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About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (March 5, 1987)
Vol. 25 No. 10 Thursday, March 5, 1987 $12.00 Per Year CRAFTS AND WOODWORK — Judy Hotle is director of crafts at The Place in Cumming, where self-help and assistance to the rural poor has been extended for over a decade. This is one of the projects supported by the Charities Drive, which will be taken up this Sunday, March 8. Charities Drive The Place Brings Self-Help, Aid Network To Rural Poor BY RITA McINERNEY For almost 12 years, The Place in Cumming has been a lively center where poor and low-income people in Forsyth County find help and opportunity — help in emergencies, when the money runs out, and oppor tunity to work for what they are given. It is also the place they come to for counseling, in struction and for that necessary companionship and human warmth to off set the isolation of country lives. Formally known as Rural Social Services, this branch of Catholic Social Services is among agencies sharing funds from the annual Charities Drive. For fiscal year 1987-88, it is allocated $67,135. Housed in a frame bungalow along Pirkle Ferry Road, a block from the business section of Cumming, The Place, ac cording to Sister June Racicot, O.P., who, with Sister Kathryn Cliatt, O.P., directs the agency, operates on a “no interest, cash, little at a time payback system” for clients receiving food, clothing and loans for elec tricity. The center offers the peo ple served the chance to be creative or domestic in pay ing off their debts. Each hour worked in the wood or craft shop, in washing dishes, cooking, working in the thrift store, or vacuum ing and dusting, is credited to their account. Its “our alternative to giveaway,” explained Mary Julia Orr, the social worker everyone calls “M.J.” “We try and create an at mosphere where people feel accepted and wanted, where they can build up (Continued on page 10) SUNDAY MARCH 8 Lent 1 Season Is Call To Fuller Life set before you Life or Death, blessing or curse. Choose Life, then so that you and your descendants may live, in the love of Yahweh your God. obeying His voice, clinging to Him; for in this your life consists" (Exodus 30: 19-20). At the beginning of Lent, marked by the ashes of mortali ty, the word Life may seem inappropriate. But a Lenten-Easter program designed by the Glenmary Religious Education Center, emphasizes the life-giving desire of the Father. It is called "L'Chayim," the Hebrew word meaning “to life.” (Continued on page 8) New Legal Dilemma For Vatican Banker BY JOHN THAVIS ROME (NC) — The case of the failed Banco Am- brosiano, believed by many to have been settled when the Vatican paid $240 million dollars to the bank’s creditors in 1984, opened a new and potentially more serious legal chapter in late February. The events have focused attention again on the Vatican bank’s alleged role in Banco Ambrosiano’s collapse, specifically in “letters of patronage” writ ten by the Vatican bank in support of bad loans which resulted in the bankruptcy. Italian investigators in Milan, nearing the conclu sion of a 5-year-long probe, have reportedly issued ar rest warrants for U.S. Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, Vatican bank president, and two of the bank’s top of ficials, Luigi Mennini and Pellegrino de Strobel, for suspicion of being accessories to fraudulent bankruptcy. The Vatican, reacting to the news, ex pressed “amazement” that such warrants could be issued after so long a time and with no apparent "new elements" in the case. Citing a treaty between Italy and the Vatican City State, it also indicated the warrants would never be accepted at the Vatican, where the three men live and work. The Vatican has maintained that its bank, formally called the Institute for Religious Works, was the vic tim of a “hidden project” by Banco Ambrosiano president Roberto Calvi. Calvi was found hanging under a bridge in London in 1982, shortly before his bank’s collapse. An investigation was unable to deter mine whether his death was suicide or murder. (Continued on page 8) Friars To Leave Shrine This June The Franciscan Friars, who have staffed the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Atlanta since 1958, have an nounced that they will be giving the parish back over to the archdiocese for staffing in June. The decision was announced in a statement from Father Alban A. Maguire, minister provincial of the Holy Name Province of the Franciscans. It was made public to Shrine parishioners at Sunday Mass on March 1. The statement cited the small number of parishioners at the Shrine and the need for the order to "discern where they can best serve the People of God.” The Shrine, which is an historic structure and a part of the legacy of the city of Atlanta, is also the mother Church of the archdiocese. Nearly destroyed by fire in August 1982 the Shrine was rebuilt and dedicated anew in May 1984. The statement from Father Maguire said, “After much discussion and soul searching, the Franciscan Friars of Holy Name Province have asked Archbishop Thomas Don- nellan if they may withdraw from the Shrine of the Im maculate Conception in Atlanta. Reluctantly the Arch bishop has agreed and the ministry at the Shrine will be given over to the priests of the Archdiocese in June.” (Continued on page 12) New Appointment Archbishop Thomas Donnellan announces that, ef fective immediately, Reverend Peter J. Rau, parochial vicar at Saint Thomas Aquinas Church in Alpharetta, has been appointed assistant director of vocations. Father Rau will continue to serve as parochial vicar at Saint Thomas.
