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Atlanta’s 6 Mr, Poor’ Says Good-By....
BY MICHAEL MOTES
When Joe Flanagan sent a job
description to a Louisiana priest
looking for an assistant lay
co-worker, the venerable St. Vincent
de Paul Society director had no idea
that he would eventually be filling
the post himself!
Now, after serving his beloved
Vicentians in the archdiocese since
September 1966, Joe is returning to
his native Louisiana and to a former
“home parish.”
The strange saga began several
months ago when Joe received an
urgent call for help from Father
Louis Melancon, pastor of
Immaculate Conception Church in
Lake Charles, Louisiana, where Joe
had been a successful real estate
broker and City Councilman before
his move to Atlanta.
“The parish was really in
trouble,” Joe says. “The current
pastor had inherited a parish which
had been under the very capable
leadership of one priest for 36 years.
Unfortunately, the former pastor
died and when someone tried to
replace him, the task was almost
impossible. The entire parish had
been governed by this one individual,
and, quite frankly, no-one knew
what to do. The parish didn’t even
have a parish council!”
One of Joe’s friends in Lake
Charles, suggested to Father
Melancon that he contact Joe in
Atlanta and see if he could visit the
parish and offer suggestions on how
to remedy the situation.
“That’s when I got into trouble,”
Joe chortled. “I visited the parish,
which by now had established a
parish council, and offered some
suggestions for further lay
involvement. At the request of
Father Melancon, I prepared a job
description to enable him to decide
the type of person he was looking
for. Since there is a great shortage of
priests in Louisiana, a lay associate
pastor was the only remedy.”
After an unsuccessful search for
someone to fill the post, Joe received
another call and was begged to return
“home” and take the job.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t keep a
copy of the job description, so I
can’t remember everything that I’m
supposed to be doing,” Joe jokes.
The decision to leave Atlanta was
“one of the toughest I have ever had
to make,” Joe admits. He recalls that
it was only three years ago that he
and his wife decided that they would
make Atlanta their permanent home.
At that time, they sold their home in
Lake Charles, which they had kept
rented since their move to Atlanta.
“After much praying, I decided to
take the job, which I will begin in
November. When I received the call, I
told Father Melancon, ‘I know you
want me, but I’m not sure that the
Lord wants me.’
“Well, I’m still not 100 per cent
certain, but I have accepted that this
is a great challenge from the Lord,
and I am willing to devote my full
potential to the task,” Joe added.
Since two of Joe’s four children
were baptized at Immaculate
Conception, he is very familiar with
the Louisiana parish.
“In fact, I actually went back
there out of a certain amount of
curiosity - I wanted to see what was
happening to this wonderful old
Joe Flanagan
parish,” he says.
Joe adds that he was very
disturbed after the visit which paved
the way for his future job.
“There was no sense of family in
the parish. Everyone was asking,
‘Where do we belong? What should
we be doing?’ You must remember,
that for 36 years one pastor had
made all of the decisions.”
Joe says that the first thing he
hopes to accomplish is the “creation
of community groups” within the
parish.
“I hope to do this by establishing
parish interest groups in such areas as
home Masses and an active Liturgy
Commission. I hope such groups can
foster, in a closer way, a relationship
with the Church. I also plan to utilize
and emphasize communications. The
first step here will probably be the
establishment of a parish newsletter
to keep everyone informed of what is
going on and to enable the
parishioners to express their needs
and desires.”
Joe’s new parish is made up of
about 50 per cent senior citizens, 30
per cent middle-aged and only 20 per
cent young people.
“One of the economic features of
the parish has to do with housing,”
he says. “Jobs are available, but
housing is scarce and quite expensive.
There are some young people buying
the older homes and restoring them,
but many of these, while living
within the parish boundry, go
elsewhere for Church activities. I
hope to get these young people
involved in parish life just as soon as
possible. There is an obvious
generation gap which I hope we can
find a way to bridge.”
Asked whit he fears most about
the new job, Joe quickly replied, “I
really have no fears. Since there is no
precedent for what I will be doing, I
can’t be compared to anyone. There
is so much to be done that I don’t
think I will be criticized for not
getting to everything at once. When
you’re starting at rock bottom,
ANYTHING you can do is a plus!”
Joe feels that his long yearn of
devotion to work among the poor in
Atlanta will be extremely beneficial
in his new job.
“When I first came here,” he
recalled, “I brought all of the.
hang-ups associated with the
successful business and political life I
left behind. But I was very willing to
do the Lord’s work and I quickly
learned to value people for what they
are as individuals, not on their
economic or social background. This
has been the greatest training that
anyone could receive in dealing with
people and I shall always cherish my
days in the Archdiocese of Atlanta.”
Joe will retain a connection with
Georgia in his new job. His new
bishop will be Bishop Gerard Frey of
the Diocese of Lafayette, whose
previous See was the Diocese of
Savannah.
Asked the inevitable, when will
Joe start work on a St. Vincent de
Paul Conference in his new parish, he
quickly replies, “I’m sure I’ll find
time for that right away!”
orgui
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 17 No. 37
Thursday, October 25,1979
$6.00 Per Year
2?
Nighttime
In The Streets
I love city streets. I grew up on
them. Their full sounding
orchastrated noise and their busy,
nobody-cares attitude reaches out to
me like a family compound. I know I
belong.
There was a crisp and clear
autumn sky above as I drove through
the streets of Atlanta late. I needed
gas. The Gulf Station on the corner
of North and Spring was open, and in
full swing. Cars were pouring out of
the Varsity
across the
street, like
blood from a
wound. I waited
in the short line
to fill up,
disbelieving the
cost.
The young
girl at the little
window took
my credit card.
Impersonally
she prepared the receipt. Her phone
rang. She settled into a conversation.
So what, the night was full of city
sounds and I was in no hurry. But
someone else was.
“Hey,” said the rough sound
crashing past my right ear. The girl
did not seem to hear and continued
into her phone. “I’m at pump
number six,” he yelled at the glass.
This time the conversationalist heard
but chose not to heed. “Lady, aren’t
you supposed to be selling gas,”
barked the angry gasless customer.
Offense was the phoner’s strategy.
With flashing eyes she explained the
obvious. She had two hands, she was
completing a sale and in the course
of her next moment of freedom she
would attend to pump number six.
In the meantime he could wait.
I stood in the middle of the silent
rising frenzy. Some awful threat was
about to take place between the two
senseless immovable angry objects. I
knew it.
Her vantage point inside gave a
clear view of her opponent from the
chest up. Then his coat opened and
the pistol handle appeared in his belt,
it was completely invisible to her.
But not to me. The moment was
most memorable. It would be her
first - then probably I. Two more for
the statistics at Grady’s emergency.
Breaking the silence in loud and
strained frustration, he thankfully
chose the lesser of all evils. Hurridly
backing off, he most unclerically told
the victorious look of the young
woman what she and Gulf could do
with their gas and in a scream of
smoking burning rubber was gone
into the night.
We are almost at the 200 mark for
homicides in our city for 1979. This
unstoppable edipemic was caused,
for the most part, by angry
confrontations turned lethal by the
careless presence of a deadly fire
arm.
The Mayor is absolutely correct,
the state must remove this easy
access to guns. And maybe they
would if the mysterious mess in his
Police Department was cleaned up.
Mother Teresa
Nobel Winner
NOBEL PRIZE - Mother Teresa fondles an
infant, one of eight newborns found in a Calcutta
alley trash can. The 69-year-old Albanian nun
who works among India’s poorest of the poor, has
been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
r SPORTING GEORGIA CATHOLICS
I
George M.
1
BY MONSIGNOR
NOEL C. BURTENSHAW
(Last In A Series)
When you talk about George
M. along the Great White Way of
colorful Broadway in New York
City, we know you are speaking
about the one and only Yankee
Doodle, George M. Cohan.
In Atlanta, Georgia, when you
talk about George M. in Catholic
circles, especially in sporting
Catholics circles, there is only one
man can fill the bill. It is George
Bernard Maloof, football coach
and Athletic Director of St. Pius
X High School.
Go by Pi-Hi any Friday night
of the football season and among
the screams and yells of young
enthusiasm and sweaty muddy
uniforms of usually victorious
giants, you can see George in his
natural surroundings. He is
prancing up and down the sideline
looking like he just lost his last
friend. You would not feel like
crossing George. From a distance
he looks like a grizzly and close
up, the kids tell you, he is not
much different.
But the heart - everyone knows
- the heart of this man is pure
gold. “I love it here in St. Pius,”
says George, “and serving the
Church by serving these kids over
22 years has been a good
paycheck to me.” It has been a
George Maloof
good paycheck for the infant
growing Church of Atlanta too.
George Maloof is strictly a
local boy. He has watched his
native Atlanta grow. Only once
did he ever stray from her and
that was simply to serve his
country.
John Maloof and Sadie Azar
had three boys. George was born
in 1930. Since he can remember
sports and participating in its
“excitment” has been his life.
“We grew up in ‘The
Immaculate’,” remembers George
as he fondly thinks of his home
parish The Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception, “and
that’s where I played football and
baseball. Father Doherty was our
leader. He would take us over to
St. Anthony’s or Sacred Heart for
the games. We had our own little
league.” In those days it was
probably called the Little Fish
League.
Life, for George and for so
many other Catholics of the
‘thirties centered around “the
Immaculate.” “I was an altar
boy,” recalls George, “we would
meet all our friends, and the
Lebanese Community at the
Church on Sunday mornings.
Always we discussed sports, a
little business too, but always
sports.”
After graduating from the
(Continued on page 6)
OSLO, Norway (NC) - The 1979
Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded
to Mother Teresa of Calcutta,
foundress of the Missionaries of
Charity, who is best known for her
work among the poor and dying of
India.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee
announced its decision to award the
prize to the 69-year-old
Albanian-born nun after considering
the qualifications of 56 candidates,
including U.S. President Jimmy
Carter and Cardinal Stefan
Wyszynski of Warsaw, Poland.
Mother Teresa has travelled the
world to deliver her message: “The
greatest evil in life is the terrible
indifference toward one’s neighbor.”
When she was told in Calcutta
that she had won the prize, Mother
Teresa said; “Thank God for his gift
for the poor. God’s blessings will be
with the people who have given the
prize.
“I hope it will be a real means of
bringing peace and happiness in the
world of today.”
Asked how she felt about winning
the prize, Mother Teresa said:
“Personally, I feel unworthy, but
more aware of the condition of the
poor.”
1779-1979
As more reporters and television
crews began arriving at her
headquarters, she joked, “I am going
to hide somewhere.”
The Nobel Committee said: “The
Roman Catholic order of which she
is now the head has in recent years
extended its activities to include a
number of other Indian cities and
other parts of the world.
“In making the award the
Norwegian Nobel Committee has
expressed its recognition of Mother
Teresa’s work in bringing help to
suffering humanity. This year the
world has turned its attention to the
plight of children and refugees, and
these are precisely the categories for
whom Mother Teresa has for many
years worked so selflessly.”
The committee said it placed
special emphasis “on the spirit that
has inspired her activities and which
is the tangible expression of her
personal attitude and human
qualities.”
It added: “A feature of her work
has been respect for the individual
human being, for his or her dignity
and innate value. The lowliest, the
most wretched and the dying have at
her hands received compassion
(Continued on page 6)
Savannah Cathedral
Gets Pulaski Shield
SAVANNAH, Ga. (NC) - The religious symbol of a Polish hero and an
American patriot found a new home Oct. 11 as the shield of Count Casimir
Pulaski was presented to the city he had died defending.
Pulaski, who died Oct. 11,1779, during the siege of Savannah, was honored
in this city on the 200th anniversary of his death. The shield he had merited as
defender of the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Poland was presented to
the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist here by Cardinal John Krol of
Philadelphia on behalf of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski of Warsaw, Poland.
New Photo Feature - Page 2
The shield or breastplate, called a ryngraf, is decorated with the image of
Our Lady of Czestochowa, whose fortress-monastery of Jasna Gora in Poland
was successfully defended against Russia’s Catherine the Great by troops under
Pulaski’s command in 1772. Pulaski later became associated with the American
struggle for independence.
The confidence of the Polish people in the Blessed Virgin Mary, Cardinal
Krol said in presenting it at a Mass in the cathedral, was reflected in a
statement by Pope John Paul II at Czestochowa in June entrusting the entire
mission of the church to the intercession of Mary.
Devotion to Christ, to Mary and to the Catholic Church, Cardinal Krol said,
enabled Poland to retain its identity during the partitions which divided it in
the 18th century. ,
Prelates participating in the anniversary Mass included Archbishop Thomas
Donnellan of Atlanta and bishops Raymond Lessard of Savannah; Ernest
Unterkoefler of Charleston, S.C.; Kenneth Povish of Lansing, Mich.; Edmund
C. Szoka of Gaylord, Mich.; and Ausiliary Bishop Alfred Abramowicz of
Chicago.