By Rita McInerney

Bishop Eugene A. Marino celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination as a Josephite priest on June 28, 1987 at the little parish church he has known all his life, Our Mother of Sorrows in Biloxi, Miss.

The anniversary was a grand reunion, according to one of his sisters, Mrs. Clare M. Rhodeman. Family members, their spouses and some of the children came from all over the country.

On March 14, Mrs. Rhodeman had a call from her brother Eugene. He asked her what she was doing on May 5. “Come on down to Atlanta, we’ll have another family reunion,” he told her. She told him she’ll be there.

The little parish church where he celebrated 25 years in the priesthood is a Josephite parish. Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, the order started by mother Katherine Drexel, taught in the school.

The church, Mrs. Rhodeman said, was built in 1914 by their maternal grandfather, Eugene Bradford, and several other men. Now, she said, the congregation is beginning to make plans to celebrate the diamond (75th) anniversary in 1989.

Mrs. Rhodeman, the only one of the Marino children still in Biloxi, lives right next door to the house built in the mid-19th century that has been home to three generations of the Bradford and Marino families. Bishop Marino has six sisters, five still living, and one brother.

Recently Mrs. Rhodeman left the sunshine and budding springtime of Biloxi to travel north to wintry Minneapolis, Minn., for another happy family occasion. Sister M. Eileen Marino, as sister of the Oblate Sisters of Providence came from the motherhouse in Baltimore, Md.

They were contacted by the Georgia Bulletin at the home of another sister, Mrs. Juanita M. Howell where family members gathered to attend the final profession of vows on March 19 by Sister Sharon Howell, C.S.J., the bishop’s niece. The ceremony was on the feast day of St. Joseph, patron of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.

Mrs. Howell said she had always felt her brother “was destined for good things all the days of his life…We’re all so overwhelmed. This is a special blessing the Lord has put on us.”

The three sisters spoke of the Catholic atmosphere that surrounded them as children. Their parents, the late Jesus Maria and Lottie Irene, saw to it that each of their six daughters and two sons attended Our Mother of Sorrows school.

“We had a strong Catholic home with traditional Catholic discipline,” Bishop Marino is quoted as saying. “We used to say the rosary and pray the litany as a family,” Mrs. Howell recalled. “It was helpful to us growing up.”

“We never had a telephone,” she said, adding that when she tried to follow the same prayer practice with her children there were too many distractions, not the least being the telephone. Mrs. Howell, oldest of the Marino sisters and brothers, is a widow. Sister Sharon is the oldest of her four children.

First Friday Mass and Communion, confession every week were all part of the strong faith practiced in the Marino home, Sister Eileen said. Both parents, she said, came from a long Catholic tradition. Sister Eileen’s order is an historic part of black Catholics. Her brother was concelebrant with Archbishop William W. Borders of Baltimore on the 150th anniversary of the congregation in 1979.

“Our Catholicism (in Biloxi) covers both black and white,” Mrs. Rhodeman said, pointing out that the diocese has a first of its own. Bishop Joseph Lawson Howze was named in 1977 as the first black ordinary in the United States and appointed to lead the newly-established diocese of Biloxi by Pope Paul VI.

Mrs. Lillia Patterson, of Kinston, N.C., is nine years older than Eugene. “My job was to take care of him” while their mother was busy around the house. He was always “very special” to her.

She remembers his faithfulness to Catholic tradition even during summer vacation. “Every day he would get on his bike and ride down to the church to ring the Angelus,” she recalled in a telephone conversation with the Georgia Bulletin,

She was visiting a brand new granddaughter and namesake in Raleigh, N.C., when the archbishop-designate telephoned the news to her March 15. “As soon as he called me, I called my children and told them “to mark the date (May 5) real big on your calendar.’”

He married each of her three children and has baptized five of her grandchildren. Now, she is not sure he will be able to find the time to baptize the sixth. But little Lillia Danielle will be the youngest family member traveling to Atlanta for the historic installation ceremony.

Two Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales have close ties with Archbishop-Designate Marino’s Josephite family in Washington, D.C.: Father John C. DeVore, M.S.F.S., parochial vicar at St. Lawrence Church in Lawrenceville, and Father Martin J. Kopchik, parochial vicar at St. Patrick’s Church in Norcross.

“My prayers of hopefulness have turned to prayers of thanksgiving,” Father DeVore said after the appointment was announced March 15.

They lived at the Josephite Seminary for several years from 1982 while studying for the priesthood, Father DeVore at Oblate College and Father Kopchik at Catholic University. The Josephite house was less than a mile from the two campuses.

The archbishop-designate has both an office and his living quarters at the residence and the rooms of the two seminarians were on the same floor as his suite.

“We really looked up to him. He’s a very holy man…and he works so hard. It’s good to see him being rewarded,” Father Kopchik said.

He “really cherished his Josephite tradition and wanted to be his community,” Father Kopchik continued. “He always participated in ceremonies around the residence.”

“He’s good at affirmation…in his talks and dealing with other priests at the house, especially those who have retired from parish work…he was always encouraging them. He just knows people and understands people,” Father DeVore said.

Both priests remarked about his long hours of work each day as an auxiliary bishop of the Washington archdiocese. His region covered most of the district, 30 parishes, and 20 parishes in Prince Georges County in Maryland.

“He got up early every morning,” Father Kopchik said, and would spend time in prayer. Then they would hear him leave to go jogging before he began his long days as a “pastoral presence” in a territory which includes white, black, Hispanics, Orientals; the rich and the powerful, the poor and homeless.

The archbishop-designate came to the archdiocese of Atlanta to ordain Fathers DeVore and Kopchik to the diaconate on Aug. 24, 1985 at St. Lawrenceville Church in Lawrenceville. Several months later, on Jan. 24, 1986, he came back, this time to ordain Father DeVore to the priesthood in St. Patrick’s Church.

When they asked him to officiate at the diaconate ordination, Father DeVore expected him to say he would have to check his schedule. Instead, the priest said, he replied without hesitation “I’d be honored.”

After the ordination Father DeVore said he gave each of them a small lectionary. Inside, Bishop Marino had written a passage from the ordination rite: “Believe what you read, teach what you read, practice what you preach.”

Father Charles McMahon, S.S.J., friend of the archbishop-designate since seminary days, came to the archdiocese for the ordination of Father Kopchik by Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan on May 19, 1986. In a brief telephone interview with the Georgia Bulletin on March 16 he recalled that occasion.

In conversation at the reception, the archbishop asked Father McMahon if he knew Bishop Marino. Then, Archbishop Donnellan remarked what a grand bishop he was, adding that he was in his final years before retirement and felt that Bishop Marino would be a fine successor to him in the archdiocese of Atlanta.

Less than two years later, Father McMahon said, “We’re sending our best…you’re getting an archbishop who will spend time with priests and people.