Funding for the digitization of this title was provided by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta.
About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1987)
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta Vol. 25 No. 17 Thursday, April 23, 1987 $12.00 Per Year "Wonder" Of Life Emphasized In Easter Message BY JOHN THAVIS VATICAN CITY (NC) — Pope John Paul II, in an Easter greeting to the world, urged people to keep a sense of “reverent wonder” for birth and life and avoid reducing the human being to an object of technology. The message, which echoed a recent Vatican document on procreation, asked that people rediscover life as a gift that “reveals the Father’s love.” The pope spoke April 19 in an “Urbi et Orbi” message to the city of Rome and to the world, before giving a blessing from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica. The bless ing ended Rome and the Vatican’s traditional Holy Week liturgical events, which this year were accompanied by K sunny weather and throngs of tourists. g The pope celebrated Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square, g which overflowed with an estimated 200,000 people. Then he delivered Easter greetings in 51 languages, including Hebrew, Tamil and Chinese. In his message, the pope said Christ’s resurrection, a triumph of life over death, shows the “eternal source” of all human life. The life in a mother’s womb is fashioned in God’s image, he said. “May reverent wonder for the mystery of love that sur rounds his coming into the world not die out in contem porary man,” the pope said. “Grant that the man of the technological age may not reduce himself to a mere object, but may respect, from its very beginning, the unre- nounceable dignity that is proper to him.” A major document issued in March by the Vatican’s Con gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith spelled out the church’s opposition to several procreative techniques, in cluding in vitro fertilization and surrogate motherhood. The pope recalled the church’s basic teaching on married love, saying it is a “way of giving” expressed “through the flesh in an act which from the very beginning God willed as a seal of the giving.” The pope also reminded people not to forget the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, the sick and the dying. “They always remain children of God, for God’s gift knows no regrets,” he said. “Each one deserves respect and support.” The pope’s busiest day during Holy Week was Good Fri day, April 17. In what has become a personal tradition to emphasize the sacrament of penance, he walked into St. Peter’s Basilica and, entering one of the many confessional boxes, listened for more than an hour as 11 people confessed their sins. The group included an Italian air force officer, a newlywed couple, an Ethiopian refugee and a Vietnamese seminarian. Later, the pope and some 20 cardinals participated in ceremonies to mark the passion of Christ. More than 10,000 (Continued on page 7) New Assignment Archbishop Thomas Donnellan announces that Reverend Denis F. Dullea, presently parochial vicar at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Carrollton, has been appointed chaplajp at the Visitation Monastery in Snellville, with residence at Saint Oliver Plunkett rectory in Snellville, effective Wednesday, April 22. EASTER TIME — Under dogwoods outside the Cathedral, Monsignor John McDonough and Archbishop Thomas Donnellan emerge follow ing the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday morn Schoolmates Meet At Christ the King BY RITA McINERNEY Sister Mary Evangeline is planning to be there, so is Sister Mary Clement. They will be among the happy hundreds returning to Christ the King School on Sunday, May 3, for the 50th anniversary reunion of former grade and high school students. The reunion is one of a series of events marking the 50th anniversary of the parish which will culminate with the celebration of the anniversary Mass on Monday, May 4 at 6 p.m. in the Cathedral of Christ the King. Archbishop Thomas Donnellan will be the principal celebrant and Cardinal Joseph Ber nards of Chicago, bishop in Atlanta from 1966 until 1968, will be the homilist. While the parish events celebrate the establishment of the parish by Bishop Gerald P. O’Hara, bishop of Savannah, on June 15, 1936, the opening of the school in November, 1937, and the dedication of the cathedral on Jan. 18, 1939, the date most closely coincides with the laying of the cor nerstone in the spring of 1937, according to Monsignor John F. McDonough, ad ministrator of the parish since 1972. Classes for the children of the new parish began in September, 1937, in the white- (Continued on page 6) ing at which several hundred priests renewed their commitment to the service of the church. More photos on page 7. AIDS Ministry Is Growing Need BY THEA JARVIS Father A1 Dillmann stepped unknowingly into a ministry with AIDS victims nearly two years ago. The open, outgo ing pastor of Holy Spirit Church in Atlanta was making nor mal chaplaincy rounds at West Paces Ferry Hospital when he met two young men who had been diagnosed with AIDS at about the same time. One was Catholic; the other was in terested in becoming a Catholic. Both men died in the late summer of 1986, but not before one had entered the Church under the emergency rite of initiation and the other had acted as his sponsor. “When you meet people it is just so natural,” Father Dillmann says, to become involved with them on a personal level. Reflecting on his initial encounter with an AIDS pa tient, he recalls that, although he knew “in general” about the disease, “I hadn’t had time to steep myself in myths” that promote panic in the general population about the spreading of the illness and unnecessarily isolate persons with AIDS. “I didn’t feel uncomfortable or feel a need to wear a mask,” he says, adding that hospital personnel did not ad vise or require protective covering. As the number of AIDS patients in his hospital ministry grew and his knowledge of the disease increased through reading and research, Father Dillmann “discovered in short order what I felt naturally.” His instinctive rejection of a distant, hands-off approach to AIDS patients was bolstered by medical information indicating that the illness was not spread by casual contact. For Father Dillmann, and others like him who find (Continued on page 8) *
