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By Chris Starr
It’s such a lively place that it’s hard to imagine
Sacred Heart Church in Milledgeville as a centenarian. Yet next year the church
will celebrate its 100th anniversary.
The historical plaque on the lawn tells the tale. In 1850 Sacred
Heart was formed as a parish. In 1874 the present church structure was built,
and in 1889 the first resident priest arrived.
The present pastor is Father Dennis Dullea, who speaks fondly of
his parishioners and his town. At his invitation the Baldwin County nutrition
program is “in residence” on the second floor of the parish center.
Sacred Heart parishioners often lend their personal assistance to the program,
sometimes by driving someone without transportation to the supermarket or the
dentist.
Parishioners have also raised funds for clothing and food for the
needy. Recently they took 50 children to the Shrine Circus.
Nearby is Georgia College, the alma mater of Flannery
O’Connor, the well-known fiction writer and author of such works as
“Wise Blood” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Miss
O’Connor, who was a member of the parish, died in August of 1964 of lupus,
a disease for which no cure is known.
Her home is not far from the church and is still occupied by her
family.
Flannery O’Connor has sometimes been considered a
“Catholic author.” Her works place strong emphasis on man’s need
for grace.
Another famous personage to reside near Sacred Heart was the first
black Catholic bishop of the country, Bishop Healy, who lived in neighboring
Jones County. He was bishop of Portland, Maine, at the turn of the century.
Georgia College has recently been the scene for discussions about
modern Catholicism. Father Dullea was invited to give a lecture on the subject,
and he recalls happily the great respect and attention he was given by the
majority of the students, although he was heckled by a few for his stand
against birth control. Some of the students later apologized for the hecklers.
Father Dullea has been quite active on the speech-making circuit.
He delivered the baccalaureate address at Eatonton High School and he takes a
regular turn in giving the devotional on local radio. In addition, he spends
every Wednesday at the juvenile rehabilitation center in Milledgeville, talking
with the residents and offering Mass for them.
Milledgeville contains a “town within a town”: Central
State Hospital, which offers a full range of psychiatric and psychological
services to the 6,000 patients.
Of the many physicians who live in Milledgeville and work for the
hospital, 70 of them are Cubans who are here while preparing to take the state
medical exam and enter private practice. At present they are deprived of the
chance of private practice because of their alien status. Of the 70 doctors, 68
are members of the parish.
Cuban citizens who fled their country after the Communist
take-over left behind their homes and belongings, their friends and even family
members. Many families were broken up as a result.
Visiting friends in Milledgeville recently were Lucy and Emy
Fernandez, who live in Miami Beach with their grandparents. The girls, now
teenagers, were separated from their parents when they were still infants.
Their father was a Havana physician who organized a group to fight from
mountain outposts against the Castro regime. He was captured and is now serving
a life sentence in a Cuban prison. His wife, the mother of the girls, remained
in Cuba so that she could visit her husband in prison, a privilege allowed her
only every 28 days. On that 28th day, Lucy and Emy speak to their
mother and father on the telephone – a practice that has gone on for years
now.
For many years Monsignor Joseph Cassidy was chaplain to the
Catholic patients at Central State Hospital. But this past year he retired and
was succeeded by Father William Greene, a Vincentian priest who is working on
his master’s degree in psychology.
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