1956-1981, Solid Silver, Monsignor Michael Manning And The Synod

By Msgr. Noel Burtenshaw

1966 was the year of the Synod.

The Church in Atlanta was ten years old. Vatican Council II had ended just two yeas earlier. Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan decreed that the First Synod of Atlanta should take place in North Georgia. The man he chose to lead it was Father Michael Manning who exactly 30 years earlier had left his native Kerry for the red-clay roads of the Georgia missions.

“It was the first Synod to take place anywhere after the Council” remembers now Monsignor Manning. “And it was some year of activity. The archbishop wanted it done well and we gave it our best shot.”

The record shows that 1966 was a year of little rest for every segment of the Atlanta Church. All was preparation until May. The Sisters Congress, a total of 200 religious women, submitted their proposals for the Synod on May 2. The Lay Congress was next; their proposals were made on May 22. Young Adults met in September. October was the month of frantic final preparation and on November 20, the First Synod of Atlanta opened.

“It was a hectic, exciting three days of meetings at the Cathedral of Christ the King,” remembers the now-retired Monsignor Manning. “Discussing the work of the Church and the future of the Church in Atlanta was a thrilling experience for all who participated. It was especially memorable for me since I had been so close to the work for 30 years of my life.”

And so indeed he had. Michael Manning from the glorious “Kingdom of Kerry,” the hauntingly beautiful southwestern peninsula of Ireland, was ordained a priest in All Hallows Missionary College in Dublin in June 1936. He was bound immediately for service in the State of Georgia, then the Diocese of Savannah.

“I had written Bishop Keyes before entering All Hallows,” remembers Monsignor,” and he accepted me for Georgia. He too was from Kerry, a Marist priest and a great Bishop.” As the boat set sail for the New World, rumblings of the Nazi blitz-krieg was already sounding in Europe. The explosion of the Second World War would ensure that the young Father Manning would not return home till all was peaceful once more in 1946.

“My first assignment was in Blessed Sacrament parish in Savannah,” says Msgr. Manning, “and I was to spend many years working in that end of the state.” South Georgia would indeed be home for the new priest and the scorching summer sun proved most different from the cool breezes sweeping from the Atlantic across his native Kerry.

Names of south Georgia towns became most familiar to Father Michael. Savannah, Albany, Augusta – St. Mary’s and St. Patrick’s parishes. “I spent five years in Thomasville during the war,” says the retired priest, “and for the most part I ministered to the Army Air Corps most of the time. They were training in Thomasville, Moultrie and Bainbridge before being shipped out. I really felt like an army chaplain.”

In 1945, it was good-bye South Georgia forever – Father Manning was sent to Gainesville. “It was way upstate for me but I enjoyed the change and came to love St. Michael’s parish. I was there 13 years.”

Father Michael would become “Mr. Catholic Gainesville” in those years, great missionary years for him and for the Church in Georgia. “There were paratroopers training in Toccoa” remembers Monsignor “and Monsignor Moylan asked me to say Mass for them on Sundays. So I would say an 8:00 a.m. Mass there, then hurry back to Gainesville for a 10:30. But even when the troops left, we kept on the Mass, using the American Legion Hall each Sunday. We knew that growth would come, so we bought six acres outside of the town and the land was there when the parish began in 1956.

But there were other missions after Toccoa. An army camp sprang up in Dahlonega, so from his Gainesville base Father Michael began that mission. “There was only one, just one Catholic family residing in the town. The rest were soldiers and also students at the college. I went to Dahlonega for many years and in 1960 the Glenmary Fathers came and started a parish.” For Father Manning from Gainesville it was another mission becoming another parish in Georgia.

The Gainesville years were happy years for Father Michael. “They were great people,” he remembers. “The Cinciola family-Mass was offered first in their home. Bill Hoffman’s folks lived there, of course, and now he is a missionary in South America. The Beltrans came to Gainesville while I was there. Father Joe was in the seminary and Bishop Zeb was about to enter. The Beltrans were a wonderful family. They were wonderful years.”

In 1958, another piece of land was given the missionary, this time over in Decatur. He moved from Gainesville and Sts. Peter and Paul parish was born. Again it was building from scratch and gathering the new family into a praying community. Again it was Father Mike Manning at his best. The school, the church, the hall – it all came together under his watchful eye.

Father Manning would go on to St. Thomas More and to LaGrange before retiring in 1977. Today he lives in St. Jude’s in Sandy Springs.

He recalled the closing of the Synod for us in 1966. “It was December 8 and the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Vagnozzi, came to participate in the Mass. The Bishops and Abbots of the surrounding Dioceses concelebrated and the Decrees of the Synod, called The Church of Christ, were given to the archbishop to transmit to Pope Paul. It was a very stirring and colorful occasion. Most memorable.”

There was just one final chapter to the Synod and to the leadership that Father Michael Manning gave it in that year of 1966. At a dinner for the priests of the archdiocese, Archbishop Hallinan announced that Pope Paul VI, in recognition for service of this priest to the Church in Georgia, granted him the honor of Domestic Prelate in the Papal household and the title, from then on, of Monsignor.

The Diocese of Atlanta was ten years old, Monsignor Michael Manning was 30 years a priest and new chapters in the history of the growing church in Georgia were being written.