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PAGE 2—The Georgia Bulletin, August 2, 1984
Monsignor Manning Remembered
(Father Bill Hoffman, director of the Hispanics Apostolate.
grew up in Gainesville, Georgia where Monsignor Manning served
as pastor for many years.)
BY FATHER BILL HOFFMAN
The priests who have been stationed in Gainesville have,
all of them, had difficulties in leaving. Not ONE wanted
to leave, and Monsignor Michael Manning was no
exception.
He spent 14 years there, beginning in 1945. Before that
he was in Thomasville, and afterward in Decatur.
My family moved to Gainesville from Tallahassee in
ARCHBISHOP DONNELLAN greets the
remains at the funeral Mass for Monsignor
Michael Manning. Monsignor died after a lengthy
illness on July 21. He had been ordained for 47
years and had severed in many parishes
throughout the state of Georgia.
1951, and remained there during the rest of Father
Manning’s tour. I would like to share some memories of
those years.
There were the Saturday night confessions that my
family went to every month or so. He was always there,
listening, keeping up with us as individuals and ever so
gently encouraging us. He was there -- always there.
My mother died in 1952 and he became a constant
visitor, especially after my father married a widow from
the parish in 1953. He was the one, I believe, who
introduced them and saw things to a happy conclusion.
Those home visits occurred usually at the hour of the
evening meal. Meals at our home bordered on a circus.
Someone was always getting ribbed about something or
the other, and he enjoyed it all. He had a quiet wit and
loved the banter that went on.
I still remember a pewter water pitcher that made
frequent trips around the table, and somehow Father
Manning was always in the center of the traffic. He could
hardly eat for all of the passing of plates and the water
pitcher.
His favorite foods were, as I recall, limited to meat and
potatoes, but he accommodated himself easily to our fare.
Father Manning’s brogue delighted the people of
Gainesville. Many of us were more fascinated by how he
said it than by what he said.
While a co-op student at Tech, I worked for a quarter at
the Atlantic Steel Company, doing swing shift work in the
lab. To help pass the time on the midnight shift, Father
Manning allowed me to borrow some of his books. They
got me thinking more about religion, and, with the help of
two seminarians who had just moved to Gainesville, the
brothers Beltran, led to my entering the seminary. The
only priest I knew at that time was Father Manning and I
wanted to be a priest like him.
For six months after I decided to study for the
priesthood. Father Manning met with me a couple of
times a week to work through Latin grammar. On my
vacations from St. Bernard, he would always ask how it
was going.
Once I wanted to kid him a bit, and told him that some
Jesuits had been by the seminary trying to recruit
members with the slogan, “Join the Jesuits and see the
world.” He BELIEVED me and became very agitated that
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Monsignor Michael Manning
such a thing should be permitted, but relaxed when I told
him that I was just joking.
In those days, a priest had to fast until he had
celebrated the last of the day’s Masses. During the
summer, he would begin in Gainesville with an early Mass,
then go to Toccoa and eventually to Lakemont. Once I
drove a visiting priest around on Sunday, and, believe me,
it is hard to maintain a pleasant disposition under those
circumstances. But he always seemed to manage it. He was
always a gentleman.
Father Manning was the only priest I have ever seen
wearing a white suit, and, even at that, I saw it only once.
It was my high school graduation, in the gymnasium, at 8
p.m. It was in the low 90s outside, closer to 95 degrees
inside. There he was, dressed in a white suit! Since I have
not seen another priest dressed that way, Father Manning
will always occupy a singular spot in my visual memory.
All of us who knew him have our favorite memories of
him. We were all blessed by his presence. May he rest in
peace.
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