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Gejorgia
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 15 No. 26
Thursday, July 21,1977
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Vatican Backs State Aid To Catholic Schools
FATHER ALAN DILLMANN, pastor of Prince of Peace parish in
Buford, says that the rustic architecture of his Church blends with its
“woodsy” surroundings.
Prince Of Peace Dedicated
On Sunday, July 10, Archbishop Donnellan dedicated Prince of Peace Church in
Buford. The Church, built in a rustic style of cedar wood, is set on top of a small rise
in a wooded 10-acre tract of land located on South Lee Street in Buford.
Local civic and business leaders attended the dedication service, along with the
ministers and their wives from the North Gwinnett Ministerial Association. Music for
the dedication ceremonies was provided by the First United Methodist Church Choir
of Buford. The Ladies Guild of the parish provided refreshments following the Mass.
The ceremony marked an important milestone for the Catholic community of the
north Gwinnett County area. About two and one-half years ago Mass began to be
celebrated in Buford on a weekly basis using the facilities of a local funeral home.
In June 1975, Father Alan Dillmann was assigned to serve the Buford and Cumming
area. The following fall, the Parish Council formulated plans to build a Church.
Architect Louis Maloof, a member of the parish, designed the building. The plans were
quickly approved and construction began.
On Christmas Eve 1975, the first Liturgy was celebrated in the newly finished
Church. A program for religious education was initiated and the membership voted to
name the parish Prince of Peace.
“The people who built this Church named it Prince of Peace because the first
services were held at Christmas,” said Father Dillmann. “Also, we had to keep in mind
that we are in an area sparsley populated by Catholics. We could have named the
Church after one of the saints, but it wouldn’t have much meaning to the people
around here as the name Prince of Peace.”
A dream was thus realized for a small but growing number of Catholics in the area.
According to Father Dillmann, this is especially true of Leo Lawlor, who has lived in
the area for many years. It was because of Mr. Lawlor that Bona Allen, a local
businessman, donated the land for the church.
Mass is celebrated every Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and on Saturday evenings during the
summer at 5:30 p.m.
Pope Honors Richard Azar, Jr.
The Papal Decoration “Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice” (For Church and Pontiff), has
been conferred on Atlanta attorney Richard J. Azar, Jr. by Pope Paul VI.
The announcement was made recently in Boston by Melkite Catholic Archbishop
Joseph Tawil, spiritual leader of Melkite Catholics in the United States.
In 1958, Mr. Azar was one of the founders of the Melkite Laymen’s Association of
North America and served as its national president from 1958 to 1964, during which
period Melkite Catholic communities were striving toward the establishment of the
Melkite hierarchy in America.
In 1966, Pope Paul erected a temporary diocese for Melkites in the United States
and, on May 8, 1977, a permanent dioceses was established with the naming of
Archbishop Joseph Tawil of Boston as bishop.
Mr. Azar also received the Melkite Catholic Church’s highest honor in 1960, when
the late Maximos IV Cardinal Sayegh, then patriarch of the Melkite Catholic Church,
named him a Knight of the Golden Cross of Jerusalem. He currently serves on the
Diocesan Pastoral Council of the Melkite Catholic Church in America.
Mr. Azar, son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Richard G. Azar, is a member of St. John’s
Melkite Catholic Church in Atlanta and is a practicing attorney in Atlanta.
Work Of Youth Spotlighted
Dr. Walt Kahnle, Youth Consultant for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, will host a
special “South of Youth” television program to be aired on WSB-TV July 24 at
10:30 a.m. and on WGTV on August 7 at 1 p.m. Other Public Broadcast Service
stations in the state will carry the program on August 14.
The program, which Dr. Kahnle produced in association with Interfaith
Broadcasters, will focus on several areas of youth involvement.
The first segment will spotlight the Youth Conference of the St. Vincent de
Paul Society and their work projects in the Bedford Pine area. Guests will be
John Purdy, Maureen Manion, Mrs. Dolores Waters, Angela Mannen and
Kathleen Ward.
Project Rehab will be discussed by Bob Titus, co-ordinator of volunteers for
the project and the archdiocese; Joe Reed of IHM’s ACTION youth group, and
Sue Lock and David Taylor of SEARCH.
The final segment of the program will deal with styles of Youth Ministry and
will feature Sister Jean Meier, CSJ, Arch diocesan Associate Consultant in Youth
Ministry and Co-ordinator of SEARCH.
VATICAN CITY (NC) - In a major
document, the Vatican’s top education
department has backed state aid to
Catholic schools as the ideal way for
governments to guarantee pluralism in
education.
The document, issued by the Vatican
Congregation for Catholic Education,
asserts that the Church is “absolutely
convinced” that the Catholic school
system must be continued for the good
of the Church and mankind.
In an indirect reference to
unionization in Catholic schools, the
document defends the rights of school
personnel to seek proper pay and work
conditions “in strict justice.”
It stresses, however, that Catholic
school employes are also carrying out a
mission of evangelization, required of
them by Baptism.
It urges them to take into
consideration their evangelizing mission
as well as their rights as citizens when
formulating union demands.
The 10,000-word document also asks
religious orders, established for
teaching, to “reassess” reasons why
some of their members have given up
teaching to work in other pastoral
fields.
The document, though generally
positive in tone, deplores the
“nearsightedness” of some governments
which have not provided financial aid
for Church schools.
In some countries, it says,
“governments have appreciated the
advantages and the necessity of a
plurality of school systems which offer
alternatives to a single state system.”
In these countries, Catholic schools
“are more or less closely associated with
the national system and are assured of
an economic and juridical status similar
to state schools,” asserts the document.
“These solutions,” it says, “are an
encouragement to those responsible for
Catholic schools in countries where the
Catholic community must still shoulder
a very heavy burden of cost to maintain
an often highly important network of
Catholic schools.
“These Catholics need to be assured
as they strive to regularize the frequent
injustices in their school situation that
they are not only helping to provide
every child with an education that
respects his full development, but that
school systems must be kept up “as the
state increasingly takes control of
education and establishes its own
so-called neutral and monolithic
system.”
The document says that “professional
organizations” protecting school
personnel must not ignore the special
apostolic mission of the Catholic school.
“The rights of people who are
The BULLETIN Will Begin The Text
Of The Vatican Document In Next Issue, August 4.
they are also defending the freedom of
teaching and the rights of parents to
choose an education for their children
which conforms to their legitimate
requirements,” states the document.
The economic straitjacket in which
Catholic schools are often bound by
government refusal of aid has obliged
some schools “to restrict their
educational activities to wealthier social
classes, thus giving the impression of
social and economic discrimination in
education,” according to the document.
It explained that if the Catholic
schools were to serve “exclusively or
predominantly” only the rich, the
schools “could be contributing to
maintaining their privileged position,
and could thereby continue to favor a
society which is unjust.”
The document says that the Church is
“absolutely convinced” that Catholic
schools offer “an essential and unique
service” for the Church and that “the
absence of Catholic schools would be a
great loss for civilization.”
The Catholic school, it continues,
tries to meet the needs of “a society
characterized by depersonalization and
a mass production mentality.”
The document argues that Catholic
BumtilYS
Archbishop To Visit New Parish
Archbishop Donnellan will deliver the homily at the 9 a.m. Mass and celebrate the
11:30 a.m. Mass for the new St. John Neumann parish on Sunday, July 24. Mass is
currently being celebrated in the cafeteria of Parkview High School on Cole Drive in
Lilbum. Father Paul Reynolds is pastor of the new parish. He celebrated the first Mass
there on July 17.
Ask Help For Priests
PANAMA CITY (NC) - The Panamanian Bishops’ Conference has asked the new
president of El Salvador, Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero, to stop a rightist terrorist
organization from carrying out a death threat against 47 Jesuits remaining in that
country.
Signature Called Important
NEW YORK (NC) -- The Vatican’s signature on the Helsinki document carries great
importance because of Helsinki’s dependence on moral authority, says a prominent
European Protestant minister. “Without moral authority Helsinki collapses, and if it
collapses we are back in the Cold War, but with an even more dangerous situation,”
said the Rev. Glen Garfield Williams.
, Church Authorities Troubled
ROME (NC) - Church authorities and lay leaders are troubled by a serious upsurge
in terrorist activity against Catholics and Church property in Italy. The most
worrisome of recent events was the shooting July 11 of Mario Perlini, 61, an
accountant who is a member of the active Catholic group, Communione e Liberazione
(CL).
To Sell S. African Stock
LONDON (NC) - The Westminster archdiocese has decided to sell all but one of its
11,211 shares in Consolidated Gold Fields Ltd., a South African mining company. The
action came after several efforts by the archdiocese to use its shareholding power to
influence the company’s racial policies.
Vatican On Artificial Insemination
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Reacting to the birth near London of a child conceived
through artificial insemination, the Vatican daily newspaper said (July 12) that
artificial insemination is immoral and represents a “defeat for man and human
liberty.” In an article by Franciscan Father Gino Concetti, L’Osservatore Romano
said that artificial insemination is “cold technology ... a merely individualistic
calculation or a rigid form of programming.”
involved in the school must be
safeguarded in strict justice,” it says.
“But, no matter what material interests
may be at stake, or what social and
moral conditions affect their
professional development, a principle of
Vatican (Council) II has a special
application in this context: ‘The faithful
should learn how to distinguish
carefully between those rights and
duties which are theirs as members of
the Church, and those which they have
as members of society. Let them strive
to harmonize them, remembering that
in every temporal affair they must be
guided by Christian conscience’.”
Again quoting from the Vatican
Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church, the document says that “even
when preoccupied with temporal cares,
the laity can and must perform valuable
work for the evangelization of the
world.”
Seen in the context of the American
debate over Catholic school unions, the
document appeared to be saying that
Catholic school employes, who are
carrying out an evangelizing role
through their work, must be prepared to
make economic sacrifices not required
of public school employes.
The document also asked Sisters and
male Religious from orders founded for
teaching not to abandon schools for
other apostolates without careful
thought.
“Some would say that they have
chosen a ‘more direct’ apostolate,
forgetting the excellence and the
apostolic values of educational work in
the school,” says the document.
The document called for “courageous
reform” in Catholic school systems at a
rime when “Christianity demands to be
clothed in fresh garments.”
It warns teachers against presenting
students with “pre-cast conclusions” to
problems, or using school material as
“mere adjuncts to faith or as a useful
means of teaching apologetics.”
The “integration of faith and life in
the person of the teacher” is what
makes the difference between Catholic
and other forms of education, says the
document.
“The Catholic school, far more than
any other, must be a community whose
aim is the transmission of values for
living,” said the document.
The Vatican document was signed by
Cardinal Gabriel-Marie Garrone, prefect
of the congregation, and Archbishop
Antonio Javierre, congregation
secretary.
Catholic Is Vatican Envoy
WASHINGTON (NC) - David
Walters, 60, a Miami attorney, will
become the first Catholic ever to serve
as personal envoy to a pope for a U.S.
president.
He will replace Henry Cabot Lodge,
who has served as personal envoy since
1970.
Walters has spent 27 years in the field
of international law and has served as a
fundraiser for both the Democratic
Party and Catholic Church agencies.
He was recommended for the Vatican
post by key political and Church
leaders, including Archbishop Coleman
Carroll of Miami and Cardinal Terence
Cooke of New York.
Walters, a member of the Knights of
Malta, served as cochairman of the
Archbishop’s charity appeal in Miami in
1975 and is chairman of the
development committee for Barry
College, a Dominican school in Miami.
He is also a member of Serra
International, an organization which
encourages young people to enter *
religious life.
He has been a major fundraiser for
every Democratic presidential candidate
since John Kennedy in 1960 and is vice
chairman of the Democratic National
Committee’s Finance Committee.
David Walters
Walters told NC News in a telephone
interview that he sees no conflict in a
Catholic “representing the United States
at the Vatican.
FIRST PASTORAL BOARD - Father Joseph J. Beltran of All Saints
Catholic Church enjoys first pastoral board meeting with secretary
Dolores Zabrowske on the left and chair-couple Mary and Ken Goryn on
the right. Other members attending were Carol De Lucca, Norma Lane,
Mike Miller, Tony Mugnolo, Merle Pleggenkuhle and Ruth Sobbe. The
pastoral board will coordinate all parish family activities, act as service
consultant to Father Beltran and provide innovative and fresh ideas into
the parish family.
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