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4 GEORGIA BULLETIN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1969
Most Rev. Thomas A. Donnellan D.D, J.C.D. - Publisher
Rev. R. Donald Kiernan - Acting Editor
Wendy Marris - Assistant Editor
2699 Peachtree N.E.
P.O. Box 11667
Northside Station
Member of the Catholic Press Association
and Subscriber to N.C.W.C. News Service
Telephone 261-1281
Second Class Permit at Atlanta, Ga.
Atlanta, Georgia 30305
U.S.A. $5.00
Canada $5.00
Foreign $6.50
Published Every Week at the Decatur - DeKalb News
Hie opinions contained in these editorial columns are •
the free expressions of free editors in a free Catholic press.
Marcuse In Rome
Twice within a few days late last fall Pope Paul VI used the word
“contestation” to describe current unrest in the church. The term,
increasingly popular in Europe since last Spring’s student! riots,
comes from the works of philosopher Herbert Marcuse, the professor
in-southern California who is the darling of the young radicals in this
coantry.
How to treat the contestation is a weekly problem for Catholic
editors. If the unrest is enlarging the Holy Father’s vocabulary,so too
has it enlarged the scope of Catholic newspaper reporting, In the
wake of last fall’s disagreement between the National Catholic
Reporter and the bishop of the city where they publish, the San
Francisco diocesan paper, The Monitor, published a list of 20
suggestions on “How to Read This Newspaper.” Among them were:
“The Monitor recognizes its obligation to form as well as to
inform, to inspire and the instruct in the teaching of the Catholic
faith.
“If the newspaper is to present the news, it will on many
occasions present news stories of events and opions, with which
various readers will strongly disagree. Nevertheless, the newspaper
should present all the significant news, judging what is significant to
the best of its ability.
FATHER DERMOT DORAN, Irish Holy Ghost missionary from Biafra, explains needs of
starving people in that blockaded area to ( center left to right > Mrs. Manila Caprine.
National Secretary of the Catholic Daughters of America, Miss Eileen Egan of Catholic
Relief Services, and Mrs. Fred Jaeger, Works of Peace Chairman for the Diocese of
Brooklyn. They were at hand at JFK International Airport (Jan. 13) for loadirf| of 40
tons of high protein food and medicines destined for Biafra on a Catholic Relief Services
charter flight. Cost of the charter, $40,000, was underwritten by the Catholic Daughters
of America and the affiliates of the National Council of Catholic Women, who have do
nated over $200,000 to the Catholic Relief Services emergency program for Nigeria
Biafra. (NC Photos)
— GEORGIA PINES-
Lets Get Behind This One
‘The publishing of a story, even on the front page or in some
other priority position, does not in any way indicate that the
newspaper necessarily endorses the contents of that news story.
“Some readers have the idea that anything appearing the diocesan
newspaper is officially endorsed by the diocese...
“Newspapers by their very nature set out to do what is a virtually
impossible job. They are called upon to report other people’s business
- a risky task at best.
“Moreover,a newspaper must report and editorilize on a variety of
complex subjects, about which the newspaper is not profoundly
knowledgeable....
“A rule that all of us should remember is this: Generally speaking,
newspaper people should take their work more seriously aind readers
should take newspapers less seriously.”
To this, most editors of Catholic weeklies would subscribe. This
paper gets complaints about material the writers consider too
conservative in tone, and just as many from readers who consider
other material too liberal.
In reporting the continuing contestation, we stand with the
paraphrase Of President Lincoln: You can please some of the people
all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but not all of
the people all of the time.
Mr. Nixon
1 By R. Donald Kiernan
It was not too, too many years ago that the
estimated Catholic population in the whole
state of Georgia, was taken ' as being
between twenty-five and thirty thousand souls.
Putting on a campaign for funds in those days
presented many difficulties. After all why
would the people living in Valdosta, Georgia be
interested in a school in Atlanta; or why would
the people living in
Albany, be over
concerned with the needs
of the church in
Savannah. After all, every
parish had its own needs.
Yet, the strength of the
Catholic Church has
always been in its ability
to make sacrifices for
places and things they had
never seen, or possibly
heard about before. It is a
real tribute to leadership.
I was in the seminary back in 1948, when I
first heard about an Expansion Drive being
conducted in Georgia. Names such as the late
Monsignor Joseph Croke, the pastor of Saint
Anthony’s and the late Monsignor Moylan, the
Vicar General of the Diocese of
Savannah-Atlanta, meant little to me. I had
never met them. Yet, when I read about the
plans of that drive and knowing the population
of the church in this state, I thought that it
was an over ambitious goal.
I watched the BULLETIN (monthly in
those days) come in month after month
racking up the parish totals and when the drive
went “over the top” it was a real inspiration
knowing what sacrifices must have been made
to make that figure possible.
The results of that first drive were
immediately apparent. Chapels and churches
began to dot the countryside. Today, its hard
to imagine the day when there was only one
church between Savannah and Atlanta, a
distance of nearly three hundred miles. Too, its
just as difficult to imagine only three churches
in the whole city of Atlanta, and one high
school.
It was in the 50’s when a second drive for
development was launched. This was right
before the state was divided into two dioceses.
A new high school was the big issue and today
the beautiful St. Pius X High School stands as a
memorial to that effort. An interesting thing
about that particular drive was that nearly half
the funds collected from all over the state
came from the city of Atlanta, not because of
lack of interest but because this city had grown
so much between the first and second drive.
The Expansion Program presented four
years ago to the Catholics of the Archdiocese
had as its main effort the building of a home
for dependent children, a new Newman center
at the University of Georgia. Both of these
institutions are now completed. Yet, this is not
'all that has been done. Everything is not
only in brick and mortar. Our improved and
expanded school administration, Catholic
Social Services, Religious Education programs
are but to mention a few and at the same time
we see the area of north Georgia with more
Missions and Chapels than ever before in its
history. All of these made possible because of a
.dedicated spirit of the laity in north Georgia.
And now it has been announced that in
March, we will have a new kind of a Drive. It
will be a one day drive with two hundred and
twenty five thousand dollars as its goal.
Wage-earners will be asked to give a minimum
of twenty five dollars each, in this one day
cash drive that will have no subscriptions or
pledges connected with it. It seems to me'that
this is a new concept, at least in Georgia, for a
drive and personally, I like it.
I hope that this Drive goes well past the
desired total of two hundred and twenty five
thousand dollars and with the number of
Catholics we have, it well ought to. Even
children now should be taught the spirit to
save their money for the “big day in March,” it
should be a total effort with everyone’s hand
in it. With that spirit,...it will succeed.
I guess too that we will have the usual
number of “Gloomy Gus,” against everything.
After all, I’m sure that there are some Wool
Hats around who would be still content with
seeing only one church between Atlanta and
Savannah.