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Gejorgia Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta Vol. 19 No. 6 Thursday, February 5, 1981 $8.00 per year FA MIL Y NIGHT SPEA KER: Ttl&f X. Solid Silver November 22, 1963. Remember where you were? I was leaving the Cathedral rectory for a sick call at Piedmont Hospital. The radio announced the commotion in Dallas. Shots were fired at the President. Just a hoax. America is not a Banana Republic. Politicians are not assassinated. I left the car in the old parking lot and walked to the sick room unconcerned. The black and white tele vision was quietly play ing and the patient was in tears. I look- HOI e d at the picture. It was Walter Cronkite. He was in tears too. Yes, we all remember our exact location that dreadful, fateful day. Remember where you were July 2, 1956? I was packing my bag for the seminary. My first black suit was being tailored and the institutional check-list was being filled. A letter from Mon signor Patrick O’Connor had clearly stated that I would be listed as a student for the Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta as a freshman in the Seminary. I figured that meant I would one day be stationed somewhere in the State of Georgia. Sounded fine to me as this adventure began. One week later another air mail from Georgia arrived. The Diocese of Atlanta had been created. I was the first student assigned that freshman year to the newest Diocese in the U.S. It is 25 years ago. The silver anniversary is almost upon us. We were brought into the world as the diminutive daughter of our venerable mother, the respected, ancient Diocese of Savannah. But almost immediately we outgrew this outpost of the American church numerically. Growth has been our story. Other excitements too, but mainly it has been growth. Barely had Bishop Hyland taken the reins, when a greater honor was thrust our way. In 1962, the Holy Father elevated the new and lowly Atlanta to Metropolitan Archdiocese. A new Archbishop came to us from historic Charleston, and when his allotted short span was completed, 'another Archbishop, this time from the great See of New York, inherited the line. Auxiliary Bishop Bernardin was here just a short few years before moving on to wider service. From our own family, Bishop Beltran was called to lead in Tulsa. And still the story of Atlanta was growth. From the cold north and the frigid midwest, they came. Expanding opportunities in business sent them. Climate and geographic wholesomeness kept them. They merged into a new community of the new South and for the first time the Church of Rome showed unknown muscle in the heart of Dixie. Only twenty-five short years have passed, but centuries of energy and excitement have been expended in that era now a silver celebration. Over the next few months we will recall incidents and happenings of those 25 years here on our pages. You can liven this series by telling us what you remember. Send us your memories of the first (Continued on page 2) Language Hides Abortion Question THREE HUNDRED came to the Hyland Center Auditorium Sunday night for Family Night In Support Of Life. Above, speaker Jean Staker Garton, who drew a standing ovation for her talk. Below, prize winners of pro-life poster and essay contests are congratulated by Archbishop Donnellan. From left to right, Nancy Bell of St. Joseph’s School, Jonny Jenkins from St. Lawrence, Anne Payne from St. John the Evangelist, Maria Watkins from St. Jude’s and Matthew Dioguardi from St. Joseph’s. Not pictured is another poster prize winner, John Defenbaugh from St. Mary’s in Toccoa. BY GRETCHEN KEISER Jean Staker Garton, an author and lecturer and president of Lutherans for Life, approaches her pro-life work by dismantling the slogans of the opposition. Phrases like “the right to choose” and “every child a wanted child” sway public opinion against a human life amendment and disguise abortion as “compassion for the less fortunate,” she says. Her fearless dissection of those slogans drew a standing ovation Sunday from several hundred who attended Family Night in Support of Life in Atlanta. Dr. Garton, who holds a doctorate in literature, compares the use of language in defending abortion to the way words disguised the holocaust in Nazi Germany, the subject of her graduate work. In the introduction to her book, “Who Broke the Baby?”, on the role of language in the abortion issue, she tells the story which led to the title of the book. Up late at night previewing slides for a pro-life appearance the next day, she was startled when her youngest child came up beside her. He looked at the slide and asked “Who broke the baby?” Dr. Garton began to wonder why so many adults were confused about abortion when it was so obvious to the child. One example at Sunday’s talk was the compassion implied by the phrase “every child a wanted child,” used by some who argue for abortion. The phrase implies great concern for children. But, Dr. Garton said, it “says nothing about the child.” “Unwantedness” measures our emotions and our feelings,” she said. “It tells us nothing about the nine million who have died through legal abortion.” The slogan also “fails to recognize (Continued on page 6) ST. JUDE S WEEKENDS U Re-thinking Why We’re Catholic” BY LEN PAGANO It’s called a Parish Renewal Weekend. A time to rethink why we are Catholic. And, it’s fast becoming a course of spiritual renewal in the Atlanta area. One parish that’s emphasizing the Parish Renewal Weekend is St. Jude’s in Sandy Springs. St. Jude’s has sponsored three weekend renewals in the past six months. All three have been ‘big hits’ with parishioners. “I didn’t really know why I was a Catholic-much less why I was still going to Mass; now, I do,” says one weekend renewal participant. The program begins on a Friday evening, and covers most of a solid weekend with biblical lectures, sharing experiences in small groups and reviews of where we have come as a parish family. Based on a handbook by Father Charles Gallagher, S.J., who also initiated Marriage Encounter, the (Continued on page 3) : % r im Official Assignments Archbishop Donnellan extends a warm welcome to the Archdiocese of Atlanta and announces the appointments, effective immediately, of: Reverend Robert L. Every, O.P. as Assistant Pastor of Holy Cross Church; Reverend Mr. Francois Pellissier as Deacon at Saint Luke’s Church in Dahlonega. CHARITIES DRIVE A Pastoral Service BY MSGR. NOEL BURTENSHAW Chancery Office, we call it. And the title means the central office of the local church. It is the Bishop’s Office. It is the office of the Diocese. It is the very hub of all local church administration. But it is more. The Chancery is the pastoral office because the chief pastor, the Bishop, guides and serves his people from that pivotal point. “The Bishop has many aids to help him in that service,” said Monsignor Jerry Hardy, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, “and one of those aids at this time of the year is the Archdiocesan Charities Drive.” To us, it is an annual one-day cash drive which supports the work of the Church. To the Archbishop, it is a Vital aid helping him serve the people of North Georgia. “Our Archdiocese varies so much,” said Monsignor Hardy. “The explosion continues in metro-Atlanta. We open parishes almost every year. We constantly dedicate new churches and centers and there seems to be no end to it. But we (Continued on page 6) The Church Says: Read Your Bible BY MONSIGNOR JOSEPH G. BAILEY Monsignor Joseph G. Bailey is a priest of the Diocese of Ogdensburg, New York and frequently contributes to their diocesan newspaper, NORTH COUNTRY CATHOLIC. His article on Bible reading begins a six-part series on Scripture which will be featured in The Georgia Bulletin. The Bible was the first book to be printed. And since the invention of printing the Bible has been consistently the world’s “best-seller.” But it is only within the present generation that Catholics have begun to take an active interest in Bible reading. It used to be thought that Catholics were safer to stick with the Catechism. Today even the catechetical materials that are used in teaching our children are thoroughly based on the Bible. Parents who take time to examine the catechism books their children are using will be amazed to find how Bible-centered they are. Contrary to popular opinion, the Church has for a long time been encouraging Catholic laity to devote themselves to Bible reading. Pope Leo XIII in 1893 and Pope Benedict XV in 1920 wrote letters on Bible study which contained appeals for more Bible reading among the laity. Although the historic letter of Pius XII in 1943 (Divino Afflante Spiritu) was addressed mainly to biblical scholars it set forth principles that serve to help the average lay reader. (the laity) therefore willingly approach the sacred text itself, through the sacred liturgy . . . and through the appropriate organs and other helps which are fortunately multiplied everywhere in our days with the encouragement and assistance of the Church’s pastors.” (paragraph 25) Although such organs and helps for Bible reading may be “fortunately multiplied” the “Today even the catechetical materials that are used in teaching our children are thoroughly based on the Bible.” But the strongest appeal of all in recent times was presented in “The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation” of Vatican II (1965). The Council Fathers said: “This holy synod insistently and particularly exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn ‘the eminent knowledge of Jesus Christ’ through frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. ‘For to ignore the Scriptures is to ignore Christ.’ (a quotation from St. Jerome). Let them average lay person in the average parish still does not find such helps readily available. He turns rather to the television evangelists, who are for the most part conservative, fundamentalist Protestants. And in the absence of parish Bible classes our people often turn to Bible study groups sponsored by local Protestant churches. It is certainly not our intention to criticize such Protestant study groups. But the ones which most actively foster community participation are not the traditional Protestant churches but the newer, more vocal churches which we label as Fundamentalist. The word “fundament alism” appears to have been derived from a series of booklets entitled “The Fundamentals,” which were published in America from 1910 to 1915. In them the term “fundamentals” was used for elements of traditional doctrine, including the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures. Fundament alists tend to stress a very literal reading of the Bible. Some Catholics tend to be especially sympathetic to fundamentalist churches because the latter hold strongly to many of the same basic doctrines that Catholics believe in. Such a surface similarity, however, hides the fact that the historic Protestant-Catholic polemics are kept alive today mainly in such fundamentalist churches. But the most deceptive factor of all in their teaching is the notion that their way of reading the Bible is the right way and the only right way. In adhering to a rigidly literal interpretation of the Bible they not only ignore the historical setting of the biblical books but they violate the basic criteria for reading any literary text. One of the most common fallacies about Bible reading is expressed in the statement, “All that you really need to understand the Bible is the Bible itself.” Such an attitude presumes that anyone should be able to pick up the Bible and read it profitably. Some (Continued on page 6)