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Contents Sou ☆ ☆ Diocese of, Savannah ☆ ☆ hern (Voss 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)