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PAGE 4 GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 1964
^Archdiocese of Atlanta
GEORGIA BULLETIN
SCRVING GEORGIA’S 71 NORTHED COUNTIES
Official Organ of the Archidocese of Atlanta
Published Every Week at the Decatur DeKalb News
PUBLISHER- Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan
MANAGING EDITOR Gerard E. Sherry
CONSULTING EDITOR Rev. R. Donald Kiernan
2699 Peachtree N. E.
P. 0. Box 11667
Northside Station
Atlanta 5, Ga.
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rev. Leonard F. X. Mayhew
Member of the Catholic Press Association
and Subscriber to N. C. W7 C. News Service
Telephone 231-1281
Second Class Permit at Altanta, Ga.
U. S. A. $5.00
Canada $5.00
Foriegn $6,50
Liturgical Week
The National Liturgical Week,
which opened in St. Louis on
Monday has even greater signi
ficance for American Catholics
than previous Weeks have had.
The reason is clear. This is the
first national convention on the
liturgical apostolate since Pope
Paul published the Constitution of
the Vatican Council on Sacred
Worship last December. The im
petus given the liturgical aposto
late by the Council must now
be implemented in dioceses and
parishes. For this reason this
year’s Liturgical Week has adop
ted the theme; “The Challenge
of the Council; Person, Parish,
World.”
The Liturgical Week will deal
with the Constitution on Wor
ship as a challenge offered to the
Church to become aware of her
vital inner life. Unless the Catho
lic community can see it as a
challenge and an invitation to a
more meaningful and authentic
Christian experience, then the
work of the Council will not
have achieved its purpose. It is
the aim of the Week to spell out
this challenge, to make it a re
cognizable goal. What does per
sonal involvement in the litur
gy and in the life of the Church
mean? Why is the community as
pect ,of worship so important?
Why is the fresh emphasis on
Scripture so vital? In what terms
does this challenge affect parish
life as well as the Church’s role
in the greater community of the
world?
The work of education and in
struction which must precede
and accompany the imminent lit—
rugical reforms is a gigantic
but essential task. Only an intel
ligent participation in and cele
bration of the liturgy can make
authentic renewal possible. This
is why the Vatican Council turned
its first attention to this sub
ject, before efforts at renewal in
other directions. The Liturgical
Week will focus on this aware
ness through talks and discus
sion and also in the daily cele
bration of the Eucharist.
The Archdiocese of Atlanta
is well-represented at the Lit
urgical Week. Archbishop Halli
nan will deliver the principal ad
dress at the closing session of the
Week. Priests, Sisters, Semi
narians and laity from Atlanta
are taking part in the discus
sions and exercises. Our arch
diocese and our parishes will
certainly contribute generously
to the success of the Week and
its aims and will benefit im
measurably from the experience
of our representatives in St.
Louis.
No ‘Blackball’
The Knights of Columbus are
to be congratulated on their
historic step taken in annual con
vention inNewOrleans last week-
they junked the old “blackball”
membership rule and agreed that
future applicants in the Catholic
Fraternal Order can be turned
away from local councils only by
a disapproval vote of one-third
of the members present.
The step was taken in the form
of a unanimous resolution
approved at the annual meeting of
the Supreme Council and was in
line with the recommendation
of Supreme» Knight John W. Mc-
Devitt who urged the Knights to
“use charity and justice, and
these factors alone,” in select
ing candidates for membership.
He was supported by 10 state
councils of the order which cal
led for relaxation of the mem
bership requirements.
The changes made in the mem
bership requirement removed the
possibility that an applicant can
be rejected by the negative votes
of as few as five members of
a local council. This former pro
cedure was seen by many as lead
ing to discrimination against
Negroes. The new rule goes into
effect on September 1.
Congratulations are in order.
We hope it will enable all
members of the Knights of Col
umbus to that essential unity
within their own ranks and that
it will make a positive contri
bution in unifying all citizens of
goodwill.
, fJ H 0 V \t V ->V
) mis ecumenical}
/movement is i
/ STARTING TO, V
) BURN ME UP!
GEORGIA PINES
Appletree Theater
BY REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN
Washington, D, C. has its Watergate concerts;
Boston, has its Esplanade, and Atlanta has its
Chastain Amphitheater. All over our country to
day there are professional, semi-professional and
amateur ventures in public entertainment.
There is hardly any metropolitan area or small
hamlet which does not have a group interested
in either concerts or plays. No matter what the
size of the town may be, wherever theater groups
are found it seems that the cul
tural level of the town is high.
Of course, if one is fortunate
enough to live in a college town,
then a whole series of produc
tions are available during the
academic year. Even the high
schools today have highly quali
fied thespian. groups.
The Catholic community of
Atlanta has indeed been fortu
nate for a number of years now
with its St. Thomas More theater guild. With the
assistance of the Bergmans, these actors over
the years have presented many excellent and dis
tinguished performances,
NOTHING seems more enjoyable to me than to
drive out to Chastain Park on a hot summer night
and sit under a starlit sky and see some of the
finest performances and celebrated actors upon
the stage of the Amphitheater. It is truly in keep
ing with Atlanta’s reputation of being a cultural
center for the south.
Just a few hours drive north from Atlanta is
an Indian pageant held nightly at Cherokee,
North Carolina. It is almost unbelievable how
much the temperature drops at night up in those
hills. There in an outdoor theater the history
of the Indians of Western Carolina and north
Georgia is presented by the Indians themselves.
MUCH LESS publicized, unfortunately, but
equally enjoyable is Cornelia’s Appletree Thea
ter, Now here is a real example of community
cooperation where talent is recruited from the
surrounding towns and even Shakespearean pro
ductions are put on with eclat. The smallness
of the theater appears proof that the actors
are enjoying their work as much as the specta
tors enjoy the production.
It was Horace Greely who once said, “Go west,
young man”. But it was Bob Porterfield of Ab
ingdon’s (Va.) Barter Theater who said to native
Georgian, Jack Willoughby, “Go home to your
own people’’. Mr. Willoughby came to the “home
of the Big, Red Apple” and enlisted the aid of
ladies and various clubs in the project of found
ing a theater. Today, Cornelians continue to boost
and expand their theater,
CAROUSEL, Charley’s Aunt, South Pacific,
Dial “M” for Murder, and Oklahoma are but
a few of the productions presented by the col
lege-student apprentices and local actors in
Cornelia's Appletree Theater.
Television and movies have hurt the theater
for a number of years now. However, the pend
ulum seems to be swinging in the opposite dire
ction and small theater groups are being born
all over the country,
TIME WAS when a. Sunday would not have
been complete without a trip down to the city
park to hear the local band playing some of
John Phillip Souza’s stirring marches Fac
tories and big businesses used to sponsor bands
in much the same way that local enterprises
now sponsor bowling teams. With the theater,
however, a different story exists. Often the actors
had to play two roles; one, a ticket salesman;
the other, an actor.
Possibly the inspiration and encourage
ment supplied in a smell town by such a group
as the Appletree Theater will serve as an im
petus to other cities to have a rebirth of the
theater in their own town.
HOPE FOR LEPERS
Your World And Mine
BY GARY MacEOIN and Europe in 1944.
Vandalism
Lawmen from north Georgia
gathered last week in Buford
seeking a solution to the grow
ing problem of vandalism which
has plagued campers and home
owners for some time in the
mountain-lake resort area.
One possible solution advanc
ed was that the campers and
home owners should accept a
greater measure of responsibi
lity themselves by noting license
plates, description of autos
and number of persons involved.
This, of course, would involve
the informant in litigation, sus
ceptibility to retaliatory suits,
loss of time from work and yes,
possibly retaliation. These con
siderations, unfortunately, keep
many of us from taking action
even though justice may demand
our involvement.
Special park patrols and swif
ter administration of justice in
our courts with set standards of
punishment might be the answer
to the physical problem but ulti
mately the training of youth in
principles of moral responsbility
seems the only answer.
Among Americans working in remote parts of
the world, I have met none who has made so dra
matic and favorable and impact as an orthopedic
surgeon from Utah named Hans. His incredible
achievements in a leper settlement in West Africa
will surely live for ever in the region’s folklore.
The story begins with the naming of a genial
Irishman, Bishop Thomas McGettrick, to the dio
cese of Ogoja, Eastern Nigeria,
in 1939. Here he found three
quarters of a million people
(by 1964 grown to over a mil
lion) living in 8,000 square
miles of tropical bush. All year
round they eat yams which they
grow in the rainy season, break
ing the rock-hard earth with
mattocks to make 4-foot-high
mound3 in which the tuber can
swell to its full proportions. It was less hot than
steamy Calabar on the coast, where the bishop
had previously worked. The climate is in fact
quite pleasant when one gets up to the town of
Ogoja, within sight of the Cameroon highlands.
OGOJA’S first bishop found many problems, but
none more poignant than the lot of the ubiquitous
lepers, for whom nobody cared. His guess that
there were many thousands was subsequently con
firmed when the number under treatment grew to
20,000. But that is anticipating, for Bishop Mc-
Getttrlck could do little more than figure and
make projections until the war ended in Africa
By then he was ready. He had persuaded the
chiefs to rent him 700 acres covered with dense
vegetation, soaring palms and tali cotton trees.
Encouraged by the Nigerian Government, he went
to Ireland and persuaded the recently founded
Medical Missionaries of Mary to send some sis
ters. Gradually, mud-brick buildings with grass
roofs went up, constructed in large part by the pat
ients who flocked from all sides as the glad tid
ings of hope for the hopeless spread.
Such was the beginning of what in less than
twenty years has grown to a network of three set
tlements, 36 segregation villages and 84 treatment
centers, with a total at last count of 19,610
patients.
EACH SETTLEMENT contains a hospital with
operating room, laboratory, physiotherapy, occu
pational therapy and rehabilitation department.
Around it are homes for those not confined to bed
yet needing constant treatment. For the children
there are dormitories, a dining hall and school.
Many of them began their education with their
treatment.
Segregation villages are for those who do not
need hospital attention. Each has one permanent
building, a treatment center on weekdays and a
church on Sundays, It houses weak, old and crip
pled patients, and those who are actively infec
tious. The others live in mud and thatch huts
around, are able to till the fields and attend to their
CONTINUED ON PAGE 5
DESPITE MOOD
No Time
For Despair
BY GERARD E. SHERRY
In a world in which God is constantly re
jected, the Christian must constantly seek to
love Him better, serve him more faithfully,
and attempt to lead others to the same goal.
Yet it is true that many of us despair at times,
because we are fearful little people with little
faith.
While we should view this space age as an
age of fear, let us not walk into the trap of
thinking it is an age
of doom. It is an
age when we Chris
tians must rise with
an historic vision and
enlivened courage to
accept the times as
God's will—meeting
the periods of pro
sperity and tran
quility with humility
and thanksgiving, and the dark periods with
out panic, without lamentation. We must re
place fear with a disciplined faith. Every
age has it fears—we have only to read our
history books to find many of the central
characters have forecast the end of or
ganized society and the doom of people
threatened by some ancient or modern force
of barbarity.
REAPINGS
AT
RANDOM
Even today we have cause for fear and it
is difficult when meditating of the fate of her
oes of the Church of Silence such as Cardi
nal Mindszenty, Archbishop Beran, Maryknoll
Bishop James Walsh, and a host of other vic
tims of the mew barbarians behind the Iron
and Bamboo Curtains, Yet when we think of
them we must also remember their pre
decessors, Peter and Paul and the host of
other Martyrs who suffered and died knowing
that the Church of Christ would survive time
itself. We who live in this great country have
less to despair about than any other people.
We have been spared the anguish of op
pression; we have not yet been privileged to
share in the glory of martyrdom.
o
I am reminded of the plea of Pope Paul
in his latest encyclical Ecclesiam Suam (His
Church), for the laity to make a greater ef
fort in the apostolic mission of the Church.
He does not make this call simply because of
a shortage of priests in some parts of the
World. This is an erroneous impression often
given by the over-zealous actionist. The
Pope is simply reminding us of our obligations—
for we are in duty bound to participate in
some measure in the apostolate of the
Church. We must therefore know what we are
about—-where we are going.
We are not abstractions, disincarnate beings.
We are flesh and blood, with a unique per
sonality, our own heredity, our own tempera
ment, our own history, our own resources. It
is through all that makes up our lives that we
must attain our eternal destiny; our home life,
our work, our recreation, our courtship, our
marriage, are no more than steps forward
to our divine destiny. Our education, our pre
paration for our vocation in life—these things
aren not accidents of fortune nor of personal
choice alone—they are the means willed by
God whereby we are able to reach our per
sonal perfection, fulfill our social mission and
attain our salvation.
All this may sound a little like a sermon.
So be it. There is a constant temptation to
exhortation without the follow-up of action.
This is a typical reaction from a Communion
Breakfast or other such meeting. Yet I sin
cerely believe that such meetings are far from
the focal point of our Catholic life. Such meet
ings and gathering are useless unless they are
the means whereby we join together with other
determined Christians to live up to our ob
ligations to our Church, our family, our neigh
bors and our country. In days of crisis or fear
there is a tendency to retreat into the con
fines of the parish enclave—to withdraw into
the Church, leaving the world to others whose
standards of morality and ethics we cannot a-
gree with. Yet this is the age when we should
be spreading out in unity from the walls of the
parish, spreading the Light and the Truth to
all in witness. It would be well to refer again
to the latest words of Pope Paul from his en-
cydcial:
“In the pursuit of spiritual and moral per
fection the Church receives an exterior sti
mulus from the condition in which She lives.
She cannot remain unaffected by or indifferent
to the changes that take place in the world
around,
'This world exerts its influence on the
Church in a thousand different ways and places
conditions on her daily conduct. The Church, as
everyone knows, is not separated from the
world but lives in it. Hence, the members of
the Church are subject to its influences; they
breathe its culture, accept its laws and absorb
its customs.
'This imminent contact of the Church with
temporal society continually creates for her a
problematic situation, which today has become
extremely difficult. On the one hand Christian
life, as defended and promoted by the Church
must always take great care lest it should be
deceived, profaned or stifled as it must strive
to render itself immune from contagion of
error and of evil.
' On the other hand, Christian life should not
be adapted to the forms of thought and
custom which the temporal environment offers
stom which the temporal environment offers *
and imposes on her, provided they are com
patible with the basic exigencies of her re
ligious and moral program, but it should also
try to draw close to them, to purify them,
to enable them, to vivfy and to sanctify
them,,,”