Gulf Pine Catholic

Gulf Pine Catholic • April 20, 2018 3 Gulf Pine Catholic (ISSN No. 0746-3804) April 20, 2018 Volume 35, Issue 17 The GULF PINE CATHOLIC , published every other week, is an official publication of the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi. Editorial offices are located at 1790 Popps Ferry Road Biloxi, MS 39532. Periodical postage paid at Gulfport, MS. —POSTMASTER— Send address changes to: The GULF PINE CATHOLIC 1790 Popps Ferry Road Biloxi, MS 39532 —PUBLISHER— Most Rev. Louis F. Kihneman —EDITOR— Terry Dickson —PRODUCTION / ADVERTISING — Shirley M c Cusker —CIRCULATION— Debbie Mowrey —PHOTOGRAPHY— Juliana Skelton —OFFICEHOURS— 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday - Friday —PHONE NUMBERS— Editor: 228-702-2126 Production /Advertising: 228-702-2109 Circulation: 228-702-2127 Photography: 228-702-2144 FAX: 228-702-2128 —EMAIL— News: tdickson@biloxidiocese.org Production / Advertising: smccusker@biloxidiocese.org Circulation: dmowrey@biloxidiocese.org Photography: jskelton@biloxidiocese.org —OFFICEAND MAILINGADDRESS — 1790 Popps Ferry Road Biloxi, MS 39532 —WEBSITE— www.biloxidiocese.org —SUBSCRIPTIONS — Subscription rate is $18.00 per year. When changing address, renewing or inquiring about a subscription, customer should include a recent address label with old address and new address. Allow three weeks for changes of address. —DEADLINES for MAY 4 EDITION— News copy and photos: Due APRIL 26, 4 p.m. Advertising: Completed Ad and/or copy due APRIL 26, 10 a.m. Bishop Kihneman’s Schedule April 21 Confirmation, Hispanic Community, Sacred Heart Parish, Hattiesburg, 11 a.m. April 22 Confirmation, Nativity BVM Cathedral (includes Our Mother of Sorrows and Blessed Seelos Parishes), 9 a.m. April 22 Mass, Holy Infant of Good Health celebration, St. Ann Parish, Clermont Harbor, 2 p.m. April 24 Catholic Leadership Institute meeting, 10:30 a.m. April 26 Confirmation, Holy Family Parish, Pass Christian (includes Most Holy Trinity Parish), 6 p.m. April 27 Mississippi Knights of -April 29 Columbus Convention, Biloxi April 29 Mass Nativity, 11 a.m. April 30 Diocesan School Advisory Committee meeting, 5:30 p.m. May 3 National Day of Prayer at Biloxi City Hall, Noon May 4 Confirmation Our Lady of Fatima, 6 p.m. Bishop Gerow served vital role as ‘catalyst of transformation’ in Mississippi during Civil Rights Movement BY DR. TIM MULDOON When Pope Francis addressed the U.S. Congress on September 24, 2015, he pointed to the witness of Martin Luther King, sug- gesting that a great nation “fosters a culture which enables people to ‘dream’ of full rights for all their brothers and sisters.” As we re- member the 50th anniversary of his assassi- nation, it is important to recall the hard work of social change that helped bend our nation in the direction of greater justice. The inte- gration of Catholic parishes and schools in Bishop Richard Oliver Gerow Mississippi provides an important window into the moral struggles that existed inside the Church’s own institutions, a struggle that can provide important lessons for us today as our society continues to confront diffi- cult matters of race, justice, and equality in America. In the decade between 1955 and 1965, Mississippi was a hotbed of racial unrest, and Catholic schools and parishes were not im- mune. It was a period sandwiched between two racially motivated murders which drew national attention: the murder of the 14-year- old boy Emmett Till in 1955, and the Free- dom Summer (or “Mississippi burning”) murders of three young civil rights activists in 1964. It was a place of dramatic racial ten- sion both within the Church and in the wider society. Today, as the nation’s attention fo- cuses on college basketball, it is worth re- membering too that 1963 was the year that the all-white Mississippi State University team had to sneak out of the state to play in the “game of change” against an integrated Loyola University team which ultimately won the NCAA title. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down as unconstitutional any state laws that segregated students in public schools. Yet Brown v. Board of Education applied only to public schools, and so Catho- lic schools in Mississippi remained segregat- ed into the early 1960s. Many parishes, too, were places where white majorities made blacks feel unwelcome or, in some cases, unsafe. Groups of whites threatened black Catholics attending Mass at Saint Joseph in Port Gibson; Sacred Heart in Hattiesburg; Saint Joseph in Greenville; and many others. Yet there were many people who earnest- ly desired that white churches be more wel- coming to blacks and who worked toward integration as a gospel mandate. One key figure was Bishop Richard Oli- ver Gerow. He had been nurturing hopes for desegregation of his parishes and schools for years, keeping meticulous files of racial in- cidents. A realist, he understood that episco- pal fiat could not undo generations of racial prejudice, and so worked slowly to develop collaborators. In 1954 an incident at a church in Wave- land gave rise to extended correspondence between Bishop Gerow, Father Michael Costello, the pastor, and Father Robert E. Pung, S.V.D., the rector of Saint Augustine Seminary, the first black seminary in the United States. During the previous year, Fa- ther Costello had arranged with Father Pung that he would send a priest to celebrate Mass in Waveland each Sunday. In early 1954, Fa- ther Pung sent Father Carlos Lewis, S.V.D., a black native of Panama. Some weeks later, Father Pung received a phone call from a parishioner threatening injury to any other black priest who might be sent. Pung subse- quently composed a strongly worded letter to the man. He writes, “The Catholic Church clearly teaches (following Christ himself) that all members are one, that there is no dis- tinction of color within her fold.” He cites the first letter of John: “If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For how can he who does not love his brother, whom he sees, love God, whom he does not see?” (4:20). He closes with a defiant tone, telling the man that no one in a Church with a history of martyrdom, and thousands of members of the clergy now suffering in Communist prisons, will be scared by his threats. He writes, “And what did the priest come to your parish to do: just one thing -- to cele- brate Mass and bring Christ down upon your parish altar and to feed the flock of Christ with his Sacred Body. And that the major- ity of the parishioners looked upon the priest celebrating Holy Mass as a priest of God and not whether he was colored or white is evi- dent from the fact that last Sunday over three Communion Rails of people received Holy Communion from his anointed hands.” He assures the man that these same priests would be praying for him. SEE BISHOP GEROW, PAGE 10