is the
youngest of seven children bom to psychiatric nurse
parents. When her father died when she was 3, her
mother raised the family alone.
She concedes her choice has not been without its
costs. Not only has the face of poverty changed
(Continued on page 6)