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The Georgia Bulletin
November 13,1980
Reagan
With unmistakable reverence, the
Old Testament points out that three
of God’s special chosen, in the arena
of public life, are annointed. The
priest, the prophet and the king.
Ronald Reagan was unmistakably
annointed, not by divinity, but by the
American voter last week. President
Carter went to great pains to
underscore the total difference
existing between the candidates. The
moody and somewhat jaded electorate
saw that evident difference and made
the decisive choice. For the next four
years it would be Reagan and his
"fresh start” for the nation.
The surging, annointing vote that
gave a clear mandate to the new
administration should not be ignored.
Mr. Reagan has made promises. He
says these promises are far from
empty political prattlings. They can
be fulfilled. They can usher in a new
era of moral, social and economic
progress for this Republic.
Since we have decided to believe
him at the ballot box, then let us be
faithful with our support of him and
his fresh, new ideas. He cannot
succeed without our concerted
confidence and support. So let us give
it.
He will ask sacrifices, let us be
ready to make them. He will ask
confidence for his chosen cabinet
consultors. Let us approve - with a
critical, informed eye - th ese
implementors of his program. He will
ask us to partner his efforts to put the
poor back to work. Let us do that
much with him, enthusiastically.
Ronald Reagan may have been
annointed to lead by our votes. But he
is no miracle man of the eighties. He is
not even a good magician. He is a new
idea politician who says he can lead an
army to victory - if only the army will
march.
Last week our votes said, let us
change. This week the dramatic
change, irreversibly made, says,
"Commit your muscle and let us
begin.”
-NCB
Rural Reflections
Father Gerald Peterson
Archdiocesan Rural Life Director
As the saying goes, a “Yankee” is defined
as a Northerner who visits the South, but a
“Damn Yankee” is a Northerner who comes
to the South to stay! Using that definition, a
very high percentage of us Catholics in
North Georgia are “Damn Yankees.”
What is it like being a northern transplant
in Georgia? At the recent “Small Town
Ministry Workshop,” Father Joe O’Donnell,
the Glenmary priest who works in
ecumenical affairs with the Southern
Baptists, did an excellent job of drawing a
verbal picture of what it is like being a
Northern Catholic in the South. In this
column, I’d like to share some of his ideas. I
feel it will help you who are Northern by
birth to understand better the situation in
which you find yourselves.
Although other factors shape the small
town in the South, one predominant feature
that makes it different from the small town
of the North is the evangelical theology,
which prevails in the South.
What is an evangelical? Here is a list of
some features of evangelical theology that
are in contrast to our Catholic heritage.
A key concept is that Jesus died for my
sins. Salvation is accepting this fact and
accepting Jesus in my heart as my personal
Savior. The evangelical religion emphasizes
the personal relationship with Jesus more
than Catholics. For the evangelical, the
church is secondary. One joins the church,
not to be saved, but because “I am saved.”
It is a surprise to the Catholic to learn
that among the evangelicals there is no
sacramental theology or practice. Also, in
general, there is a disdain for a set creed.
The evangelicals have a calvinistic heritage
with its anti-social theology. There is no
clear theology of social teaching about
concern for the poor.
"SISTER SAK7 THE'F'
MEANS 'FUTILE'/"
Correction
We goofed last week when we said that
Dominican Father John Burke will
give a week of renewal in St. Joseph’s
Church in Athens. The well known
preacher will of course visit the Parish
of St. Joseph in Marietta. The renewal
begins Nov. 15.
An evangelical would tell you: “The Bible
alone is my guide for religious living. And
each person has the freedom to privately
interpret it.”.
Who are the evangelicals? In brief, this
class would include the Pentecostals,
Holiness, Church of God, the Church of
Christ but, most of all, the Baptists.
The evangelicals are in the school, on the
radio, and in recreation. Just listen to the
preachers on the radio and you will learn the
pattern of the evangelicals. Or tune in your
television in the evening to Billy Graham,
Oral Roberts, the P.T.L. Club, or the “700
Club.”
Who are the Catholics in our small towns
in Georgia? For the most part they are
northern transplants. Culturally they come
from the middle class. Many of the men
move with their company and are in
management. These families remain a highly
mobile group and do not seem to put down
roots. Many hope for a move back North.
The man in the family comes because of his
work. But the Catholic wife has a harder
time finding her niche in the South. Many of
our transplant Catholics are retired people,
especially in the mountain towns, like
Clayton and Blairsville.
In the South, Catholics find out quickly
they are a minority. It is a principle that the
minority group will be absorbed by the
majority, unless they make a special effort
to preserve their identity.
Generally, the adults who move to the
South can maintain their Faith and loyalty
to the church. The Catholic teenagers in the
South have an especially tough time keeping
their Catholic identity. They by their nature
are joiners. They want to belong to the
in-crowd. Unless individuals know clearly
what it means to be Catholic, they may call
themselves Catholic but could be very
Baptist in their outlook.
Father O’Donnell concluded: “I see no
way for Catholics to preserve their Faith
unless they clearly understand their reasons
for being Catholic. They have to understand
their Catholicism and be proud of their
Catholic heritage. I tell the Catholic youth:
‘We are the No. 1 church in the U.S.! Nearly
one out of every four people in the country
is Catholic. You may be one of the few
Catholics in the public school, but you can
shout with humility: We’re Number One! -
and then run’.”
Generally Catholics from the North do
not want to get involved in the community,
but ecumenical cooperation is important.
Understanding will help to break down
prejudice on both sides. In our work of
evangelization, it is important to keep in
mind the climate of the area, the religious
background of the people.
Hopefully, a better understanding of the
evangelicals and the situation of the
Northern Catholic in the South will make it
easier for us to adjust to the cultural and
religious atmosphere of the small town in
Georgia.
A final word of advice: Be aware that it is
in God’s Providence that you are living in
the South. Count your blessings (there are
many!) and become ecumenical, while
preserving your own Catholic identity.
Catholic A rchdiocese of At la n ta
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Aim At The Fingernail Polish
Dave McGill
For the first time in my life, I just picked
up a bottle of fingernail polish and painted
something with it. It was my TV, and that
will require an explanation.
One night in 1968, Carolyn and I were
trying to watch the Olympics on an old
black and white portable television set we
had bought seven years before. I said “trying
to watch” because that TV was ITSELF an
Olympic champion; it held the world’s
record for the most flips turned in an hour:
3753, or better than one per second.
On that particular evening, neither of us
was in the mood to put up with the antics of
the darned thing any longer. When a young
gymnast turned fourteen flips in the air
before landing, and the announcer said she
had only turned ONE, I had had enough. I
stood up and said angrily, “*&%+$%&*, I’m
going to get us a TV with a picture that’ll sit
still.” I jumped into the car, drove to the
shopping center, bought a color TV, and
brought it home.
We had a few problems with the new TV
set in the first two years, but in the entire
decade since then, it has worked perfectly.
Ten years of great picture and sound.
Trouble-free viewing. Trouble-free, that is,
except for one irritating deficiency: the
channel selector has never worked.
During those first two years, I twice paid
$20 of hard-earned money to get the
selector fixed, so I’d know which channel I
was watching. But the numbers kept getting
out of sync with the stations, and the light
bulb kept burning out. The knob would
correctly flip the actual picture from one
station to the next, however.
The third time it went on the blink, I, in
my role as bread-winner and chief
penny-pincher, announced that our TV was
henceforth permanently disabled in the area
of channel selection, and that each of us
would have to dial his own way around the
circle. There were some groans, but before
long everybody did learn to survive without
knowing where the picture tube was parked
when it was flipped on. I had the most
trouble, to be sure. I never developed any
little rules or tricks like the kids did; I had to
see a familiar face like David Brinkley’s, or
observe the colors of the football teams’
jerseys or something similarly obvious in
order to know where I was.
Then recently, as those of you in or
around Atlanta know, the ABC Network
lured away Channel 2, leaving NBC and
Channel 11 to form a partnership, and this
merry-go-round changed my channel
selection task from “extremely difficult” to
‘‘nearly impossible.” Not even David
Brinkley could help me find my way.
Here is a typical effort at finding a
program: “Let’s see, Carolyn was watching
the Muppets (that’s Channel 5), then Meg
changed to HeeHaw, which is still on 2, since
even though 2 is now 11, HeeHaw wasn’t
coming to us via the network. Now if I turn
it click-click-click (AHA! There’s Tim
Conway, that’s 5, I’m on the right track),
then click-click-click (yep, there’s David
Susskind on 8), then click-click-click, I
should be on 11 (O.K., there’s the movie,
which used to be the NBC movie, and still is
because now 2 is 11 and 11 is 2). Now -
click, click, and I should be on UHF. Snow.
AARRRRGGGGH. Must be between
stations. Turn it awhile. Oho, a bunch of
New York City marathoners. That’s 36,
according to the TV guide, so go the other
way. There’s something, must be 30. A little
more now, slowly, slowly, ahhhhhhhhhh,
there’s Skip and the Hawks. I did it.”
I was relating all this to an old friend this
afternoon. He was visiting for the weekend,
and he is a very down-to-earth, common
sense type of guy. He listened to me
describing all the rigamarole I have to go
through each time I turn on the TV, and he
said, “Why don’t you paint numbers on the
cabinet console to mark where the dial
should point when those stations are on the
screen?”
You know that feeling, don’t you? It’s
50% amused astonishment and 50%
embarrassed stupidity. It’s the
‘ ‘ I ’vebeendoingthiswrongfortenyearsandwhy
d i d n ’ tlthinkofthatlikeyoujustdiddoggoneit”
feeling. Ten years of cussing that dial, and
my amazing pal solves the problem IN A
FLASH. I have a brand-new respect for
salesmen.
So that’s why I was painting my TV set
with fingernail polish. It now sports a
handsome “2”, a “5”, and “8”, and “11”,
and a “U”. I should’ve also put my friend’s
initials to remind me to think once in a
while.
Doctrine Of Comfort And Hope
Teresa Gernazian
If there was a fire across the street from
you and someone was about to lose their life
in the fire, it’s almost a certainty you’d try to
do something to help the person escape.
November is the month designated by the
Church to focus on the souls in Purgatory
and it’s a good time to recall their need for
our prayers and sacrifices.
While official Catholic teaching does not
specifically state there is physical fire in
Purgatory, we do know that souls not
prefectly ready to be in God’s presence,
must undergo a purifying process. Second
Vatican Council made a profession of belief
in the Church Suffering, saying it “accepts
with great devotion this venerable faith of
our ancestors regarding this vital fellowship
with our brethern who are in heavenly glory
or who, having died, are still being purified.”
It also urged all concerned to avoid abuses or
excesses in regard to this doctrine.
“Why do we believe in Purgatory if it is
not in the Bible?” some may ask. While the
word itself is not in the Bible, the Church
feels that the doctrine is implicitly contained
in the Scriptures. A formal declaration on
this subject was made by the Church in 1274
at the Second Council of Lyons - clarifying
both its existence and that souls that are
detained there may be helped by the prayers
and good works of the faithful. Two
hundred years later the doctrine was
repeated verbatim at the Council of Trent.
A Knights of Columbus booklet called
Purgatory - Doctrine of Comfort and Hope
- (P.0. Box 1971, New Haven, Conn.,
06509) explains that there is joy amidst
suffering in Purgatory, something we often
tend to forget. “These souls suffer but they
do so willingly and with full submission to
God’s will. In quiet joy they await their hour
of final union with God, that face to face
vision which is total beatitude. It is for this
hour of final vision for each and all in
Purgatory that the Church urges the faithful
on earth to pray. In this she is following a
tradition handed down to her from apostolic
times . . .”
At Immaculate Heart of Mary parish, our
Pastor, Monsignor R. Donald Kieman, has
again scheduled a Rosary at 7 P.M. for the
souls in Purgatory, Monday through Friday
during November. This is a beautiful custom
and is certainly appreciated by parishioners
and I’m sure the souls awaiting Paradise as
well.
A consoling thought in this matter is that
if we pray and do other good things for the
holy souls, they will pray for us and our
loved ones when they get into heaven, and
of course, even while they are suffering, they
can intercede for us.
One writer has stated that even if it were
possible for a soul in Purgatory to enter
heaven without sufficient purgation, it
would cast itself back into the cleansing
process and remain there until completely
pure.
Resound ... Resound ... Resound ... Resound ...
To the Editor:
The Lutheran/Catholic service to
celebrate Reformation Sunday at the
Cathedral on Oct. 26 was a new high for
ecumenism in metropolitan Atlanta. We all
need to keep this spirit alive and growing. If
folks want to join in and expand their
ecumenical horizons, they can contact the
Religious Unity Commission of the
Archdiocese of Atlanta and/or the Christian
Council of Metropolitan Atlanta and
“GATHER TOGETHER ...”
SHALOM,
FRANK D. BRONIEC
PRESIDENT-ELECT
CHRISTIAN COUNCIL
To the Editor:
I wonder what credentials Sheila Mallon
has that qualify her to judge Carl Rowan as
“odious?”
I’ll tell you what odious is.
Odious is the Catholic Church aligning
itself with right-wing fanatics for no better
reason than the two are anti-abortion.
Odious is the Moral Majority, the
Religious Roundtable, and all of the
so-called Christian Right groups working to
undermine the basic tenets of the United
States Constitution and its expressly-stated
policies regarding the separation of church
and state.
Odious is the idea that the Moral Majority
might actually gain political power and begin
trying to dictate the “morals” of an entire
nation.
Odious is a trip to the history books to
see exactly how Adolf Hitler and the Nazis
gained power with their Aryan version of the
Moral Majority. Right under the
“I-don’t-see-anything-funny” noses of the
Catholic Church.
And odious is the fact that, while
everyone seems to be quoting so freely from
the Bible, no one seems to remember the
lessons that Christ taught in the parables of
the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan woman
by the well and the Pharisees and the
Publican. You can shout all you want to
about how good and moral you are, but it
just doesn’t impress Christ.
Let’s all open our eyes before we allow
ourselves to become, as Msgr. Higgins so
succinctly pointed out, ‘‘one-issue
Catholics.” The Moral Majority is not just
dangerous. It is deadly. It is only empty
rhetoric that tears at the fabric of the US kind of empty rhetoric? God help us if we
Constitution. Are we stupid enough to let are. JANET L. WARD
ourselves be used by a group spouting that ATLANTA
Working Women
Sheila Mallon
There are special moments to treasure.
Lovely scenes stored away in our hearts to
pull out and savor at quiet moments.
A walk with my granddaughters is one
such moment that comes to mind. A sunny
day, just a little nip in the air - sun slanting
through golden, orange, bronze and
amethyst trees. The sound of crisp leaves
underfoot and a smell of wood fire. The
little one turning to me and saying “carry
me Pinky, I’m tired.” Nestled in my arms,
hair tickling my face and warm baby smell -
the other one just six and full of excitement,
racing ahead of us down the woodland trail.
Hair flying in the wind, a joyous Alice in
Wonderland - pausing occasionally to do her
“cheers” with imaginary “poms poms.”
Or my mother seated at the kitchen table,
light shining down on grey hair and worn
hand - brow furrowed, crossword puzzle in
progress.
My aunt, ankles swollen from arthritis,
leaning on a cane - gutsy lady, on her way to
shop.
All of these are beloved memories strung
together like shining pearls. There are friends
as well as family among those beads, happy
scenes from other places. Moments of
national pride and Camelot briefly
recaptured.
I’m an optimist and keep no necklace of
unhappy or painful times to worry over.
Best learned from and forgotten has always
been my motto.
But most of all, I have learned from the
happy times. The painful memories have
only been helpful in formulating a resolve to
avoid a reoccurrence if possible.
One such happy moment was on the
occasion of a recent drive with the
grandchildren. We were singing as we often
do and going through a familiar repertoire of
songs and hymns. Lauren asked me to sing
something new and I broke into a shaky
rendition of “Amazing Grace.”
She stopped me on the very first line.
“Why do you say ‘a wretch like me’ Pink?
You are not a wretch.” Explaining that
“wretch” in this case referred to someone
without God’s grace - she simply refused to
believe that her grandmother had not always
been filled with grace. I must admit that her
confidence in me was emboldening to say
the least.
“What do you mean, you were ‘lost?’”
was the next question. After an explanation
of what “lost” meant in this instance, she
frowned and announced, “Well, I just don’t
believe you were ever ‘lost’ Pink, and I know
I wasn’t.”
We moved on to the next line which
evoked almost as much controversy as the
first: “was blind but now I see.” “Now
Pink,” she said, “I KNOW you were never
blind.” By this time I was sorry I had ever
begun this particular hymn but launched
into an explanation of the offending phrase
anyway.
Considering, she told me bluntly, “Well,
maybe YOU were blind and didn’t know
about Him, Pink - but I’ve always known
Him and I’ve never been lost - He always
knew where I was and that I love Him.”
I thought about that a good bit afterward
and I believe that is why Christ said, “Suffer
the little children to come unto me” and
“Unless you become as little children . . .”
Children, when they are taught about Him,
seem to accept Him with open arms and
hearts. They feel secure in the knowledge
that He loves them completely.
I ended that portion of the hymn,
however, with the first verse. I didn’t feel
equipped to launch into an explanation of
“twas grace that taught my heart to fear” or
“thru many dangers, toils and snares.”
Someone with her self confidence and faith
would never have understood. But we did
end and she sang along joyously with the last
verse:
“When we’ve been there, 10,000 years
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.”