BY GRETCHEN KEISER

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--A memorial Mass for Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin will be offered in the Cathedral of Christ the King Monday, Dec. 2 by three bishops of the Province of Atlanta.

Archbishop John F. Donoghue will be principal celebrant and Bishop David Thompson of Charleston, S.C., the cardinal's native diocese, will be the homilist for the 11 a.m. Mass. Bishop William Curlin of Charlotte, N.C., will concelebrate the Mass. Bishops from Savannah and Raleigh, N.C., are unable to attend.

Retired Dean David B. Collins of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta is among ecumenical clergy expected to attend.

All the members of the Archdiocese of Atlanta are invited to join in this prayer for and remembrance of Cardinal Bernardin, who served in Atlanta from 1966 to 1968 as auxiliary bishop to Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan and lived at the cathedral residence.

Archbishop Donoghue, who attended the funeral Mass for the cardinal Nov. 20 in Chicago, said the "genuineness" of Cardinal Bernardin always affected those who worked with him, bringing forth a conciliatory climate where listening and compromise occurred.

"I am sure that there is a great deal that he accomplished as archbishop of Chicago and Cincinnati, but my own view of him as a bishop was to see how he operated at the bishops' conference. When a storm brewed, he was always able to get up and bring calm to the waters and get people to understand another's point of view. There was a kind of genuineness about him that made you think, well, maybe there is another way of looking at this. He was genuine and honest about the point of view he held."

Cordial to all and "a great conciliator" the late cardinal "was a good mediator in disputes, able to bring about some kind of reconciliation of views at least so people could talk together in charity," the archbishop said.

Ham Smith, music director at the Cathedral when Auxiliary Bishop Bernardin was in residence, observed that the bishop he knew in 1966 never altered when he became first archbishop of Cincinnati and then cardinal-archbishop of Chicago. "He never changed," Smith said. "He was always that very compassionate and open individual. He was always and obviously a priest's priest and a bishop for the people."

Smith recalled that in early Vatican II days he still had an all male choir at the Cathedral, which had been the norm and was still a stolid tradition. Bishop Bernardin "very gently said, ?Now, Ham, let me make a suggestion to you. If you allow women in the choir they sound as well or better than the men and they look much better.'" The choir admitted women shortly after that gentle hint, Smith said.

"He had exquisite taste in music and in art," Smith recalled, and lived with other priests in what was then an old Greek Revival home on Peachtree Road that had been converted into the Cathedral rectory. "We used to go over there after midnight Mass and have a little party," Smith said, calling those days "a Camelot."

Although his intelligence was incisive, enabling him to go to the core of issues, Bishop Bernardin "was an unusual man who blended this tremendous capacity with great compassion and openness," Smith said. "He made everyone feel so fulfilled in talking to him."

Although he left Atlanta in 1968 following the death of Archbishop Hallinan to serve the U.S. bishops conference in Washington, D.C., Cardinal Bernardin stayed in personal contact with archdiocesan priests and laity and is warmly remembered by them.

"He was a great man, a kind, gentle man," said Annabella Jones, who oversaw the housekeeping staff at the Cathedral during those years. She remembers attending the press conference held when he arrived as auxiliary bishop and was entrusted with driving his car and personal papers to Washington after he left to take his next position. "I saw him every day...He depended on me."

Seriously injured in an automobile accident in 1969, her faith was strengthened and encouraged by the cardinal many times over the years, Jones said. "I was wondering why (God) kept me here and inactive and he always told me, ?Don't worry, you're doing exactly what God wants you to do. You are exactly where he wants you to be.' He always admired me for accepting it and said I was setting an example for everyone."

Cardinal Bernardin struck her as a man "greatly concerned about the human race."

"I remember most about him his caring about people and his concern for all people," she said. "That touched me. You couldn't help but see that he had great love in his heart for everyone. You just admired the man because he was a great man, a great man. You can see that from the way everyone is sharing the loss. It is so beautiful the way he accepted his going...I have one more up there interceding for me, one more, yes indeed."

Msgr. Henry Gracz, who served at the Cathedral as a recently ordained priest during those years, remembers arriving at the rectory his first day to find that Auxiliary Bishop Bernardin was at a nearby gas station counseling a teen who had parked there after running away from home. On another notable occasion he intervened successfully on behalf of a family coping with an alcoholic, Msgr. Gracz said. "He did such a strong intervention that the fellow was brought to sobriety after years of alcoholism."

Although he was "sainted" he was "never pretentious, always genuine and candid," Msgr. Gracz said, speaking simply and pastorally even in the presence of those with significant church authority. "He had a great sense of humor."

A number of Atlanta priests and laity attended both his installations as archbishop of Cincinnati and Chicago "just out of love of the man," Msgr. Gracz said. As he accepted greater responsibilities colleagues often wondered how he would keep his focus, but he did. "He kept on insisting that the people were a priority in his life."