By Marie Mulvenna

U.S. Catholic bishops will take an unprecedented trip to the people when they travel to rural Clarkesville on August 8 for an open-tent hearing on rural and Appalachian concerns. Seeking the basic feelings and response of the people of the area, the bishops will hear local testimony in a "revival tent" atmosphere. The Clarkesville program is one of three days of hearings on the "Family" hosted by Atlanta as part of the Church's Bicentennial Observance program which is keyed to social justice.

The unusual rural session of the program will be held at Tidy Creek Camp Grounds, part of the Chattahoochee National Forest, located seven miles south of Clarkesville. Father Gerald Conroy, pastor of Saint Mark's in Clarkesville, is handling the arrangements for the hearing there and said the day's program would resemble an old-fashioned country church fair.

The Tidy Creek program will include varied booths, country musicians, crafts, picnic lunch and barbecue dinner. The booths surrounding the huge tent will represent church resources for justice from Miami to Pittsburgh. Projects of various groups concerned with Appalachia will be displayed for the American bishops as well as exhibits of special organizations working with the people of the region and area culture groups who will show craft work, quilts, music and art.

The informal setting of the Tidy Creek program will solicit the opinions and suggestions of the people with participants expected from the East Coast states. Father Conroy said the trip to rural Georgia was planned to bring the bishops directly to the people in their own environment. "The Church must be a living Church," he said, adding that it was an excellent opportunity for the panel of bishops to see the area itself and hear directly from the people what they felt and what concerned them most.

"This will be a listening and responding situation, and a healthy one," he noted. The local Hearing Committee said they had set up the rural session as a chance for those who cannot come into Atlanta to have their opportunity to express their feelings.

A spokesman for the local committee said "this is an honest effort to keep the entire feedback process completely open and taking the bishops to where it's at made more sense than trying to discuss rural problems on an isolated academic level here in Atlanta. We want those in rural areas to tell it themselves in their own words."

The Tidy Creek program will include participation by national speakers, local testimony, picnic lunch, barbecue and closing liturgy.