After recent trips to Gainesville (for a Rotary Club talk) and Toccoa (to visit Father Joseph Drohan and talk to the Episcopalian clergy at their camp.) I was ready to turn southward last weekend and visit the land where the Redemptorists roam, and there seldom is heard a discouraging word. They are all too busy.

I bought gas in Griffin and felt the subtle influence of a preacher. The boy at the station was singing a good roustabout version of the country song, “Suspicious Woman” when I drove up. We discussed the Braves’ troubles with the Pirates, and as I drove away, I was subtly aware that his song had changed. He was humming “Rock of Ages,” I wondered, Was this ecumenical Georgia?

High Noon In Newnan

On the way to Newnan Sunday morning, my guide was Mr. Emory Smith of Griffin. We talked of many things, but mainly of his boy, Warren. He was supposed to attend summer school in order to read better, but he wanted to play ball instead, a normal American boy’s preference.

At the moment he was still going to school, a young Negro boy who had not yet grasped what his father knew. He had to be better because right now he was still in a number two spot. The matter had been settled by Mr. Smith, Sr. -- no classes, no trips to Atlanta to see the Braves. This was progressive Georgia.

The city of Newnan is magnetized toward Atlanta. In ten years, it will likely be another Sandy Springs or Decatur. It is growing fast. Small manufacturers’ plants were popping up like daffodils. It is a city of homes --- and a city of hospital beds. With two large hospitals it must have a bed for resident ratio that Atlanta would envy.

Around Newnan, there is still a touch of rural Georgia. Even that comes in a modern key. “More yield for your field” say the signboards advertising the need of nitrogen for good crops. But the city is basically in the mood for urban or at least suburban growth. It is an outpost now of Metropolitan Georgia - like so many other things - centered in Atlanta.

St. George But No Draggin’

The spirit of expansion and Christian renewal is especially evident in the Catholic Church of St. George. Almost everyone attends the 8 a.m. Mass, but when the energetic pastor, Father Clement Tackney, learned that I was coming at 10 a.m. he went on the air several times Saturday to radio the news. Result: Sunday morning, both the 8 o’clock and 10 o’clock Masses were fully attended. Full of interest in the new stance of Catholicism, generous to a high degree during the Expansion Program of 1965, this band of some 250-300 Catholics had a vision.

It is a vision of what their religion can do to make their homes, neighborhood and city a reflection of God’s love. They have bought a splendid piece of land, and want to build their new St. George on a hill where it will be seen. On the property there is a good home which will serve as a convent when a school of religion begins to be heard.

In both public hospitals, the parishioners have donated a room so that their mercy and compassion will go out to those of other creeds. After Mass, they introduced me to a young convert, a student at the Negro college of Albany State who has just been elected president of the Newman Club.

After Mass, most of the parishioners went out together to Mrs. Winn’s restaurant where both Southerners and converted Yankees ate fried chicken and grits. While there, we said a prayer for the Catholic man whose tragic death in a private plane AHD just been announced. Father Clement, Taft Mansour, and I visited their home and talked to the two fine boys who survive their dad.

Here is growing, worshipping, thinking, suffering, compassionate Catholic Georgia. It seemed to be summed up in the quiet dignity and deep faith of eighty-year-old Mrs. Mansour. She prays for me and I pray for her.

As I drove home, past the stadium, the Pirates were slipping them past the Braves again.

I wonder if any of my young friends at the gas station was still humming “Rock of Ages” or had he gone back to the more earthy rhythms of “Suspicious Woman.”