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Another Challenge
For Sister Margaret
BY MSGR. NOEL C. BURTENSHAW
Over 40 years ago, before she took
the sister’s veil, Sister Margaret
Cooney had obtained a law degree.
She joined the Grey Nuns of the
Sacred Heart and got herself a Master’s
Degree in literature from Catholic
University. She received a fellowship
to Oxford University in England. The
Wall Street Journal gave her a
journalism award. She became
professor of English at D’Youville
College in Buffalo.
So what is this remarkable woman
doing counseling alcoholics and drug
addicts in Atlanta?
“I came to Atlanta in 1975 to teach
at St. Jude’s school,” says this
ever-youthful sister, “but I made it
known that I was interested in helping
victims of addiction. Well, word came
pretty quickly from a most unusual
doctor who was organizing a most
unusual center that he wanted to see
me. It began a new day in my career.”
The “unusual doctor” was G.
Douglas Talbot, an addictionologist
and psychiatrist who was organizing
Ridgeview Institute in Smyrna. “Dr.
Talbot persuaded me to obtain
qualification as a Clinical Pastoral
Educator (CPE). I did and on Easter
Sunday 1977, the work under this
great man began at Ridgeview.”
Dr. Talbot is one of the nation’s
foremost proponents of the disease
concept of addiction. According to
Talbot, drug and alcohol dependency
is a three-fold disease, emotional,
physical and spiritual. Sister Margaret
Cooney is a treatment specialist when
it comes to the victim’s spiritual
recovery.
“The patient is bankrupt
spiritually when he comes to us,” says
Sister Margaret. “His disease told him
to be dishonest, to lie, to be sneaky.
The drug became his god. He used
anyone and anything to get it.
Faithwise, he may have very little.
Helping that side of recovery is most
rewarding.”
Every morning Sister Margaret
applies her skills as therapist when she
leads the patients in spiritual “group.”
“They organize it and they iove to do
it,” says Sister. But the medicinal
hand of this unusual nun is always
there.
Sunday mornings from 10 to 11
the patients bring their families and all
participate in the spiritual medication
of Sister Margaret. “At Ridgeview we
say addiction is a family disease. We
treat the family here and then in
aftercare we continue the treatment
for two years after the patient goes
home. The entire family is touched by
the disease; the entire family needs
repair.”
But Sister Margaret’s ministry goes
deeper. “Addicts have often lost
contact with their church and also
with the leaders of the church. They
have shunned contact with the clergy
or have been looked down upon by
the clergy who sometimes consider
them simply morally evil. So we try to
reach out to the ministers.”
Boldly, Sister Margaret has reached
out from the beginning. In October
1977, as she began her work for
addicts, Sister Margaret and
Ridgeview sponsored the first Clergy
Day at the Smyrna center. “That first
year 27 attended,” remembers Sister.
“Last year 109 were present. And the
attitudes have greatly changed. The
disease concept of chemical
dependency has grown in everyone’s
experience.”
Sister tells the story of a prominent
local minister who attended a seminar
at Ridgeview some years ago and when
thanking the staff for the enlightening
experience of the day repeated his
own belief that their patients had to
be helped to get rid of their “bad
habits.”
But Sister is quick to withhold
blaming the clergy. “Dr. Talbot has
special concern for fellow doctors,”
says Sister Margaret. “The medical
profession is still slow to treat
addiction as a disease. But he reaches
out to them with the message and
many of his patients here at Ridgeview
are impaired physicans from across
the nation and Canada. It is amazing.
Acceptance can be slow.”
Sister Margaret has those facts
about addiction at the tips of her
fingers, facts that we all dread to hear.
Doctors liberally prescribing Valium
and Librium and a host of other drugs
to housewives and pressurized
business people until the line of
addiction has been crossed.
(Continued on page 2)
Sister Margaret Cooney
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
* Vol. 19 No. 33
Thursday, September 24,1981
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Newest Papal Encyclical:
Women’s Role Discussed
BY FATHER KENNETH DOYLE
ROME (NC) - In Rome much
controversy has been caused by what
Pope John Paul II’s new encyclical
says - or does not say -- about women.
Coming out of the Vatican Press
Office moments after the encyclical
had been released, a woman journalist
said: “Here we go again. Grants for
women. Keep them in the home.
That’s what this pope has always said.
There’s not much new in that.”
The woman, in her mid-forties and
unmarried, is well-respected in her
profession.
The following day a male
columnist in a Rome paper echoed her
thoughts. The encyclical showed, he
said, a “radical insensitivity to the
feminine problem, present only in the
conspicuousness of its absence. The
problem of female labor does not
exist. The rights of women seem to be
confined to remaining housewives.
Stay at home, spin the wool.
Everything returns to its origins.”
But that same day, in a casual
conversation in the Vatican Press
Office, another woman had a different
idea. She, too, is a capable journalist,
representing a worldwide wire service
and an international radio network.
She is in her mid-thirties and has
two young children.
“You know,” she began, “I agree
with the pope. He doesn’t say that
women shouldn’t work. He only says
that once you’re a mother, you
shouldn’t have to work if you don’t
want to. And that makes sense to me.
Once you’re a mother, your biggest
job is making sure those kids grow up
to be decent human beings.”
“I’m tired,” she said, “of women
who say to me, ‘I’m not going to let
my kids stand in the way of my
development as a person.’ I say to
them, ‘Then why did you have
them?”’
What was it that Pope John Paul
said in his new encyclical, “On Human
Work,” which provoked such strong
and varied comments?
In one way there was nothing
startlingly new, but in another way
the encyclical contained more than a
repetition of previous statements.
He said that the “primary goals of
the mission of a mother” were “to
devote herself to taking care of her
children and educating them in
accordance with their needs, which
vary with age.”
The pope had said that before. In
Poland in 1979 he said that
“motherhood must be treated in work
policy and economy as a great end and
a great task in itself. For with it is
connected the mother’s work in giving
birth, feeding and rearing, and no one
can take her place. Nothing can take
the place of the heart of a mother
always present and always waiting in
the home. True respect for work
brings with it due esteem for
motherhood. It cannot be otherwise,
POPE JOHN PAUL II
the moral health of the whole of
society depends on that.”
But there was indeed a new
element in the encyclical’s treatment.
For the first time, the pope was
suggesting grants which would make it
possible for mothers who chose to do
so to remain at home.
To understand the concept one has
(Continued on page 2)
BY THEA JARVIS
The painted frame building is solid,
unpretentious. Within, the pungent
smell of freshly-sawed wood
permeates the workroom.
A power saw and router sit proudly
atop raw pine workbenches. Against a
back wall, several primitive birdhouses
await an interested buyer. The gentle
light of early fall floods the high
windows and the door is left ajar,
welcoming the fresh morning air of
north Georgia.
At The Place in Cumming, the
“Wood Shop” is the realization of a
years-long dream, providing outlet
and occupation for men whom time,
good health and fortune have passed
quietly by.
“We do the best we can,” said
Myron Stray horn, general handyman
at the Rural Social Services’
three-building complex. Myron,
unemployed because of poor health
and disability, helps the men who
come to the shop learn basic
woodworking skills.
“We can work from any pattern -
coat racks, bird feeders, gun racks,” he
continued. All the items help the men
eam money through consignment
sales.
Myron was among the volunteer
workers who, since last April, helped
put the Wood Shop together, joining
other local men who completed the
interior finishing.
“We had money from an
anonymous donor to cover the cost of
materials,” said Sister June Racicot,
one of the four Adrian Dominicans
who have put heart and soul into
making The Place a viable rural entity.
“Eight men from the Church of the
Good Shepherd in Forsyth County
put up the building and community
volunteers finished the interior. The
inside was only completed last week.”
Friends of The Place will have a
unique opportunity to visit the new
structure on Sunday, September 27
from 1-5 p.m. An open house and
center blessing will allow the people at
The Place to proudly display this very
special building shaped by their own
hands.
Visitors will also see the new
community room that is housed in the
Wood Shop, adjacent to the workshop
area. The room is comfortably
furnished with donated furniture and
includes a pantry of boxed and canned
foods that can be distributed to those
whose supplies have run low during
the month.
The community room, like the
workshop, is already getting its fair
share of use.
“Awhile back,” recalled Sister
June, “two of our women were talking
about needing a support group. Their
idea has now blossomed into a
discussion group of 12 women who
meet every Friday morning for one
hour” in the new room.
Participants share concerns,
problem-solve and generally “give
each other so much courage,” Sister
June observed, noting that it was
something that flowed out of the
community itself, and was therefore
more effective than a project initiated
from outside.
Because of the nature of The Place,
the blessing of the Rural Social
Services Center will be carried out by
the people themselves. The different
elements that together have made The
Place grow and flourish - the used
clothing store, the craft shop, the
kitchen, the weaving room, as well as
the wood shop and the the food
pantry - will be represented by those
who give their time to these activities
during the week.
SOMEONE’S IN THE KITCHEN of the new
community room at The Place, Rural Social
Services’ outreach program in Cumming. (L-r)
Leola Akins, Sr. June Racicot,O.P.,Mary Jo Allen,
Ruth Nichols and Frances Harrison stock the
pantry that assists families in the surrounding rural
community whose supplies have run low.
“Each group will choose their own
scripture reading and prayer. We will
move from place to place, allowing
each group to ask the Lord’s blessing
on their work,” Sister June explained.
“These people are the ministers -- they
minister to one another. So they’ll do
the blessing.”
If you’re looking for a refreshing
way to spend a lazy Sunday
afternoon, visit the simple, faith-filled
community at The Place. The center’s
open house and blessing will
graciously offer homemade baked
goods and ham and biscuits in
addition to old-time bluegrass ^nd
A New Place For “The Place”
SOLIDARITY DAY
Religious Leaders
Join Labor Protest
BY STEPHENIE OVERMAN
WASHINGTON (NC) - Representatives of religious groups added their voices
to those of labor leaders calling for jobs and justice and protesters expressing
discontent with President Reagan’s policies at the Sept. 19 Solidarity Day
demonstration.
Solidarity Day, organized by the AFL-CIO and civil rights organizations, drew
more than 250,000 people to Washington, according to police estimate, to
protest the president’s budget cuts and tax policies.
Busloads of union workers from across the country took part in the march to
the Capitol where AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland told them, “If you do not
embrace the proposition that this president has a mandate to destroy the
programs that feed the roots of a decent society, look about you. You are not
alone.”
The marchers included members from the U.S. Catholic Conference, the
Religion and Labor Conference, the National Council of Churches and
congregations from various denominations.
The demonstrators gathered, Msgr. George G. Higgins said in his invocation,
“to strike a somber chord - to acknowledge in fear and trembling that ours is not
yet one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.
“Let mighty voices of justice and compassion be raised in your name by those
of farsighted vision and great faith that this nation may at long last keep its
promise of liberty and justice for all our citizens without exception, but with an
open-hearted preference for the poor and underprivileged in our society,” he said.
In his invocation Msgr. Higgins asked that “we may have eyes to see and ears to
hear the tragic plight of those less favored than ourselves. We pledge ourselves this
afternoon, in your name, to stand behind them in their struggle not merely for
survival but for that full measure of justice and equity to which they are entitled --
and which their government must help to provide - in a nation committed to the
proposition that all men and women are created equal and are equally precious in
your sight,”
Members of the Religion and Labor Conference carried signs protesting
Reagan’s budget cuts and calling for the protection of social programs and the
safety of workers.
“We wanted to say that the mandate Reagan feels he has does not come from
the broad majority of working people,” said Jeannine Maynard, executive
director of the Religion and Labor Conference.
She said she saw the massive wave of protesters as “a sign that there is a lot of
unrest, a lot of people are dissatisfied.”
ON THE JOB - Myron Strayhorn (right) helps Charles Allen
master basic woodworking skills at the Woodshop, the newest
building at The Place, which has been operated by four Adrian
Dominican sisters since 1975.
gospel music.
Most of all, however, The Place will
offer to its guests a visible testimony
to the vital life of the church in north
Georgia where, as Myron Strayhorn
put it, “the Lord looks after me.”
(To reach The Place, take Georgia
highway 400 to the Bald Ridge Marina exit.
Turn left toward Cumming and follow
Pirkle Ferry Rd. towards town. The green
buildings are about two miles down the
road on the left hand side.) f,