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Miracles At 80 Butler St. BY KAEDY KIELY Arnica was bom at Grady Hospital 19 months ago. She weighed two pounds, five ounces at birth and, as a result of her prematurity, she had severe lung problems. Arnica has another problem too -- an infection called septic hip which required a special brace to be made for her. Arnica is just one of many hundreds of premature babies who have struggled for life in the High Risk Nursery of Atlanta’s Grady Hospital. The nursery is a temporary home for these babies, especially designed to tackle the complications which accompany prematurity. A visitor to the nursery walks into a world of incubators and monitors (which display brightly colored, hand-made name tags and infant toys) and unbelievably tiny human beings, attached to these machines, whose difficulties range from bleeding in the brain, to heart and lung damage. “You have to remember that this is just a tiny baby we’re talking about,” explains Donna Carson, social worker for the nursery, as she tells Arnica’s story. “Arnica had to sit awkwardly in this brace (which resembled a little chair on a slope) for quite some time.” Trying to combat the hip problem was somewhat easier than overcoming Arnica’s breathing problems. Cysts had formed within her tiny lungs and one lung was almost totally non-functional, requiring the infant to be supplied with oxygen. “The baby’s problems were so extensive that she literally ‘died’ several times,” remembers Donna. “We were all ready to give up on Arnica, but she’s a real fighter.” Because of the severity of Arnica’s problems, she was home with her family only a total of one month out of the next eleven. But now, after nine months at home, her lungs are finally healing. Arnica’s mom played a key role in her daughter’s recovery. “The mother never gave up,” recalls Donna. “She was there every single day - she was not going to let this baby die. This mother’s attachment kept her baby alive.” Not all premature babies recover from their difficulties as Arnica has. An average of five premature babies die in the High Risk Nursery at Grady per month. But Donna is quick to point out that “the smaller the baby, the better the chance it has to survive here at Grady than anywhere else in this area.” Donna Carson’s job as social worker in the nursery varies from day to day. She learns what sort of admissions have come in overnight and speaks with parents on a daily basis about the condition of their child. “We deal more with the parents,” the pretty, young, master’s graduate from University of Georgia explains. “We have to be especially attuned to them and their needs. They need lots of encouragement, particularly when their baby is dying - it’s extremely important for us to humanize that aspect of their trial.” Donna’s job also involves sitting in > on sessions with the child’s family w and the medical staff. She says that, * sometimes, “the medical staff doesn’t have the time or the skills to explain a baby’s difficulties adequately to the parents. Some (Continued on page 3) DONNA CARSON holds little three-month-old Demarquis, who weighed one pound, three ounces at birth. Demarquis is a favorite in the nursery because he is one of only two babies to have survived at such a low birth weight. L The £ n K i\J IMfi l\ Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta Vol. 19 No. 16 Thursday, April 16,1981 $8.00 per year THE JOY OF THE RESURRECTION is renewed this Easter Sunday, as Christians throughout the world gather to celebrate the Lord’s victory over death. Priests and parishioners from Corpus Christi Church in Stone Mountain, SUMMER CAMP PROGRAM along with many other north Georgians, will take the long walk up the state’s most famous hill to share an ecumenical sunrise service, held annually atop the mountain. Before The Doors Msgr. Cassidy Awarded “Lumen Christi BY GRETCHEN KEISER To the children she’s helping to serve, June must still seem a long, long time away. But to Sister Margaret McAnoy, who is coordinating the Archdiocese’s summer day camp program, the eight weeks between now and then are short compared to the work to be done. In her second-floor office at the Catholic Center on West Peachtree Street, a stack of volunteer forms is piled on a chair. The forms, which will be placed in all churches in the Archdiocese after Easter, will be used to coordinate those donating time and talent to the day camps, with the three sites where the program will be offered: Sts. Peter and Paul, St. Paul of the Cross and St. Anthony’s. Her phone has started to ring on a regular basis, as the first calls come in from those looking for a way to help or asking for more information about the program. In between, Sister Margaret, who has taught and served as a school principal in the Archdiocese since 1969, leafs through a catalogue showing brightly-colored crafts for children, looking for ideas and an address to ask the manufacturer, “What can you give us for free?” HELP WANTED - Sister Margaret McAnoy, coordinator of the Archdiocese’s summer day camp program, has an open door for volunteers who want to help some of Atlanta’s children this June. Open. . . The first volunteers have been as different as their talents: a woman who has offered to help out in the office with clerical and secretarial work, a hefty St. Pius student with a black belt in karate who’s offered to teach kids self-defense, a tennis teacher who wants to help the program and a group of Dunwoody women offering housing to sisters who are coming from out of town to work for the program. The response has been very encouraging to Sister Margaret, who is working full-time coordinating the summer program. “I’m really excited about people wanting to do something,” she said. “It just goes to show you that if you put the need before people, they’ll respond.” A collection taken up in the parishes on Palm Sunday will provide the basic funds for the program, but the heart will be volunteers and donated supplies. To accommodate the schedules of volunteers, they are being asked to think about giving two weeks of time during the summer to the program, but the guidelines are flexible. There will also be some working full-time at each of (Continued on page 6) BY MSGR. NOEL C. BURTENSHAW Georgia mission priest, Monsignor Joseph G. Cassidy, has been named the 1981 recipient of the Lumen Christi Award by the Catholic Extension Society. The annual award, initiated by the Society four years ago, is given to an “Exemplary Home Missioner” recommended for the prize by the Bishop of a Diocese. Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan presented the name of Atlanta’s oldest priest, Monsignor Cassidy. The award carries with it a prize of $25,000 given to the Diocese of the recipient for the purpose of Religious Education. Speaking in Chicago, Father Edward J. Slattery, president of the Extension Society, said, “Four years ago we decided to seek out those hidden heroes of home mission work and light up their deeds for our people. We called the prize Lumen Christi - Light of Christ - in their honor. The Gospel says, ‘Let your light shine before men.’ These heroes have and surely Monsignor Cassidy is one of them.” Who can disagree? On hearing of the award, Monsignor Cassidy, who resides in Dalton, said, “I think it’s unusual that they would think of me. But I’m glad to accept it for the Archdiocese. The prize of $25,000 will be most useful for the work of Religious Education, so on the whole it’s pretty wonderful.” The 83-year-old priest can truly be called a Georgia Mission Priest. For the past 58 years he has served communities in every area of the state. When Monsignor Cassidy came to Georgia in 1923, it was one Diocese and his career began in the ABORTION BILL WASHINGTON (NC) - Congress clearly does not have the constitutional authority to pass the proposed “human life statute” defining personhood as beginning at conception, according to the U.S. bishops’ chief legal counsel. In a memorandum commenting on the legal questions surrounding the proposed statute, Wilfred R. Caron, general counsel for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and U.S. Catholic Conference, said that while the effort may be laudable, the bill has several deficiencies and likely would not survive a court test. The statute, introduced by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and Reps. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) and Romano L. Mazzoli (D-Ky.), would declare that for purposes of the 14th Amendment mother city of Savannah. “The whole state had only 22 priests,” said Monsignor, “and not too many Catholics either. We were all on the missions in those days.” And that’s how he wanted it. Ordained a priest in St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York, the young Joe Cassidy at first wanted to go to the Far East with Maryknoll, but a Father Tim Foley, in New York on a visit from the deep South, persuaded him to turn his eyes to the needs of the home missions - the vast no-priest land of the South. So he came to Georgia. “I never regretted the decision,” said Monsignor Cassidy from his home near St. Joseph’s Church in Dalton. “I have had wonderful years in Georgia.” to the Constitution human life begins at conception. The 14th Amendment says states cannot deprive any “person” of life, liberty or property without due process of law. It also grants Congress the right to pass legislation enforcing the amendment’s provisions. Pro-life groups have been split on the measure. While some strongly support it, others say it would be of little benefit and might delay efforts to gain a full human life amendment to the Constitution. Caron’s memorandum, dated April 8 and made public a day later, cited several problems with the bill, including such questions as judicial supremacy, due process and the possibility that the bill could be ” Prize He certainly burned an adventurous trail. After serving in parishes in Savannah, Atlanta, Rome and then back to Savannah, the then Father Cassidy was appointed director of the Rural Life Apostolate. This meant grasping the “Trailer Ministry.” It was 1936 and this ministry was rapidly spreading in the wilderness of the Appalachian Mountains. “The trailers were, in fact, parishes on wheels,” said the Monsignor. “The priest was driver, mechanic, pastor, teacher and street comer preacher. I remember my first day with the trailer. I took it to a place called Lakeland near Valdosta and set it up in O’Brien’s field. Along the side of the 26-foot mobile home we (Continued on page 6) Says amended. Proponents of the legislation base much of their argument on the enforcement clause of the 14th Amendment. But Caron remarked that past cases touching on the issue “do not support the proposition that Congress may overrule or alter the Supreme Court’s interpretations of basic constitutional concepts.” Rather, he said, Congress’ enforcement powers merely allow it to adopt legislation designed “to avoid practices which infringe on those rights” or “to achieve other legitimate ends.” When the Supreme Court issued its abortion decisions in 1973, said Caron, it rejected “as a matter of constitutional law” all efforts to root (Continued on page 6) Congress Lacks Authority, Bishops’ Attorney Monsignor Joseph G. Cassidy