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Sister Margaret - Person Of The Year
BY MSGR. NOEL C. BURTENSHAW
The call came in April 1981. Sister Margaret Me Ahoy answered the call and
the program, sponsored by the Catholic community of North Georgia, was
underway. It was the largest outreach of its kind in the history of the Church in
North Georgia. This religious of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters out of
Monroe, Michigan, made it all happen.
In April 1981, the city of Atlanta was enduring a deep crisis. The nation,
indeed the entire world, watched in horror as children from the city’s black
community disappeared, later turning up murdered. It seemed that the rash of
killings could not be solved. Community leaders, in desperation, reached out to
rally support and help.
Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan challenged his Catholic parishes to be “a
clear and unmistakable witness of the Church’s presence to these people, their
problems and the things which cause them.” The challenge was answered.
Camp Promise became the answer. The camp would be nurtured into life by
Sister Margaret.
It was by no means a solo effort. In fact, the success of the summer-long
camp for Atlanta’s children lay precisely in the organizational skills that Sister
Margaret brought to the ministry. Sister dropped her teaching at St. Pius X High
School and her Cursillo apostolate and took hold of this merciful opportunity
for Atlanta’s children.
At the time her own reflection on the summer camps was that they would
be “a beginning on a small scale, rich with opportunities.” Camp Promise
would prove to be not so small, but immensely rich.
Sister Margaret organized the Camp at three different parish locations: Sts.
Peter and Paul, St. Anthony and St. Paul of the Cross. All locations served the
black community. However, Archbishop Donnellan made it clear the proposed
Camp Promise would have to “involve the Catholic community as a whole.
Specifically, our very modest program . . . says to our community, ‘When
someone’s hurting, we all hurt.’”
The key, Sister Margaret knew, was a good volunteer program. She
immediately set about recruiting 400 to 500 to work during the summer
months at the three locations. “People don’t need any specific talents,” she
would say. “We’ll help them to see talents they didn’t know they had.”
The volunteers signed up. They hailed from every parish, city and rural.
Seminarians signed up; so did sisters from across the nation. The story travelled
far and wide. The National Catholic News Service sent the name Camp Promise
over the wire. Almost every Catholic newspaper in every state carried the
message. Sister Margaret set up her office and phones in the Catholic Center,
which was more than full-time work. But she also hit the streets, speaking to
groups, encouraging other churches to follow suit, making preparations at all
points for a successful summer for the children of Atlanta.
The rest is history. On Palm Sunday a special collection in all parishes gave
her the money to run the program. The volunteers arrived and rolled up their
sleeves. The camps opened in June. A remarkable picture, taken by the Georgia
Bulletin, of Archbishop Donnellan riding the bus with the children on their
way to Camp Promise was flashed across the wire and was displayed in
newspapers all over the country.
On June 8, 1981 the camps opened. They stayed open every week day until
August 14. It is estimated that almost 1,000 children were served, as Sister
Margaret McAnoy, quietly holding the reins, guided the program to a complete
success.
Sister Margaret McAnoy, the youngest of four children, was born in Detroit,
Michigan. Her brother, Thomas, is a priest of Detroit and her sister, Joann, is
also a religious of the Immaculate Heart of Mary community. The other sister,
Jane, is married. Sister first came to Atlanta in 1969 to teach in St. Pius X High
School. From 1973 to 1980 she was principal of Our Lady of Lourdes School
(Continued on page 6)
PERSON OF THE YEAR - Sister Margaret McAnoy, who was
director of Camp Promise, a day camp operated during the summer
of 1981 for the children of Atlanta, has been named Person of the
Year by the Georgia Bulletin. Sister is presently assigned as a
coordinator of the Cursillo Apostolate.
Georgia
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 20 No. 1
Thursday, January 7,1982
$8.00 Per Year
“TALKING” WITH TEENS, Father Coughlin community gathered at Corpus Christi Church
communicates with the deaf in a way that few last month for a renewal weekend,
can. Young and old members of the Catholic deaf
Deaf Community “Hears
Fr. Coughlin’s Renewal
55
BY THEA JARVIS
When Father Tom Coughlin spent
a weekend with the deaf community
at Corpus Christi Church in Stone
Mountain last month, he touched
many hearts.
Because of his own deafness,
Father Coughlin was able to minister
to deaf Catholics gathered for
renewal in a unique and personal
way.
Father Coughlin is a Trinitarian
priest based in Washington, D.C. who
travels at home and abroad to bring
an expanded experience of faith to
deaf Catholics.
The weekend included talks to
young and old, a film, pot luck
supper, private conferences,
confessions, liturgy, and even a
baptism for one of Corpus Christi’s
newest arrivals. It was open to all
Catholics of the Archdiocese of
Atlanta.
Friday night’s supper brought
together about 70 hearing-handicap
ped from all over the archdiocese for
a special film and talk by Father
Coughlin.
According to Christine McDonald,
pastoral assistant for the deaf at
Corpus Christi, Father Coughlin’s
message was that “deafness is not a
handicap but a special gift from God
to be used and shared with others.”
A special showing of the Alliance
Theatre’s production of Brigadoon,
which followed the priest’s Saturday
morning session with deaf teens, was
a weekend highlight.
Father Coughlin and nineteen
teenagers, along with some of Corpus
Christi’s parish staff, traveled to
downtown Atlanta to see the play.
Throughout the performance, the
cast was “shadowed” by darkly-clad
interpreters who signed the dialogue
for their deaf audience. Among those
who shadowed the performers were
some of Father Coughlin’s former
classmates from Galludet College in
Washington, D.C.
(Continued on page 2)
STOPPING BY to share a moment with Mabel
Rou (r) of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church and
Frances Roberts, Father Coughlin gets an
enthusiastic reception. Mrs. Roberts’ daughter,
Sister Frances Joseph, is deaf and lives at the
Visitation convent in Snellville. Father Coughlin
was able to pay her a brief visit during his
weekend renewal.
Pope Grows Impatient
With Poland’s Regime
BY FR. KENNETH DOYLE
VATICAN CITY (NC) - “The
gloves are off now,” said a
w e 11 - r e g a r d e d American
Vatican-watcher, as he listened to
Pope John Paul II deliver sharp
verbal blows at the Polish
government in his Angelus message
of Jan. 1.
Gone was the careful diplomatic
phrasing of a week earlier as the
pontiff now unequivocally defended
the existence of Solidarity, Poland’s
independent trade union, which had
its activities outlawed when Poland
came under martial law Dec. 13.
“Solidarity is part of the current
patrimony of the workers of my
homeland,” said the Polish-born
pope.
It had not been an easy week for
the pontiff as he watched the course
of events in his homeland and
pondered the direction of his own
approach.
At Christmas midnight Mass the
pope, who looked weary even to
casual observers, could not speak his
heart. His delegate to the Polish
government, Archbishop Luigi Poggi,
was still in Warsaw, Poland, to deliver
a papal message to Communist Party
chief Gen. Wojciech Jaruselski and to
try to re-establish dialogue between
government and labor leaders.
So the pope’s words on Christmas
day about Poland had to be general
and measured for fear of upsetting
the delicate negotiations then in
progress. He asked the people
gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his
“urbi et orbi” (to the city and to the
world) message simply to pray for
Poland and indicated only that he
wished his greetings “to reach
especially those who suffer, who are
far away from those closest to
SUN. JA N. I 7
Pro-Life Day
The Archdiocese will participate in
the national “Life Roll Sunday” on
January 17. The Bishops of the
United States have proclaimed this
date to be a special Pro-Life day
when Life Roll cards will be
distributed for signatures.
According to the Atlanta Pro-Life
office, the cards will state that the
undersigned is opposed to antilife
legislation and in favor of a Human
Life Amendment. The cards will be
handed out at all Masses on January
17 and collected immediately. The
homily of the Mass or some special
announcement will deal with the
significance of the day.
The Bishops are also calling upon
all Catholics to make Friday, January
22, a day of prayer and fasting to
commemorate the 1973 Supreme
Court abortion decision.
Pro-Life representatives in each
parish will coordinate the Life Roll
project which will be a renewal of
“our base of Pro-Life support”, said
Father Edward Dillon.
them;”
On Dec. 27 Archbishop Poggi, the
first foreign diplomat to have been
received by Jaruzelski since the
imposition of martial law, returned
to Rome. The Vatican diplomat told
newsmen that he carried no written
message to the pope from Jaruzelski,
but that one might arrive shortly.
By Dec. 30, according to Vatican
sources, the pope had heard nothing
from the head of the Polish
government. Meanwhile, despite
some minor concessions on the
government’s part - such as the
POSTAL KATE HIKE
lifting of the curfew so that Poles
could attend Christmas midnight
Mass - the state of siege continued.
More than 90 percent of those jailed
by the Communist regime, many of
them intellectuals and Solidarity
members, remained in prison under
reportedly harsh conditions.
With Jaruzelski’s silence, the
pope’s worry and impatience grew.
In his Wednesday general audience
on Dec. 30, in a voice filled with
sadness, the pope noted that “since
Dec. 13 not one new group of Polish
(Continued on page 6)
Catholic Publications
Face Sharp Increases
WASHINGTON (NC) - Catholic editors will greet the new year facing up to
175 percent increases in postal costs.
The rates for Catholic newspapers and magazines and other non-profit
publications are scheduled to go up Jan. 10. The Postal Service’s board of
governors raised the rates, as it is mandated to do, when the support built into
the rate structure by congressional action earlier this year was dropped from a
final budget resolution approved by President Reagan.
Last spring, under Reagan administration budget proposals, it looked as if
the rates would increase by up to 100 percent under a plan to phase in
immediately increases which had been slated to be added step by step by 1987.
But Congress intervened in its budget package, temporarily reprieving the
non-profit press from the full burden of escalating rates.
Now, however, more budget cutting has ended the reprieve. In-county rates
will increase to the level they had not been scheduled to hit until 1984 and out
of county rates will go up to the 1987 level.
According to James A. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Press
Association and Richard Banules, NC News business manager, the rate of
increase will vary for different publications, but editors can expect increases of
about 50 percent to 150 percent, extending to 175 percent in some cases.
The biggest share of the increase is in the per piece charge on each item of
mail on top of the pound rates for mailing.
Magazines, which generally have little in-county circulation to lessen
temporarily the impact of higher rates, will be very seriously affected.
Editors are thus once again faced with the prospect of raising subscriptions
or using other means to increase their revenue to help meet the costs.
They can also offset a part of the costs by presorting much of their own
outgoing mail, but even presorted mail will cost more.
Currently, newspapers can presort their (out-of-county) copies to carrier
route and pay 0.9 cents per piece. Under the new scheme, the per piece rate for
mail sorted to carrier route will be 4.5 cents - or five times as much. Rates for
mail sorted to zip code (but not carrier route) will go from the current 1.9
cents per piece to 5.5 cents per piece. Rates for non-sorted mail will go from
3.5 cents per piece to 7.1 cents.
However, even costs under the presorting system can fluctuate based on
other costs and variables.
Overall, Banules estimated Catholic newspapers face increased mail costs of
50-175 percent, or 50 cents to $2 per subscription.
■Magazine editors also are worried, said Redemptorist Father Norman
Muckerman, editor of Liguorian magazine and president of the CPA.
“This is devastating but we’re going to have to face it and conquer it. We’re
not going to quit,” he said.
Father Muckerman and John Meyer, general manager of Liguorian
publications, expect their mail costs to go up from about $375,000 to about
$650,000 in 1982. They anticipate a 125 percent increase under the new mail
rates.
To help offset the increased costs by about $22,000, the upcoming issue of
Liguorian will be mailed early, before Jan. 10.
The magazine’s staff also is considering presorting its mail to carrier routes
instead of to zip codes, as is now done, and is holding a series of emergency
meetings to devise ways to cope with the costs. Father Muckerman said it is
unlikely Liguorian will begin to solicit advertising or decrease the number of
issues yearly and he is reluctant to raise subscriptions.
“We’re going to cut as many costs as we can,” he added. “But we haven’t
formulated all our plans yet.”