The Georgia Bulletin

Wed, Aug 27, 2008


What I Have Seen and Heard - Archbishop Gregory's Weekly Column

Print Issue: March 21, 1963

Student Mission Crusade Projects At St. Pius High

As the March project of the Catholic Student’s Mission Crusade unit of St. Pius X High School, the Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism was presented to Rev. August Guppenberger, chaplain of the Newman Club at North Georgia College.

Father Guppenberger is a Glenmary Missioner and assistant pastor of St. Luke Church in Dahlonega in which parish North Georgia College is located. When the Newman Club was established two years ago, the college had only four Catholics among its 900 students. Due to full time facilities for practicing their religion, eighteen Catholics are now enrolled. In February the first convert was baptized, and few other students have manifested interest in learning about Catholicism. Father Guppenberger has, moreover, made friends with many of the non-Catholic students.

Since the Encyclopedia of Catholicism will become the property of the library of North Georgia College, all the students will have access to it. Presently 99 volumes have been published. Each month two more volumes are scheduled for publication until the 150 volumes are completed. These additional books will be received by Father Guppenberger, who will turn them over to the college librarian.

Through the mission consciousness of Wanda Lee Hunt, St. Pius junior, she suggested to Sister Mary Lucia, R.S.M., C.S.M.C. moderator, that this encyclopedia be donated.

Other projects for this scholastic year have been initiated by students. For the first meeting, November, Marina Griffith, president, procured from the Consolata Fathers a movie depicting their work in Africa. Martina had met a Consolat Missioner at the bi-annual national convention of the C.S.M.C. at Notre Dame University last summer.

Following the movie, Ann Hunter, a junior, suggested the CSMCers send clothes to the missions in Africa. Ann carried her enthusiasm home to her father, who added to the student’s Christmas clothes collection many cartons of boys’ and men’s’ clothing from his company’s warehouse. He also attended to the packing and shipping of the clothes collected.

January’s meeting featured the Glenmary Sisters. Jane Peeler, junior, who has worked with these sisters at Statesboro during summer vacation, brought a movie showing the work of the Glenmary Sisters in the rural areas of North Carolina.

Since study of the missions is an integral part of C.S.M.C. activity, Latin America was the subject of the February meeting. Stories of the Church’s Latin American Missions were presented by panelists Suzanne Chappell, Charlene Cherry, Norene Eidson, and Kathleen Kramer who had gained their information from “The Shield,” the national C.S.M.C. magazine, and also from Latin America; Pattern for the Sixties, a publication of C.S.M.C. in Cincinnati. At a future meeting, it is hoped that Father Marian, O.F.M., who has recently labored in the missions of Latin America, will give an illustrated lecture.

Future plans also include a program to enlighten the high school students of St. Pius X with the missionary work in this archdiocese, so they will be further motivated to pray and sacrifice for the work of the Church near home. Weekly sacrifice of a dime is encouraged by the home room representatives of C.S.M.C.

Two major projects that have become tradition are the Christmas visit to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home, when gifts are given to the patients and carols are sung, and the sponsoring of the drive for the Bishop’s Relief Fund during lent.

Throughout the year, a committee led by Francis Glandord, Junior, has been collecting stamps. Their work is to assert and send cancelled stamps to the Mission Stamp Exchange at Woodstock College. Duck hunting stamps, foreign stamps, and pre-cancelled stamps are especially valuable.