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i Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta Vol. 15 No. 1 Thursday, January 6,1977 Words Eliza Doolittle was so sick of men. And she was sick of the experiments they engineered. She was tired of their constant nagging words. The darling of “My Fair Lady” vehemently knew what she wanted and it wasn’t their words. “Words, words, words,” she fumed stamping her feet, “I’m so sick of words.” Words were a problem long before Eliza and long after her too. John Steinbeck wrote that as a child “words were devils and books were my enemies.” The air and the world are so full of words, but I suppose that’s all we have. Some over use them, some under use them. Some have never learned to use them. But they are all we have. There is just no other way to get the thought outside the mind. Words are passports to the trivial and to the exotic. When A1 Jolson opened his minstrel mouth, in that historic silent age movie, “The Jazz Singer,” and sound came out, words were reborn. Those words opened up an arena of entertainment and communication undreamed of in the history of this planet. When the great pens moved on paper, when Dickens, Shakespeare, Faulkner, Lawrence and all the rest wrote, they opened up worlds of such utter enjoyment, that generations of lives were changed. When the daily newspaper became part of the breakfast table, a new drug entered the life of the family. We now need James Reston, Art Buchwald and Bill Buckley. Where are we going without Peanuts, yesterday’s stocks and a sly eye on “Dear Abby?” Words, we need them, they are our constant and usually faithful companion. The GEORGIA BULLETIN is a word collection that we send your way with many missions. We hope a few at least are accomplished. W’e hope it inspires you, because it contains our faith. We hope it informs you - your television won’t. We hope it intrigues you, we do have some new ideas. We hope it entertains you, you need to relax. We hope it stimulates thought, we need your interest. We hope it brings you closer to your fellow Georgia Catholics because that’s it’s greatest mission. Words are the main source of communication in the world. And the over used psychiatrist couch tells us that communication is what the world needs now. So each week we send our words your way. They come to your home perhaps in whispers, perhaps in shouts but hopefully influential in their message of the Church and Christ the Lord, whom St. John, in his Bulletin, calls “the Word made Flesh.” SCHOOL ON WHEELS -- Franciscan Sister Ruth square mile area in southwestern Georgia. Among her Marie Hensler travels 25,000 miles annually in her stops is Plains, home of President-elect Jimmy Carter, motor home as religious coordinator for a 10,000 Savannah Nun Is Coordinator In Plains ALBANY, Ga. (NC) - One of these days when he’s back home in Plains, Jimmy Carter may look out a window and see a van driven by a nun passing through town. That van is a home, classroom, theater, library and office for its driver, Franciscan Sister Ruth Marie Hensler. She drives it 25,000 miles a year in the 10,000-square-mile Albany deanery in southwest Georgia in her job as religious education coordinator. She serves about 1,500 Catholics in the area. Plains is on her route. The major emphasis of Sister Hensler’s program is teacher training and preparation. She visits each of her more than 50 teachers each month and also encourages their attendance at diocesan workshops. Sister Hensler also visits lapsed Catholics and encourages return to the sacraments, providing whatever instructions are necessary. She also meets with groups of parents and trains them to assist in preparing their children for the sacraments. Sister Hensler and the six priests who serve the 10 churches or parish centers and two stations where Sunday Mass is regularly celebrated plan the program for each year. “My goal is to strengthen the faith of the Catholics living in this area so they can make the Church more present in this extensive territory where our Catholic witness is limited,” said Sister Hensler, the only nun in the area. “When I first began my mission work I tried to have each of my instructors meet with me at a central location,” said Sister Hensler. “Although this was more convenient for me, it was difficult for my teachers so I began to visit their homes or other places where meetings could be held on an individual basis. “Initially I traveled the territory by car, but I found it difficult to store my classroom aids and I had no real place to meet with my instructors,” she said. When it became apparent that Sister Hensler needed a different means of transportation, the Savannah diocese’s department of Christian formation received money from the Extension Society to buy a mobile home. The Chicago-based Extension Society is an organization dedicated to serving home missions in the United States and its protectorates. The van provides storage for teaching materials, a sleeping area, kitchen facilities and a table that will seat four comfortably. Sister Hensler has also outfitted the vehicle as a library. “My instructors and the parents of some of the students had been requesting use of some of my texts and brochures, but I never really had a way to fill their requests. Now I am able to carry along a good selection of books and lend them as needed.” Sister Hensler also worked out a system for previewing audio-visual materials with instructors. “I simply pull the shades on the windows, set up my projector in the rear of the van, pull down the screen installed above the driver’s area and my van becomes a theater.” The nun can also sleep overnight in the van when she is not able to return to her home in Albany, giving her some break from a schedule which can keep her on the road 12 hours a day. B\J LUt i t\5 t Says “No Discrimination” WASHINGTON (NC) - A top aide to President-elect Jimmy Carter says there is no discrimination against Catholics, Hispanics or persons opposed to abortion in hiring people to serve in the Carter Administration. The aide also said he had reprimanded a transition staff volunteer who had suggested a Hispanic Catholic woman, Graciela Oliverez, “should be thought about very carefully if she is being considered for a job that will in any way concern abortion and related subjects” because she is a “strong, active right-to-life supporter.” Soundings FATHER NOEL BURTENSHAW Beatification For Matt Talbot? VATICAN CITY (NC) - In a surprise announcement, Pope Paul VI said Dec. 22 that he hopes to beatify .reformed Irish alcoholic Matt Talbot “either this coming year or the year after.” Talbot, known as “the saint in overalls,” began drinking heavily by the time he was 13 and was a seemingly hopeless alcoholic at age of 28 when he took the pledge. From then until his death in 1925 at age 59, the Dublin laborer led a life of deep prayer and extreme self-denial. In October, 1975, Pope Paul approved a decree on Talbot’s “heroic virtues,” one of the first steps toward beatification. The postulator for Talbot’s cause, Father Dionysius McDade, told NC News that “at least one miracle, attributed to the intercession of Talbot alone, must be found before he can be beatified.” (Continued on page 8) “Age Of Woman Upon Us” I OUISVILLE, Ky. (NC) - “We can say with assurance that the age of woman is upon us and we will never again be the same. All of the previous forms of service are not enough. Woman wants to accomplish more, to serve more fully.” This statement is part of a lengthy study on the role of women in the Church in the archdiocese published in a 12-page supplement of The Record, archdiocesan newspaper. No Conflict Seen SACRAMENTO, Calif. (NC) - The first American Catholic bishop to work full time for a state government said here his tenure “has been good for the Church and good for” California. Bishop Roger Mahony, auxiliary of Fresno, said he did not see any conflict between his role as a bishop and as chairman of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, created last year to implement the nation’s first law governing unionization of farm workers. $5 Per Year. NEW YEAR MESSAGE: ‘Life Means Love’ ROME (NC) - Pope Paul VI began the new year and the Church’s World Peace Day celebrations Jan. 1 with ringing condemnations of abortion and liberalized abortion laws. In the presence of Rome’s Communist mayor and diplomats accredited to the Vatican, Pope Paul issued one of the strongest and frankest attacks of his reign against those who seek abortion and against laws which permit them to do so. At a televised New Year’s Day Mass in modern Regina Apostolorum (Queen of the Apostles) Church here, Pope Paul asked rhetorically, “can we remain silent . . . about the legalization of abortion, its acceptance and protection in several countries? “Is the life that at its very conception springs up in the mother’s womb not really and truly human life? Does it not need every care, every love, seeing that this embryonic life is defenseless, yet already inscribed in the divine book of the destiny of humanity? “Who could suppose that a mother would kill her offspring or let It be killed? What drug, what legal gilding can ever deaden the remorse of a woman who has freely and consciously murdered the fruit of her womb?” Teresa Gernazian previews the ACCW Respect Life Program to be held January 22 at Immaculate Heart of Mary in her column on page 4. The Pope’s words at the morning Mass were based on the theme he had chosen for the celebration of the Jan. 1 World Day of Peace - “If you want peace, defend life.” In Italy, the question of abortion has taken on particular urgency in January because the Italian Chamber of Deputies (lower house of parliament) is expected to vote soon on a proposed liberalized abortion law. Within minutes after returning to Vatican City from the Church in the southern suburbs of Rome, Pope Paul again spoke about abortion to crowds gathered for the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square. z n “It is a sacrosanct obligation,” the Pope declared from his apartment window overlooking the square, “to have an important and sacred concept of what human life is - especially human life about to be born, life which is the most innocent and most mysterious, life which is newest and most in need of protection and assistance.” The Pope urged Catholics to extend protection and help to “every other human life as well, especially to the poor and suffering.” He said that “the peaceful life and order of society, good social relationships and peace in its fullest and most radical sense rest on the observance of respect for life.” The real basis of respect for life, he concluded, is “love, the ‘agape’ which Christ has taught us and which must be at the roots of human feelings, made superhuman precisely by faith and charity.” During the morning Peace Day Mass, held in the mother church of the Pauline Fathers and Sisters, the Pope gave his formula for attaining world peace. (Continued on Page 8) NEWSOME TWOSOME -- These two Atlanta priests are heading into new jobs. Father Peter Dora (right) is preparing to enter the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers and Father Noel Burtenshaw is preparing to assume Father Dora’s old position as editor of the GEORGIA BULLETIN.