PAGE 4 — The Georgia Bulletin, July 16,1987
STATEMENT
VACATIONING POPE — Pope John Paul II
stops to visit with local residents during a walk
through a valley near the Italian village of Val
Viadende. The pope marked the first day of his
summer vacation in the Italian Alps with a
6-mile hike. (NC photo from UPI-Reuter)
RESOUND
your parishioners are impressed by your emphasis on
God's Will and God's Words' 1 Please think about it.
Carl Chelena
Stone Mountain
“First Person” Homilies
CHI) Support
To the Editor:
Many years ago a dedicated priest, named Father Dan
Rankin, was principal of the Marist School and professor of
English. This exceptional man repeatedly emphasized that
public speakers and writers should use the first personal
pronouns (I, me, my) as infrequently as possible, if they
are used at all because “the person who clutters his
message in such a manner has not much to say . "
In that period priests usually delivered a “sermon " based
on the biblical emphasis of the day. Unfortunately, we often
find the current practice at many religious ceremonies is
for the priests to deliver a "homily” repeatedly using these
personal pronouns that were once considered inappro
priate. Perhaps they are unaware that many members of the
congregation are not interested in the priests' personal sub
jects. However, they have come to Church to hear the
message of God, with sound advice as to how the message is
applicable to our daily problems; with pertinent sugges
tions as to how that message can improve each individual's
life.
Please, good Fathers, would it not be possible to detach
yourselves from the self-indulgent practices of secular
spokesmen and maximize the influence of your delivery as
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Gretchen K. Reiser Editor
Rita Meluernev Associate Editor
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To the Editor:
I wish to thank the people of the Archdiocese of Atlanta
for their continuing and generous support of the Campaign
for Human Development. A check for $40,548 has been
received here at the national office. This amount is the 3/4
portion to be distributed nationally to self-help projects con
trolled by the poor themselves and designed to remove the
causes of poverty.
By this continued support, the people of your diocese are
helping to fulfill the wish expressed in the Final Report of
the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops stated in the sec
tion entitled: The Church's Mission in the World:
“Affirmed instead is a missionary openness for the
integral salvation of the world. Through this, all truly
human values not only are accepted but energetically
defensed; the dignity of the human person, fun
damental human rights, peace, freedom from op
pression, poverty and injustice. But integral salva
tion is obtained only if these human realities are
purified and further elevated through grace to human
familiarity with God, through Jesus Christ in the Ho
ly Spirit.”
CHD provides an opportunity for us in the spirit of
Vatican Council II to claim as our own the joys, hopes,
griefs and anxieties of people of our age, especially those
who are poor. It allows us to do this in the image of Jesus
who gave of his own power that all might experience human
dignity...
Reverend Alfred LoPinto
Executive Director
Campaign for Human Development
Washington, D.C.
“To Our Friends”
To the Editor:
Thank you for running the announcement of our recent
festival at St. Anthony's Church in Blue Ridge. The festival
was a big success. On behalf of our pastor Father Steven
Yander and the members of the congregation we want to
say thanks to all who came and enjoyed a spaghetti dinner
and browsed through our booths. We saw old friends, and
made new ones — some traveling from outside Blue Ridge
to join us. So thanks for the publicity and to all our friends
“see you again next year.”
Helen Eshbach
Mineral Bluff
New
Appointment
Reverend Monsignor John F. McDonough, Vicar
General of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, has announced
the appointment of Reverend Peter A. Dora to the
position of chairman of the Archdiocesan Committee
on Evangelization, effective July 1. 1987
The Week In Review
NAMES AND PLACES — Archbishop Stephen Sulyk of
the Ukrainian archdiocese of Philadelphia told Penn
sylvania state senators that as a body they must begin to
tell the country and world of the Soviet Union’s “merciless
persecution” of Ukrainian Catholics. He addressed the
lawmakers at the state capitol in Harrisburg in late June
during festivities to open the state’s observance of the
millennium, 1,000th anniversary, of the arrival of Chris
tianity in what is now Soviet territory The anniversary will
be celebrated worldwide in 1988. He urged the state
senators to consider passing a resolution to be forwarded
through “proper channels” that would ask the Soviet
government “to simply allow the Ukrainian Catholic
Church to exist in the Soviet Union.” He traced the religious
heritage and freedom of Pennsylvania and the United
States and said the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution “ignited in our Ukrainian people a dream of
‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. ” He noted that
Ukrainians toiled in the state’s coal mines and steel mills
and in “the shops and factories of industrial America.” But
the millenium observance will not be shared with all Ukrai
nian Catholics, he said, because since 1946 the church "has
been outlawed by the atheistic Soviet government...Our
priests and bishops have been imprisoned, tortured, put to
death. Our faithful have been harassed, have lost their jobs,
have been forcibly resettled from their homeland." A U.S.
State Department report last January said that “the Soviet
regime has officially liquidated the church and also has at
tempted to erase it from historic memory ”
AROUND THE NATION — The Knights of Columbus
gave $67,879,845 to charitable causes in 1986 and donated
more than 24 million hours in volunteer services, according
to an annual survey. This is an increase of $1,560,501 over
last year. The survey found that the physically handicap
ped and the mentally retarded were the principal
beneficiaries of K. of C. fund raising events. In 1986, $1.3
million was donated to the disabled and $11.2 million was
given to aid the retarded. Local Special Olympics received
$674,369. Direct grants to seminarians for educational ex
penses totalled $1.7 million. An additional $565,784 was
given to seminaries and religious houses of study. Members
gave 24,263,991 hours of volunteer service to youth,
hospitals, orphanages, church activities and for the sick
and disabled.
INTERNATIONALLY — Filipino Cardinal Jaime Sin is
on a 12-day visit to the Soviet Union which he calls a
“pilgrimage of friendship and love” and which others see
as a low-key mission for the Vatican. He planned to visit
Lithuania, seat of Catholicism in the Soviet Union, and
would become the first foreign Catholic bishop to do so
since 1940. The cardinal was scheduled to visit the cities of
Leningrad and Riga and meet with officials of the Russian
Orthodox Church, which arranged his visit with the Philip
pine embassy in Moscow. He will also visit Kiev in the
Ukraine, the city where Christianity was introduced, in 988,
in what is now the U.S.S.R. Before he left Manila on July 8
the churchman said he wanted to “open new doors toward
closer contacts and deeper understanding between the
Filipino and Russian peoples.” Amando Doronila, editor of
the Manila Chronicle, commented in the newspaper’s July
7th issue that “The Philippine church appears to be playing
an increasingly important role in diplomatic moves by the
Vatican to ease the restrictions under which the church of
silence operates.” A Vatican official said the Holy See
regards Cardinal Sin’s visit as private.
VACATIONING in the Italian Alps, Pope John Paul II
said in a sermon at Mass in a mountain meadow that Chris
tians havea “moral obligation” tocarefor the environment.
An estimated 30,000 people attended the Sunday liturgy
near San Pietro de Cadore. Italian press reports said some
Italian environmentalists had asked to have the Mass mov
ed to another site because of possible damage to the
meadow by the throng. “Each man is bound to avoid in
itiatives and action that can injure the purity of the environ
ment,” the pope said. He praised the mountain dwellers as
passionate dev otees of the solid traditions of these lands.”
