By Marie Mulvenna

Father Jacob A. Bollmer, Archdiocesan Coordinator for the Bicentennial Celebration, announced the formation of a local Bicentennial Committee which will hold its first meeting May 2 to consider the national bicentennial theme, "Liberty and Justice For All."

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) recently launched the Church's official participation in the nation's 200th birthday with a committee for the bicentennial which is sponsoring a commemorative program beginning in 1975 and running through 1976. The three-faceted program will be a celebration of American history and a celebration of the American spirit. The program, the NCCB stated, will seek to involve the collective efforts of all Catholics in the United States and help them become more aware and more personally involved in the universal quest for justice.

Major components of the bicentennial program in the Catholic Church will include: discussion-listening program and six regional hearings; religious observances and church history. A national policy setting conference is slated for October 1976 to establish a policy on social justice in response to recommendations from the people. This is expected to make way for a five-year study and action program which will make the policy a reality in the lives of American Catholics.

Those selected for the Atlanta Bicentennial Committee are: Father John Adamski, Father Noel Burtenshaw, Father Gerald Conroy, Sister Frances Ann Cook, Sister Mary Frances Duffy, Penny Edmonds, Michael J. Egan, Father Jerry Hardy, Dotsie Holmes, Anne Jackson, Father Richard Kieran, Father Robert Kinast, Ruth McGuire, Marie Mulvenna, Eleanor Murray and Sister Janet Valente.

Announced goals of the American Catholic bicentennial program are: to arrive at both a Catholic expression of the meaning of liberty and justice for all, and to formulate a policy of social justice to be followed by the American Catholic Church in the years ahead.

Father Bollmer said he was looking forward to the Archdiocese of Atlanta participation in the national program and said he anticipated great input and participation on behalf of Atlanta's Catholic population. "I know our people will wish to give a meaningful contribution to the national program and thereby benefit the Church and all of us." He termed the program a splendid opportunity to hear the grassroots opinions of Catholics throughout the country and set a worthwhile policy in response to the input and cooperative efforts of Catholics.

The May 2 meeting of the Atlanta committee will be one of orientation and planning around the national theme. Father Bollmer, Eleanor Murray and Sister Janet Valente will attend a steering committee of diocesan coordinators slated to be held in Detroit on April 28 and 29.

John Cardinal Dearden, Archbishop of Detroit and chairman of the NCCB Committee for the Bicentennial said the objective of the national Catholic observance was a "collective commitment to a common course of action in the years ahead." He said the scheduled 1976 national conference would produce a major Church statement on the theme, evolved through the long church-wide assessment among the 48.5 million Catholics in the United States. "Perhaps in this way we can bring a more just and free society," he said.