Newspaper Page Text
The
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 21 No. 31 Thursday, September 15,1983 $10.00 Per Year
Help For Our Elderly • Hope For Our Youth
Archdiocese Launches$7.2 AAillionCampaign
BY THEA JARVIS
Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan this week announced
the initiation of a three-year, $7.2 million campaign aimed
at continuing and expanding the Church’s mission of
service to the community.
The campaign, chaired by Rawson Haverty, president
of Haverty Furniture Companies, targets four specific
areas for growth and development over the next three
years.
Both the young people and the elderly of our
community have surfaced as those to whom the
archdiocese must direct its immediate attention and
available resources.
To ensure alternatives for long-term care, the
archdiocese proposes the renovation of three under-used
convents for use as personal care group homes for the
elderly.
To better serve the present and future Catholic student
community at Georgia Tech, a new and enlarged campus
Catholic Center is planned as a replacement for the
present facility.
To update the physical plant and expand educational
opportunities in its only secondary institution, the
archdiocese will embark on a building program and
establish an endowment fund for scholarship assistance at
St. Pius X High School in Atlanta.
To assist families in pursuing their goal of a quality
Catholic education in the inner city area, the archdiocese
calls for the establishment of a scholarship fund for needy
students at St. Anthony’s and Our Lady of Lourdes
Schools.
“These are all human needs, not merely Catholic
needs,” Archbishop Donnellan has said of the campaign
goals. “Solutions to these problems will have broad
application and will directly promote the entire
community’s well-being.”
The surge in growth of the Catholic population of
north Georgia over the past quarter-century has been
dynamic. In 1962, 29 parishes served a little over 33,000
Catholics. Today, 110,000 Catholics claim membership in
57 parishes.
Such growth means additional responsibility and
expanded demands on Church resources. The people of
the archdiocese are, therefore, asked to participate in the
campaign by supporting their individual parish churches in
their efforts to meet the financial goals of the campaign.
“It has been close to 20 years since a drive of this kind
was conducted in the Archdiocese of Atlanta,” said
Father Peter Ludden, Archdiocesan Chancellor. “Since
the initial consultation and planning, there has been great
enthusiasm for its success and for what it will allow us to
accomplish.”
“The people of this archdiocese have always responded
generously to the needs of the Church,” he continued.
“I’m fully confident that they recognize and will support
what the archdiocese is trying to do for our elderly, our
college students and our young people.”
Austrian Trip
Pope Seeks World Accord
VIENNA, Austria (NC) - Pope John
Paul II pleaded for East-West unity,
concord among religions and Catholic
spiritual renewal during his Sept. 10-13
visit to Austria, a political and cultural
crossroads between Eastern and Western
Europe.
He also defended human rights and
urged a more just international order,
emphasizing that the church’s concern in
those areas is based on the Gospel and
not on partisan interests in international
politics.
In his first major talk, at Vienna’s
Heroes Square shortly after his arrival
Sept. 10, the pope opened with a peace
greeting to Austria and its seven
neighboring nations of both Eastern and
Western Europe.
To a crowd of some 100,000, including
about 70 bishops from East and West, he
emphasized Europe’s unity in “the deep
Christian roots and the human and
cultural values which are sacred to all
Europe.”
While noting the continent’s history of
political and religious divisions, he urged
fresh efforts “for peace and justice, for
the rights of man and Christian solidarity
among peoples.” For the Christian, he
said, “love is stronger than hatred or
revenge.”
Apparently referring to Soviet
domination of Eastern Europe, Pope
John Paul commented that “the Austria
of today - sadly, not all Europe - is free
of foreign domination and military
violence, free from immediate threat
from the outside.”
One of the reasons for the papal trip to
Austria was to mark the 300th
anniversary of the breaking of the
Turkish siege of Vienna by Polish
Christian troops in 1683. Referring to
that event, the pope noted that atrocities
were committed by both sides, to their
“equal shame.”
“We are aware that the language of
weapons is not the language of Jesus
Christ,” he said.
“Armed conflict,” he added, “is in
every case an inevitable evil, from which
Christians in tragic circumstances cannot
escape. But here too the Christian
commandment of love of one’s enemy, of
mercifulness, is binding.”
He urged Austrians to make the
tricentenary observances “not a
celebration of victory in war, but a
(Continued on page 7)
Campaign '83
MOST RECENT MEETING ~
Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan
made his “ad limina” visit to Rome
last week along with other
American bishops. This pastoral
visit, which every bishop makes
once every five years, includes an
audience with the Pope. The Holy
Father and the Archbishop are
pictured in Rome last week prior to
the Pope’s visit to Austria.
The Georgia Bulletin this
week invites readers to take an
in-depth look at Campaign ’83:
Help for Our Elderly • Hope for
Our Youth, in a special
centerfold supplement
highlighting the campaign and
how it will affect the Catholic
community of north Georgia.