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Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 19 No. 46
Thursday, December 24,1981
3.00 Per Year
ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE
The New Year Will Bring
A Search For Priorities
BY MSGR. NOEL BURTENSHAW
It was billed as a day of
recollection. And so it was. From
across the Archdiocese the priests of
Atlanta came to Conyers and joined
the chief shepherd in a day-long
reflection on Advent and priestly
service. Over 100 priests from the
parishes, departments and schools
were present for those few hours’
retreat.
The final chapter of the evening
also had the flavor of Advent. The
season calls us to consider new
beginnings and priorities. Those were
the themes of the after dinner
gathering in the guest house at
Conyers.
See Archbishop’s
Message, Page 4
been accomplished. “We knew we
needed to revitalize the Archdiocesan
Pastoral Council,” said Msgr. Hardy.
“The Archbishop would want their
feedback. So a meeting of our six
Deans took place and we agreed on the
role they would play in this search for
priorities.”
The question of the kind of
priorities being sought also came up.
Were we talking about programs or
buildings? “We want to know about
both,” says the Chancellor. “We are
initiating this process so that pastoral
responses can be made to the needs.
We are going in with an open mind and
asking for input. We may be surprised.
A good beginning was made in the
Monastery. Let’s get going.”
The priests and sisters will return
their priority suggestions. These will
go to the parishes for parish council
consideration and input. These will
(Continued on page 3)
Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan
chaired that final meeting, but
Monsignor Jerry Hardy, chancellor of
the Archdiocese, made the proposal to
his brother priests. What was the
proposal? It was this. Consider the
priorities of our Catholic community
in North Georgia.
“It is a new beginning for the
Church,” said the Chancellor as he
explained his approach to this priestly
sharing. “We are 25 years a diocese, we
are growing faster than any area - over
the last 12 years we have doubled in
Catholic population - so it is time to
pause and ask ‘where are we going?’.”
“Ask” is the vital word. Msgr.
Hardy was asking the priests. But that
is only the beginning. “We are asking
the sisters at the same time, then we
are going to the parishes, the
deaneries. We want to know, what is
the consensus on the priorities of the
Church in North Georgia over the next
five years.”
It began with Archbishop
Donnellan putting the same question
to his Consultors. “We had spoken to
the Archbishop about certain needs
we had to consider - for example, the
expansion of St. Pius and the
rebuilding of some of our Newman
Centers. He brought the question of
priorities to the Board of Consultors.
The process grew out of that
decision,” Monsignor Hardy said.
However, before the question and
proposals were committed to paper
and brought to the priests and sisters,
lots of back room work had already
Printing Schedule
Because of the holidays, The
Georgia Bulletin will not publish next
week. The paper will resume with the
issue of Jan. 7, 1982, with our
renewed hope for a blessed and
peaceful new year.
Pastoral Council
Revived To Help
BY THEA JARVIS
To effectively implement the priorities process presently being
undertaken by the Archdiocese of Atlanta, the Board of Consultors has
recommended the reconstitution of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council.
Such a council would review the priority statements of local parish
councils, deaneries, clergy and religious, and make final priority
recommendations to Archbishop Donnellan.
The reconstituted Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, the predecessor of
which was active following the Archdiocesan Synod of 1966, will
hopefully be a workable consultative body whose smaller numbers will
prevent it from becoming unwieldy.
According to the decree enacted by the 1966 synod, the Archdiocesan
Pastoral Council “is chiefly concerned with legislative action, review of
departmental programs and the process of appeal from parishes.” In
addition, the council “has its own pastoral implementation of daily life”
and is therefore “directly responsible with the archbishop in such fields as
liturgy and ecumenism.”
Just as parish councils provide representation for a wide range of
individuals and organizations and ideally can contribute to the smooth
functioning of local churches in a spirit of Christian brotherhood, so an
Archdiocesan Pastoral Council can represent a broad spectrum of clergy,
religious and laity, establishing a viable forum for addressing the needs of
Catholics in north Georgia.
Election to the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council is to be decided by parish
councils in consultation with the Archdiocesan Deans.
There are six deaneries in the Archdiocese of Atlanta. The
northeast-metro deanery is headed by Father Paul Fogarty, the
northwest-metro by Father Daniel O’Connor, and the south-metro by
Father Raymond Horan. The northeast-rural deanery is headed by Father
Edward O’Connor, the northwest-rural by Father Patrick Mulhern and the
south-rural by Father Joseph Ware.
Deanery councils will be composed primarily of parish council members
and staff from churches in the geographical areas covered by the deanery.
The dean and his parish council chairperson will preside over deanery
council meetings, which would be open to all parishioners in the deanery
area.
It is the deanery council which would elect representatives to the
Archdiocesan Pastoral Council Steering Committee. Four delegates,
including one priest and a sister, are to be chosen by a council vote. Parishes
will be allowed three votes in the decision-making process, and will include
the pastor and two delegates selected by the parish council.
It is proposed that deanery councils meet every other month from
October through June. The Archdiocesan Pastoral Council is to meet three
times a year, in November, February and May.
It will be the function of the regional councils to consider matters of
local deanery concern, as well as items sent to each council from the
Archdiocesan Pastoral Board Steering Committee or Archbishop
Donnellan.
Other archdiocesan offices, agencies, boards, councils and commissions
will serve as resource consultants to the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council
when their assistance is needed. They will also receive reports of
recommendations made by the council.
HOLY NIGHT - Mary and Joseph kneel humbly
on the ground and gaze tenderly at the child before
them. As the child reaches playfully for his mother
the three figures share a moment of quiet intimacy.
The Nativity by Lorenzo Lotto was painted in
1523 in Bergamo, Italy, and is now part of the
Samuel H. Kress Collection at the National Gallery
of Art. (NC Photo)
“A Lot Of Hungry People Out There”
BY GRETCHEN REISER
Each week, the words in the ad
were somewhat different. But
throughout a month-long advertising
campaign, the symbol and the message
were essentially the same: the words
“The Peace of Christ Be With You,” a
design showing the Cross, the
Eucharist and the Chalice and an
invitation to talk to a Catholic
layperson.
The ad campaign, which ran from
November 14 through December 13 in
the Atlanta JOURNAL and
CONSTITUTION, invited alienated
Catholics and others interested in the
Catholic Church to call a phone
number. At the other end, was a
layperson from St. Thomas Aquinas
parish in Alpharetta,, part of a
15-couple team, each of whom took
two 24-hour-a-day shifts during the
month.
While a more comprehensive report
on the responses to and results of the
campaign will be made later, those
who organized the ad campaign, and
the couples who manned the
telephone lines during the month were
deeply affected by the response,
according to George Clements,
chairman of the Archdiocesan
Committee on Evangelization.
Approximately 560 phone calls
came in during the 30-day period,
Clements said, the vast majority from
people with serious intent. “There was
an extraordinarily wide variety of
calls, as we expected,” he said, “and
an extraordinarily low number of
crank calls.
“As one of our coordinators
described it, ‘There are a lot of very
hungry people out there.’”
The essential message repeated
during the campaign was an invitation
by Catholics to share in the peace and
joy that comes from celebrating
Christ’s Resurrection in the Mass.
Among the hopes for the campaign
were that it would provide an
invitation to people who had never
been invited to the Church before, and
to inactive Catholics who had never
been invited to return. It was also seen
as providing an “icebreaker”
alternative to calling a rectory and
talking to a priest.
Clements said those aims were
apparently fulfilled, judging by the
nature of the responses. The callers
included a priest who had left the
church and others wrestling with
questions about the church, divorce
and marriage, homosexuality,
alcoholism. They were “hurt and they
were mad,” Clements said. “They
were mad at something that had
happened. They were looking for an
answer and they had not found it.”
Many said they were deeply touched
by the ads.
In the ads and on the phone, the
hope was to dispel a sense of the
Church as aloof, and to show that “we
are a responsive, caring community,”
Clements said. “In our view, the seeds
that are being planted are
tremendous.”
Phone calls came in around the
clock, from 10 to 20 a day, and
included calls from people passing
through Atlanta’s Hartsfield
International Airport and responding
to the newspaper ad.
About 200 of the callers gave their
name and phone number and were
referred to a follow-up person in their
parish or a diocesan department which
could be helpful.
Further study will be made of the
campaign, the response, and possible
future plans, Clements said, including
establishing a Catholic “presence” on
the church page of the newspaper.
“My Concern ... My Homeland
John Paul II
THE SEARCH FOR PRIORITIES - Father
James Kelly, director of religious education, (1),
and Monsignor Jerry Hardy, chancellor of the
archdiocese, discuss priority possibilities with
Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan during an
Advent clergy day at the Monastery in Conyers.
The priests were asked by the Archbishop to
recommend to him their priorities for the
archdiocese over the next five years. The entire
church in North Georgia will be involved in this
process as the new year begins.
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Here is an
NC News translation of Pope John
Paul n’s remarks in Polish at his
weekly general audience Dec. 16:
Praised be Jesus Christ! Dear
compatriots!
The events of recent days have
turned the eyes of all the world
toward Poland. In this is shown a clear
uneasiness and, at the same time,
solidarity with our nation. For the
expressions of such solidarity I thank
everyone, because very often they
have been addressed directly to me.
This uneasiness is well founded. It
is enough to read the speech which the
primate of Poland (Archbishop Jozef
Glemp of Gniezno and Warsaw)
pronounced Sunday evening in the
Church of Our Lady of Grace in
Warsaw to feel again the measure of
such uneasiness within the country,
which through the introduction of
martial law has broken normal
contacts with the rest of the world.
The primate said: The church
“learned with sorrow of the
breakdown of dialogue, which had
been achieved through such tiring
efforts, and the entry into the road of
violence, which is martial law. It is
something that cannot happen
without the violation of fundamental
civil rights. It brings with it, in many
cases, contempt of human dignity, the
arrest of innocents, the humiliation of
men of culture and of science, the
uncertainty of so many families.”
In such conditions, my concern
goes once again toward my homeland,
toward the nation of which I am a son
- and which like any nation or state
has the right to a particular concern on
the part of the church. This concern
embraces in this moment all Poland
and all Poles.
It has, as a nation, the right to live
its own life and to resolve its own
internal problems in the spirit of its
own convictions in conformity with
its own culture and national
traditions.
These problems, undoubtedly
difficult, cannot be resolved with the
use of violence.
Here is my appeal and my request:
It is necessary to return to the road of
renewal, built through the method of
dialogue, in respect for the rights of
every man and every citizen. This road
was not easy - for understandable
reasons - but it is not impossible.
The strength and authority of
power is expressed in such dialogue
and not in the use of violence.
Last Sunday, at the first news of
the introduction of martial law, I
recalled the words I pronounced in
September: “No more Polish blood
can be spilled.” Today I repeat the
same words.
And together with the entire
church, and in particular with the
church in Poland, I entrust to Christ,
who is the Lord of the future century,
and to his mother, in Jasna Gora, all
my homeland, this nation, tested
again, in the fight for the just right to
be itself!