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The Cross And The Covenant
BY JEREMY MILLER, O.P.
I am going to begin with a blanket
statement, whose purpose is not to grab
your attention but at the same time I
suspect it will. The measure of a mature
person is to know when to break laws. I
trust the lawyers and law enforcement
officials who read this will bear with me
as I flesh out this skeletal statement.
People cannot live without laws or we
develop the idea of jurisprudence, it
would be in this direction.
A parent, for example, has to exercise
“jurisprudence.” Households live by
certain laws as it were, by certain agreed
upon ways of acting and certain
legitimate expectations of each other in
the house. But is each and every
infraction to be punished, or even
deserving of punishment? Is this our
healthy experience? Do we not always
bump up against “extenuating
circumstances?” Do not certain
FOURTH IN A SERIES OF SEVEN
would live in an oppressive society of
chaos. But laws can only capture the
general run of things. They can never
give wise direction or just expression to
every imaginable individual and unique
situation, and if we were to have a law
to cover everything, which in fact is
impossible of course, it would be an
intolerable burden under which to live.
It has always struck me that the “wise
judge” is not the one who simply knows
all the laws, but the one who senses the
demands of justice in some unique set
of circumstances, even when confronted
with a “lawbreaker.” If I were to
expectations become obsolete before
they are even decided upon in the house
to be obsolete?
Looking at this from the other side,
from the so-called lawbreaker’s
perspective, are there not times when
the just and wise purpose of some law
would in fact be overturned by fulfilling
the law? A simple example is the law of
the red traffic light. Its purpose is to
preserve from injury or death. Now if
you were rushing someone to a hospital
to preserve a life, would you be a
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Arckkiskops Office
756 Wert Peachtree Street, N. W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
My dear People:
May I express my deep gratitude for your generous response to our Annual
Archdiocesan Charities Drive. Once again it was a success. Indeed, the total
you contributed surpassed any previous year in the Drive’s history.
To each of you, to Drive chairpersons and workers, to every contributor,
to those who wished to give but were unable, I extend my sincere
appreciation. I am grateful for your generosity, and especially appreciative of
your continued willingness to share in the life and work of the Church here.
Please be assured of my prayers for you and your families.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Thomas A. Donnellan
Archbishop of Atlanta
The Prophecy Of Peace
He moved through the crowd and
they parted like the Red Sea. They were
mournful, dejected and kept their vision
only for him. Without looking one way
or another, campus straight, he made
for ?he gaping hole of the grave. There
he looked down at the mahogany box
filled with the lifeless remains of
O’Donovan Rossa.
Vol. 17 No. 11
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Thursday, March 15,1979
$5 Per Year
It was June 1915 and the rain was
tearing angrily at the slushy ground. The
little Dublin graveyard was trodden to
pieces by the
swarming
mournful mob.
They had come to
see the resting of
Rossa and hear
their leader speak.
Patrick Pearse
was a reluctant
orator. Teaching
was his trade.
Poetry and prose
were his pastime.
Speaking was his duty. On this occasion
it was a labor of love. His oration traced
the martyrdom of the man Rossa. For
years he flaunted his little newspaper in
the face of a beligerent government. His
message was old and unlistened to.
Peace and freedom go hand in hand.
Destruction of man’s souls was a fuse
leading to rebellion. It would infallibly
come.
His reward was a ten year bleaching
in the depths of a British prison and
exile as a broken warrior upon release.
Rossa took his thoughts to New York
and preached reminders to the
emigrants. The homeland was still
starving. The message was still unheard.
Their voices were needed.
Pearse, now successor in office, drew
the familiar pictures for the silent
mourners and ended with the banner
motto, so often printed by the now
departed hero. “Ireland unfree, will
never be at peace.” The prophecy to
this day has stood totally fulfilled.
Belfast is a city in chains. “Stand and
be searched” is the street corner order.
Explosions rattle through harmless
shopping centers and the screams of the
innocent can be heard as consciousless
men deposit death traps on door steps.
Without attorneys or sentence, prison is
the penalty as the shadows of
oppression are drawn. There is NO
peace.
But the chains fettering the people is
worse. Protestants live and die herded
into one lifestyle. Catholics into
another. Their eyes never meet, except
in anger. Their paths never cross. Their
children never mix. They build their
own institutions, their own halls, their
own bars, their own world. They
quickly learn to grow into huddled
bonds of warring opposites. The warmth
of lively community chatter has yet to
spread. So, again, there is NO peace.
Ireland, like any nation on the face of
the earth, is the people. People with
optimism for prosperity and pride;
people in parliments begging to differ
for the common good; people in PTAs
demanding the best; people in credit
unions; people in marriages and homes,
each one defying the historical
prejudices of the past. Then, the peace
of plenty appears.
Israel was the issue of the seventies.
Perhaps this other twentieth century
new nation will be the issue of the
eighties. The persuasion of larger voices
is long overdue in the international
forums of effective leadership.
St. Patrick’s Day means hopeful
laughter and joyous celebration around
the face of the globe. We wish it with
fervent glee, from every persuasion, to
the island where it all began - at last
freed and at peace.
PUBLICATION ON MARCH 15
Pope John Paul
ATLANTA’S NEWEST PRIEST, Father Dominic Young, was ordained
by Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan on Saturday, March 10, at the
Cathedral of Christ the King.
Arckkiskop’s Office
756 West Peachtree Street, N. W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
“The growth of the Church in the Archdiocese of Atlanta continues to be
encouraging, not only in the opening of parishes in fast-growing newer
neighborhoods but also in the continued maturing of older parishes and even
missions. Such is the case with Saint James Mission in McDonough, Georgia.
After many years of status as a Mission of Sacred Heart in Griffin, it has
developed steadily. Now after due consultation with the Archdiocesan Board
of Consultors and inquiry of the Pastor of Sacred Heart, the Dean of the area,
and the Provincial of the Redemptorist Fathers who have staffed the mission
faithfully, it seems in the best interest of the faithful and the Church at large
to elevate this mission to full parish status. The Board of Consultors has
recommended this and I have accepted the recommendation.
“Therefore, with the required canonical consultations having been
completed, I now decree the establishment of Saint James Parish.
“The Boundaries shall be all of Butts and Henry Counties. The faithful
living in these two counties are encouraged to lend their support and energy
to making the Church’s presence in this area a continually growing one.
“The First Pastor of the Parish will be its present Priest-in-Charge,
Reverend Vincent Douglass, C.SS.R.”
Given at Atlanta, Georgia, this 12th day of March 1979.
Most Reverend Thomas A. Donnellan
Archbishop of Atlanta
Reverend Edward J. Dillon
Ecclesiastical Notary
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The first
encyclical of the new pope is on
redemption and human dignity and is
the hallmark of his pontificate, said
Pope John Paul II.
The pope announced the completion
of the encyclical on March 11 in a talk
to people gathered for the Sunday
Angelus.
systems that deny man’s rights or hinder
their free exercise.
Numerous Vatican sources said these
ideas are at the heart of the new
encyclical.
Papal encyclicals receive their official
names from the first two or three words
of their official text, usually the
Latin text. The first sentence is so
constructed that the first words convey
a central idea of the encyclical.
What Lent Means To Me?
The encyclical is on “the relationship
between the mystery of redemption in
Jesus Christ and the dignity of man,”
said the pope.
The encyclical, entitled “Redemptor
Hominis” (Redeemer of Man), is dated
March 4, the first Saunday in Lent, but
the publication date is March 15, said
the pope.
This is the first encyclical issued since
1968 when Pope Paul VI published
“Humane Vitae” (On Human Life)
reaffirming the church’s opposition to
all forms of artificial means of birth
control.
The pope confirmed rumors already
widespread around Rome, in his noon
talk to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square.
Redemption and human dignity, the
theme of his first major papal
document, is “the central commitment
of my new ecclesial service,” said the
pope.
The encyclical contains thoughts
which “were pressing with particular
force on my mind” at the beginning of
his pontificate, said the pope.
The thoughts also “had been
maturing in me during the years of my
priestly and then episcopal service,” he
said.
“If Christ has called me with such
thoughts, with such sentiments, it is
because he wanted these expressions of
intellect and heart, these expressions of
faith, hope and love, to find resonance
in my new and universal ministry,” he
added.
“Therefore, as I see and feel the
relationship between the mystery of
redemption in Christ and the dignity of
man, so would I want to unite the
mission of the church with service to
man, in this his impenetrable mystery,”
he added.
In the five months since his election,
the pope from Poland repeatedly
emphasized in talks and addresses that
man is made in God’s image and sent his
son to become man in order to redeem
man from sin and death.
The new pontiff has stressed that
these Gospel messages are the
profoundest basis for all human rights
and that any attack on man’s spiritual
striving or his relation to God amounts
to undermining all human rights. He has
criticized social, political and economic
BY RT. REV. DOM AUGUSTINE
MOORE O.C.S.O.
The Season of Lent is replete with
marvelous graces; all of which help us to
face the basic, substantial facts that
really matter in our trek through time -
into eternity. Lent is a refreshing respite
from a host of non-essentials in our
life-style. With His infinite artistry, the
Holy Spirit effects this in each person in
a particular fashion. The instrument He
uses for me seems to be the Liturgy ...
The Old Testament Readings create a
nostalgic awareness of the providence of
the Father, through the very
human-ness of those beautiful people of
old, and the intriguing events of their
lives. I hear Moses saying: “I know there
is no God in all the world, except in
Israel - for what great nation has gods
so close to it as the Lord, our God, is to
us WHENEVER WE CALL UPON HIM”
... And there is Isaiah quoting God as
saying: “Can a mother forget the child
What does a parish do for an encore
after it stages a unique, and highly
successful, “Homecoming” program
which attracts former Catholics back to
their faith, and in the process draws
numerous inquiries for more
information from around the world?
It does it again, and “makes it even
more successful,” says Rev. Daniel J.
O’Connor, pastor of St. Thomas
Aquinas Church, whose
Roswell/Alpharetta parish is in the
hectic midst of “Homecoming II.”
The North Fulton pastor notes that
the impetus for the Homecoming
program was the large influx of people
into the metropolitan Atlanta area from
the Northeast and Midwest, “where we
knew that many of them had had some
sort of Catholic background.”
Since many of these transfers had
never even been to St. Thomas Aquinas,
“we had to design a program to
encourage them to give the whole
of her womb... even should she
forget... I will never forget you.”
Esther. . . Joseph ... Susannah ...
Ezechiel... Shadrach, Misrach,
Abendigo ... and all the others, furnish
a marvelous back-drop for the tragedy
of tragedies depicted in the New
Testament Readings: the Son of God
agonizing and dying for all of us.
“Greater love than this no man hath”,
He said, “than to lay down his life for
his friend.” .. . And the night before
He died, He said: “As the Father has
loved me, so I have loved you. Live on
in my love” . . . and He prayed: “I
pray also for those who will believe in
me... that all may be one as you,
Father, are in me, and I in You; I pray
that they may be one in us.” ...
And so Lent becomes a terrible
wrestling to accept such a love ... and
to break the fetters that bind my own
love for Him.
Church a new look, as well as this
particular parish.
“There are essentially two major
changes since our first Homecoming,”
Father O’Connor explains. “Before, we
asked parishioners to turn in names of
co-workers or friends or neighbors who
were Catholic, but not attending Mass.
A specially-trained group of parish
‘apostles’ then went out to make calls
on these people.
“This time, we are asking each
parishioner to make that contact
personally, rather than turning names
over to someone else. In those few
cases, of course, where a parishioner
simply cannot or will not do it
themselves, we will use our ‘apostles’
team, but the emphasis clearly is on
convincing each parishioner to become
an evangelist for Jesus Christ.
“We believe we can do a better job of
talking to people we know, even if it’s
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PROGRAM goes national
Roswell Parish Leads
Evangelization Field