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SOUNDINGS
Reaching Out
BY MONSIGNOR NOEL C. BURTENSHAW
Douglas Hyde saw her shadowy movements as she
entered the side door of the Church. She was just a slip
of a girl. The bonnet and shawl suggested domestic
service. Probably an upstairs maid from the halls of the
stagely mansions privately perched at nearby Berkley
Square.
He watched her dash, compass straight, for the right
hand grotto. With magician’s quickness a purse
appeared from beneath the shawl. Extracting a lonely
coin, she generously dropped it into the empty box. It
was a crashing sound that echoed loudly, offending his
peaceful ears in the shaded comer of the back pew.
A single candle was chosen and reverently lit. The
glow filled her young fresh face and eyes glistening
with troublesome tears. Quickly she was to her knees
gliding into a prayerful trance with evident ease. The
Virgin’s statue, chipped and charred, looked down in
perpetual silence.
The minutes passed. The firey editor of Britian’s
DAILY WORKER gazed at the scene with envious
hunger. He, too, had sought refuge from pain. His
allegiance to party politics and communist doctrine
was fast fading. A gnawing emptiness was left, a gaping
hole needing fulfillment.
Completing her purpose, the praying figure
approached her flickering candle once more. The light
revealed contentment. Oceans of satisfaction and
acceptance had replaced the vanishing tears. A quick
genuflection and she was gone.
Douglas Hyde, a man of thunderous words from
podium and print, was speechless. He looked at the
dusty statue longing for the perfect prayerful formula
of her communications. Nothing entered his parched
and prayerless mind except the phrases of George
Gershwin’s popular song, Lady Be Good. Over and
over he repeated the two-line verse:
“O sweet and lovely, Lady be good,
Lady be good to me.”
The rest is history. Hyde became the most articulate
lay apostle of the English Church in the thirties. His
devotion to Communism dramatically turned into
devotion to Christ. As Marx had been preached from
soap boxes on the corners of London streets,
Christianity now became the message. As the hurting
praying figure of a lonely girl had reached out to him,
he now reached out to others.
The compulsion to reach out comes with the waters
of Baptism and the chrism of Confirmation. We m£jy
do it like the hunting bush missionary, the door
knocking lay apostle, the Carmelite pleader on her
knees or the giddy committed example of the perfect
Christian life. But none are free. All, marked with the
sign of the Cross, must reach out. Like the tearful
praying girl, as our Aves go up, we find they also go
out.
The feast of Pentecost begins a sworn year of
anxious outreach in North Georgia. Deaf ears will
listen, closed doors will open, dark corners will be
filled with light. The non-Churched become Churched.
Think about it. Your part. Reach out.
Georgia
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 17 No. 22
Thursday, May 31,1979
$5 Per Year
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Year Of Evangelization
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POPE JOHN PAUL II
New Educational Outreach
WASHINGTON (NC) -- Pope John Paul II has issued new
norms for Catholic ecclesiastical universities and faculties which
encourage greater contact by theologians with non-believing
scholars of other academic disciplines.
The greater contact should be part of efforts to evaluate new
information and see if it can be helpful in communicating
doctrine to contemporary people, said the pope in an apostolic
constitution called “Sapientia Christiana” (Christian Wisdom).
“New sciences and new discoveries pose new problems that
involve the sacred disciplines and demand an answer,” said the
constitution.
“Those engaged in sacred sciences should therefore maintain
cohtact with scholars of other disciplines, whether these be
believers or not, and should try to evaluate and interpret the
latters’ affirmations and judge them in the light of revealed
truth,” it added.
“From this assiduous contact with reality, theologians are
also encouraged to seek a more suitable way of communicating
doctrine to their contemporaries working iii other various fields
of knowledge,” said the constitution.
“This will be very useful so that among the people of God
religious practice and uprightness of soul may proceed at an
equal pace with progress of science and technology,” it said.
The constitution was signed April 15 but not published by
the Vatican until May 25. It was issued simultaneously in the
United States by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in
Washington.
The document is accompanied by a set of norms for
application issued by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic
Education.
Ecclesiastical universities and faculties are defined as “those
which have been canonically erected or approved by the
Apostolic See, which foster and teach sacred doctrine and the
sciences connected therewith, and which have the right to
confer academic degrees by the authority of the Holy See.”
The norms directly pertain to eight institutions in the United
States, said a statement issued by the U.S. Catholic Conference.
The eight institutions are St. Mary’s Seminary and University
School of Theology, Baltimore; the Jesuit School of Theology
at Berkeley, Calif.; Weston College School of Theology,
Cambridge, Mass.; the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago; St.
Mary of the Lake Faculty of Theology at St. Mary of the Lake
Seminary, Mundelein, Ill.; the Pontifical Faculty of Philosophy
at Mount St. Michael’s College, Spokane, Wash.; the Catholic
University of America School of Religious Studies and School
of Philosophy in Washington; and the Pontifical Faculty of
Theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington.
The constitution is an effort to adjust Catholic education to
the “great changes” that have taken place “not only in civil
society but also in the church herself’ in the past 50 years, said
the document.
Events such as Vatican II “have affected both the internal life
of the church and her external relationships with Christians of
other churches, with non-Christians, and with non-believers, as
(Continued on page 6)
\
Each Parish Organizes
BY MICHAEL MOTES
Evangelization will become the
number one priority in the archdiocese
when Pentecost Sunday, June 3, marks
the beginning of “Outreach ’79-‘80,” a
year-long program aimed at sharing the
Catholic Faith with alienated and
unchurched persons throughout the
entirety of North Georgia.
Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan has
said that the program will “place special
emphasis on outreach to those people
who, for whatever reasons, do not shape
life’s choices with faith in Jesus Christ.”
The archbishop says, “There are tens of
thousands of such people in our own
archdiocese,” including the “many
baptized Catholics who are no longer
active in their faith.” The archbishop
will launch the year of evangelization at
a special Mass at the Cathedral of Christ
the King on Pentecost Sunday at 11
a.m.
Father Richard A. Kieran,
Archdiocesan Secretary for Education,
is serving as Chairman of the
Archdioce s a n Committee on
Evangelization (ACE) and has compiled
an indepth planning guide for the
mammoth project.
In explaining the need for parish
renewal, Father Kieran cited the 1971
GENERAL CATECHETICAL
DIRECTORY, which states, “Great
numbers are drifting little by little into
religious indifferentism, or are
continuing in danger of keeping the
faith without the dynamism that is
necessary, a faith without effective
influence on their actual lives.”
‘‘A tragic consequence of this
crisis of faith,” Father Kieran says, “is
that our parishes have ceased to be
effective in building up the Kingdom of
God in the world. Very few of our
people take seriously the mandate of
the Second Vatican Council: ‘On all
Christians therefore is laid the splendid
burden of working to make the divine
message of salvation known to and
accepted by all men throughout the
world.”
“But,” Father Kieran adds, “it would
be wrong to suggest that spiritual
renewal is not already underway. In the
years since the Second Vatican Council,
spiritual renewal has taken hold in the
Church. In most parishes, there are
Catholics who have come to a new
awareness of their relationship to God.
They have a profound spiritual
awakening -- a change of mind and
heart. Jesus Christ has become their
personal Saviour and Lord. They have
a new interest in prayer in various
forms; they are hungry for the Word of
God; they look for an experience of
genuine Christian community, and they
t
are willing to witness by word and
service.”
Much of current renewal, according
to Father Kieran, remains in groups
such as the Cursillo Movement and
Charismatic Renewal but now “the time
has come to integrate the renewal
experience into the life of every parish.”
In order to accomplish this, each
parish in the archdiocese is represented
on the evangelization committee bwjl
“outreach coordinators” who will work
on their local levels. In stressing the
importance of the lay coordinators,
Archbishop Donnellan urged all pastors
to “work closely in organizing an effort
to invite inactive Catholics and those
without a church relationship to explore
the rich heritage that the Catholic
Church offers.”
In September the outreach
coordinators will meet with all
Deaneries, parish staff members and
resource persons to discuss “Outreach” J
progress. This will be followed in
October by an Archdiocesan
Convocation of paish staffs and lay
coordinators, during which each parish
will present its plans and representative
plans from each deanery will be
evaluated in detail.
Committee in preparation for
“Outreach” have been the need for each
parish to evaluate its individual
“spiritual condition,” scheduling of
week-long Parish Renewal programs and
the establishment of home visitation
groups.
‘ At a clergy conference held last
to discuss the program, throe
als for “Outreach” were
- Having each parish develop and
implement a special outreach to
gw alienated Catholics and churchless
persons, using the resources of the
parish, particularly the talents of the
laity.
/
Among the
come from
suggestions that have
the Evangelization
jveloijjhg in the members of the
JlfaiBew awareness of their
possibility to share faith.
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-- Enabling the laity to become
directly involved in making Christ’s
message of salvation known and
accepted by their alienated Catholic
brothers and sisters and by the
churchless.
On Pentecost Sunday, parish lay
coordinators will be commissioned and
what Archbishop Donnellan refers to as
“the Christ-given mission of sharing our
faith” will begin.
Official Appointments
Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan has announced the following priestly
assignments, effective Thursday, June 21,1979:
FIRST ASSIGNMENTS
Deacon Jose L. Femandez-Solis (to be ordained Saturday, June 2, 1979) . ..
Assistant Pastor, Corpus Christi Church, Stone Mountain.
Deacon Anthony R. Green (to be ordained Saturday, June 2, 1979) ... Assistant
Pastor, Saints Peter and Paul Church, Decatur.
Deacon Edward J. Thein (to be ordained Saturday, June 2, 1979) . .. Assistant
Pastor, Church of Saint Jude, Atlanta.
ASSISTANT PASTOR ASSIGNMENTS
Reverend James F. Atkins to Holy Family Church, Marietta (formerly at Saint
Mary’s Church, Rome).
Reverend Michael J. Redden to Saint Mary’s Church, Rome (formerly at Holy
Family Church, Marietta).
Reverend John P. Walsh to Saint John the Evangelist Church, Hapeville (formerly at
Corpus Christi Church, Stone Mountain).
Reverend Steven L. Yander to Church of the Transfiguration, Marietta (formerly at
Saint John the Evangelist Church, Hapeville).
OTHER ASSIGNMENTS
Reverend Patrick A. Bishop to Faculty, Saint Pius X Catholic High School (formerly
assistant pastor at Saints Peter and Paul Church, Decatur).
Reverend Steven L. Yander to Archdiocesan Office of Religious Education.
CHANGE OF RESIDENCE
Reverend Patrick A. Bishop to Saint Anthony’s Rectory.
Reverend Dominic G. Young to Saint John Neumann Rectory.