The good news that our Expansion Campaign has gone over the mark of $1,000,000 is tempered by the fact that in 3 to 4 weeks, we must get the rest.

We need another million to meet our needs and aspirations. We need at least $750,000 to meet the minimum goal.

It is great news that some parishes, both in and out of Atlanta, have topped their figures and now seek new goals. It is encouraging that the out-of-Atlanta regions have taken the lead because this shows a truly archdiocesan view on their part.

But it is not good news to find at least one instance where one worker had to visit 20 homes. That is too many. We need more workers. It is not good news that some workers are out without any training at all. That means lower gifts. We need every worker at our meetings.

It’s encouraging to find that even the usual excuses are seldom heard. Those who aren’t giving because of “the changes in the Mass,” or “the Church’s stand on civil rights,” or the color of the pastor’s hair, are indeed a few.

Christ’s Kingdom must be built by us. It has to be built by sacrifice, or else all of us here are the losers. The needs of our homeless children, our college and high school youth exist regardless of the changes in the Church or the nation. They are the test of our Christianity.

Mass By Many - For All

The news that we have an indult for a Mass of Concelebration on the ordination day of four new priests is welcome. Perhaps all the dioceses will have it at their cathedrals on the morning of Holy Thursday. Our cathedral already was the scene of a concelebrated Mass when the Patriarch Peter Paul Meouchi offered Mass with another Maronite bishop in 1962.

The Vatican Council has called this Mass a “symbol of the unity of the priesthood.” What better occasion than an ordination? Priests with the fresh oil of holy orders on them will stand side by side with their brothers, priests with the furrows and lines of priestly experience.

You are all invited to this significant rite on May 8. The richness of the Catholic priesthood will be revealed in its fullness by the Mass of Concelebration.

Collegiality In Atlanta

This month has illustrated how much closer the bishops of the United States (and the world) are to each other. Besides correspondence with Archbishop Grimshaw of England and Bishop Young of Australia, and an exchange of notes to the three new cardinals -- Heenan of England, Conway of Ireland, and Meouchi of Lebanon, I had the following visitors:

Bishop McSorley of the Phillipines who talked of the tiny Catholic population of the islands in his diocese. The land is almost entirely Moslem.

Bishop Albers of Lansing, Michigan, who has always been a generous friend of the archdiocese, and is again!

Bishop Connare of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, who told me of his faculty house at one of his high schools. Five different communities live together.

Bishop Byrne of Wichita Falls, Kansas, who stopped in Atlanta, -- an evening thoroughly enjoyed, -- on his way to St. Joseph’s Home in Washington, Ga. His sister is Sister Leo Christopher, C.S.J., and she was observing her silver anniversary. The children were delighted to meet him.

Bishops have always been welcome in Georgia. Since the Council began, their visits take on a great significance. It is more clear now that each is a successor of the apostles.

Their journeys remind us of the apostles themselves traveling all over the Kingdom of Christ.

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta