Cathedral of Christ the King: The History 1937-2012

Cathedral of Christ the King

The History 1937–2012

By Amy Bonesteel Smith

Cathedral of Christ the King The History 1937 – 2012

By Amy Bonesteel Smith

This is the story of one of the most dynamic and beautiful Catholic churches in the country: the Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta, Georgia.

From its early days seventy-five years ago to its current status as a vibrant, urban church in one of the South’s fastest-growing cities, the timeline of the Cathedral mirrors the story of Atlanta.

The landmark church on Peachtree Road in Buckhead has been led by a succession of distinctive leaders, including Bishop Gerald P. O’Hara of Savannah, who oversaw the establishment of the parish, Father Joseph P. Moylan, the church’s first pastor, and continuing with Father Frank McNamee, the current pastor. The church began in 1936 with the construction of a new school and soaring French Gothic-style cathedral, completed in 1937. At the same time, a small but dedicated group of Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart arrived to provide a quality Catholic education for the children of the parish, and the institution they started thrives to this day.

Cathedral of Christ the King: The History 1937-2012 describes the growth of a closely knit society of Atlanta Catholics into a diverse spiritual institution with more than 5,000 families. The book is set against a backdrop of a changing Catholic Church with the passage of the Second Vatican Council and the emergence of Atlanta as the sprawling capital of a New South after World War II. It describes the church’s unlikely origins, its connection to Atlanta neighborhoods, and its outstanding architecture and jewel-toned windows designed by one of the nation’s most famous stained glass artisans. Above all, the book is about the faithful people of Christ the King Church and school—clergy, educators, and parishioners dedicated to uplifting one another and engaged in their community in good times and bad.

2699 Peachtree Road NE Atlanta, Georgia 30305 404-233-2145 www.cathedralofchristtheking.org

Cathedral of Christ the King

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Cathedral of Christ the King

The History 1937 – 2012

By Amy Bonesteel Smith

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Cathedral of Christ the King The History 1937 – 2012 Copyright © 2012 By the Cathedral of Christ the King All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an in information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta, Georgia.

Cathedral of Christ the King 2699 Peachtree Road NE Atlanta, Georgia 30305 404-233-2145 www.cathedralofchristtheking.org Julie Eidson CTK Liaison Rob Levin Editor Renée Peyton Managing Editor Rick Korab Designer Bob Land Copy Editor and Indexer © Creative Sources Photography / Rion Rizzo

The history was developed by Bookhouse Group, Inc. Atlanta, Georgia www.bookhouse.net Printed in the United States

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contents

Foreword XIII Chapter One

A Church Rises in Buckhead 1 Chapter Two

The 1940s and 1950s: The Parish and the Community 23 Chapter Three

New Leadership for Turbulent Times 39 Chapter Four

Growth and Generations 55 Appendix 94 Index 99

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First communicants Christ the King School Mass (May 2010).

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“

Send your light and your fidelity, that they may be my guide; let them

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bringme to your holy mountain, to the place of your dwelling.

— Psalm 43

Dear Friends: The Church in Georgia and throughout the country join with me, to greet the parishioners of the Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta, and express our heartfelt congratulations on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Cathedral’s dedication, which took place on January 18th, 1937.

Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Bishop Gerald P. O’Hara of Savannah had looked north from his own Cathedral Church of St. John the Baptist, and understanding the growth and the growing importance of the Catholic Church in Atlanta, brought into being, a new parish, and new and beautiful structure, a co-cathedral for the recently restructured Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta, and the future Cathedral Church of the present Archdiocese of Atlanta.

The Parish was organized, and the Cathedral built, by the first pastor, Monsignor Joseph Moylan, one of the great leaders of the Catholic Church in Georgia, first in a line of pastors of which the Parish can be justly proud: Monsignor Joseph Cassidy, Monsignor John McDonough, Monsignor John Stapleton, Father Richard Kieran, Monsignor Thomas Kenny, and our present pastor, Father Frank McNamee. Under these pastors, and the countless priests, deacons and religious who assisted them, the light of faith in the Cathedral Parish grew strong, as the people drew close around the altar, to receive God’s Son and enjoy the bounty of His gifts—a holy place and a sacred dwelling, where the praise and glory of God is now offered daily by a community of some 4,500 families.

From within this community have arisen over the years myriad ministries and services, dedicated to serving our Lord’s Gospel and fostering the good of the community - each ministry a conduit by which God’s particular graces may be shared without stint.

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Perhaps the finest and most heartening sign of the grace of God upon the Cathedral Parish is the life of the parish school, where the hopes and dreams of the people, and the truths of our Church are planted and nourished in the blossoming minds of our children. Christ the King Catholic School has been from the beginning a source of joy and life for the Cathedral Parish. Long under the direction of the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, from 1938 until 1988, the school community now follows the guidance of dedicated professional educators, all pledged to helping our children greet life armed with the strength of CatholicChristian doctrine.

With the burgeoning life of our children, united to the ceaseless labor of the parish ministries, and all grounded in the daily worship of God, the Cathedral of Christ the King is well-prepared to meet the challenges of the future, the needs of the community, and the hunger in our society to hear the word and enjoy the blessings of God. And the Archdiocese of Atlanta will continue to look to the Cathedral for the ongoing inspiration and example which its parishioners have provided for three quarters of a century.

With confidence now in the help of the Holy Spirit, and turning our thoughts to the future, we can say with confidence, that when its centennial arrives, the Cathedral of Christ the King will remain a leader for all parishes, a helper for all people in the spirit of Jesus Christ, and an inspiration for the Church throughout Georgia.

We pray that God the Almighty Father will make it so, and ask that our Mother in Faith, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, may enfold in the mantle of her Divine care, all the people of the Cathedral Parish.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

â•ŹWilton D. Gregory, Archbishop of Atlanta

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My Dear Parish Family and Friends of Christ the King, “Introibo ad altare Dei!” were the Latin words spoken by our first pastor, Monsignor Joseph Moylan, at the first Eucharistic Celebration of Christ the King Parish. Translated, these words mean “I will go to the Altar of God.” The faith community of Christ the King now celebrates its Diamond Jubilee, and I find these words as fitting today as in the past. For seventy-five years, this community of believers has gone to the altar of God in our beautiful Cathedral to be nourished by God’s grace, to be healed by God’s forgiveness, and to be fortified by God’s presence and the presence of those around us. This Cathedral parish and school have been, and continue to be, a community of faith and family, with eyes firmly fixed on God and our Catholic faith.

I am privileged to be the pastor of the Cathedral during these historic times for Christ the King. I know that I am blessed to inherit the mighty accomplishments of all our pastors: Monsignor Moylan, Monsignor Cassidy, Monsignor McDonough, Bishop Bernardin, Monsignor Stapleton, Father Kieran, and Monsignor Kenny. But I am doubly blessed because, like those before me, I draw my strength from each of you. I am awestruck by the crowds at Mass, by the hospitality of our families, and by the selfless charity of this community. Our ministries have been created because you have seen a need and are willing to serve in faith and love.

Not only have I been blessed with great leadership in the parish but I have had the privilege of working with Mrs. Peggy Warner, the recently retired principal of Christ the King School. For the past twentythree years, Peggy has been the leader of our Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. During that time, our school has excelled in academics taught in a Christ-centered environment. Peggy’s leadership and her outstanding staff have created a school worthy of the great legacy of the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, the first teachers in our school.

We now take time to reflect with joy on the seventy-five-year history of our parish and school, enjoying the memories elicited by each page of this book. As we venture into the future, we can be renewed by the triumphs and struggles of our historic past, knowing we will succeed because together “we will go to the altar of God.” May God bless you,

Reverend Francis G. McNamee Pastor

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Chapter One

A Church Rises in Buckhead Between East Wesley Way and Peachtree Way, among the modern high-rise buildings and establishments that line Peachtree Road in Atlanta’s Buckhead community stands a twentieth-century masterpiece of French Gothic Revival, the Cathedral of Christ the King. The mother church for nearly one million members of the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta, and parish church for more than 5,200 families, the stately structure is a landmark rooted in faith.

The Cathedral is strikingly pure, devoid of frills and spare in its Gothic lines. Especially prominent are the rich materials of its construction—Italian marble, Indiana limestone, Georgia granite and marble, and slate from the state of Vermont. The towering mass of the exterior contains the soaring austerity of the Cathedral’s vaulted interior, culminating in an altar of rare beauty. Into this sacred space, a total of sixty-five jewel-like stained-glass windows in the French Gothic style pour their light. When the Cathedral of Christ the King was consecrated in 1939, Architectural Record named it the “Most Beautiful Building in Atlanta.”

End of the Line, Beginning of a Cathedral In 1915, the Ku Klux Klan, having been founded at the end of the Civil War and more or less faded away within a decade thereafter, was revived at Stone Mountain, outside of Atlanta. By 1921, the KKK was entering its heyday of social and political power, with a hateful message that was anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, and anti-Catholic. Back then, the intersection of Peachtree Road and East Wesley, at the end of the northern trolley line, was largely undeveloped,

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save for a large, white-columned, Greek revival-style mansion that had been built years earlier in Midtown Atlanta by the E. M. Durant family and subsequently moved to this tract beyond the city limits. Reminiscent of a great antebellum plantation house, the old Durant place appealed to Klan leaders who purchased it with the intention of transforming it into the organization’s “Imperial Palace.”

Beginning in 1921 and throughout the decade, the white supremacy group met mostly in secret in the corner home, but by the 1930s had begun to unravel with the onset of the Great Depression. After the property went into foreclosure, the Church was able to purchase the land from the mortgage holder.

In fact, the entire nation groaned under the weight of the Depression.

Nevertheless, a vigorous Atlanta continued to grow during the difficult era, and residents were eager to build more businesses, homes, and institutions in the Georgia capital, which had a population of 360,000 within the city limits.

Buckhead was in the process of transformation from wooded countryside to affluent suburb. Churches were needed for the growing population, and the foreclosed four-acre tract formerly occupied by the KKK was near new homes and a charming duck pond in a neighborhood developed by the E. Rivers Realty Company.

The Most Reverend Gerald P. O’Hara, Bishop of Savannah, was the spiritual leader of some 20,000 Georgia Catholics during this era, many of them the children or grandchildren of Irish immigrants. The bishop, who often traveled from the coast by train

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C hapter O ne A C hurch R ises for visits to the inland and northern parts of the state, repeatedly expressed his desire to see a great sanctuary built in the expanding residential suburbs of the state’s capital city. Clearly, he saw great potential for the lot at the end of the trolley line. On behalf of the Diocese of Savannah, the Bishop purchased the property for $35,000, and, with this acquisition, on June 15, 1936, the parish of Christ the King was established. It added a fifth parish to Atlanta’s existing four: Immaculate Conception, the pre–Civil War downtown church founded in 1848; Sacred Heart (1880); St. Anthony’s, in the West End (1903); and Our Lady of Lourdes, established for Atlanta’s African American Catholic community in 1912.

The new parish and its church would stand as a testament to love, faith, and acceptance on a site once claimed by bigotry and hate. Indeed, from the front porch of the old Durant mansion, inaugural pastor Father Joseph Emmett Moylan celebrated the first Mass of the new parish on August 15, 1936 (see sidebar, “The First Mass”). The brand-new parish, according to its official registry, numbered just 400 adults and 109 children, including 75 of school age. Inside the mansion, a temporary chapel was set up to accommodate some 220 people. This chapel would be used for Mass until the auditorium of Christ the King School was completed in November 1937.

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Father Joseph Moylan with altar servers celebrating the first Mass.

The First Mass On a sweltering August 15, 1936, Father Joseph Emmett Moylan celebrated the Feast of the Assumption Mass on the front porch of the former Durant family mansion—the present-day site of the Cathedral’s rectory. This ceremony marked the start of worship on what would become the Cathedral grounds. For the next three Sundays, church members gathered for Mass on the front porch, while a section of the first floor was converted into a temporary chapel with a capacity of 220.

Seventy-five years later, when a Mass was held to honor the Cathedral’s seventy-fifth anniversary, on August 15, 2011, several parishioners were present to share their memories of that first Mass. Betty Haverty Smith, born in 1924, was twelve years old at the time. She had grown up listening to discussions about fund-raising and construction, since her father, Clarence Haverty, her grandfather J. J. Haverty, and her aunt May Haverty were all members of the finance and building committees. “I would go over and watch them uncrate the statues,” she recalled. “I remember it being conceived and born.”

Betty’s sister-in-law Carroll Smith Offen, who also attended the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first Mass in 2011, was eleven years old on that steamy August day in 1936.

With her twin sister Joan Smith Zillessen, Carroll was one of the first students to attend the new school at the site, transferring there from the Sacred Heart School. The girls’ mother, Laura Payne Smith, gave the statue of St. Anne to the Cathedral and came to Mass every single day, Carroll recalled.

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First Families: Founders and Funders

Payne, J. J. Haverty,

Many of the new parish’s members were already parishioners of the historic Sacred Heart Church, founded in 1880 and located downtown. Even with their resources divided, the Bernard Kane. families were eager to contribute to the building of a church. Prominent business and civic leaders in the community, among them attorneys Jack Spalding and J. Carroll Payne, businessmen James Joseph “J. J.” Haverty, Bernard J. Kane, and others stepped forward to lead the fund-raising.

Three committees were appointed on September 20, 1936. Business executives George Blohm and Bernard Kane chaired the census committee, which was charged with compiling a list of the congregation and potential pupils for a parish school. J. J.’s son Clarence, a businessman like his father, chaired the finance committee. The building committee was comprised of George Blohm, Joe Brennan, W. H. Carver, G. P. Donnellan, J. J. Haverty, Mary (“May”) Haverty, Bernard J. Kane, Mrs. Alex W. Smith, Hughes Spalding, and Jack Spalding, all of whom were luminaries in the We can’t run this parish on Atlanta business and professional communities.

The economic pressures of the Great Depression meant that the Cuban quarters, Canadian dimes, committees had their work cut out for them. While the new parishand Alabama tax tokens! And, if ioners were eager to build a church, many were also adamant about you must put buttons in the basket, the need for a parochial school. Indeed, Bishop O’Hara had told church members that every parish was obliged to erect a parochial please make them black so I can school “as soon as possible.” The Plenary Councils of Baltimore, the church law for the United States, reinforced this obligation. use them.

— Father Joseph As the church was being planned, the census committee undertook a survey to find out just how many parishioners intended to send their children to a school at the site. They discovered that the new parish had seventy-five students of grammar school age, including twenty-five who currently attended Sacred Heart School, and twenty-one enrolled at the E. Rivers public school. Commenting on this survey in a letter to Hughes Spalding, building committee chair Clarence Haverty touched on the ongoing debate over which facility should be built first: the school or the church. Arguing from a fund-raising standpoint, the Havertys (Clarence, his sister May, and their father J.J.) believed it would be easier to raise money for the church. “I don’t believe we can get enough money to do both [at this time],” Clarence wrote to Hughes Jack Spalding, and

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Spalding on October 29, 1936. Nevertheless, the first financial plan, put together by J. J. Haverty, who pledged $50,000 of his own funds to the project, called for simultaneously building both the church and the school for a total cost of $150,000. While Bishop O’Hara approved this plan, other charter parishioners upgraded the construction and artistry, bringing the estimate up to more than $300,000—a huge sum at the time. Despite an initial funding deficit of about $100,000, the project went ahead at the higher cost; however, it was decided to build the school first. In the end, that structure would be completed on the very day that the cornerstone for the church was blessed and laid.

Fund-raising efforts received a major boost in the form of a bequest from the estate of Mrs. Hannah M. Lynch, who left close to $100,000 in her will for Catholic causes in Georgia in 1936, $25,000 specifically in a trust “for the purpose of being used for the erection of a new Catholic church in Atlanta.” With this bequest in hand, on December 23, 1936, Bishop O’Hara appointed Clarence Haverty, Father Joseph Moylan, Father Thomas Finn (the parish assistant), Hughes Spalding, and Bernard Kane as yet a fourth committee, this one to undertake management of the construction of the school and the church.

Other key founding members, many of whom lived in the neighborhood, are familiar surnames at the cathedral to this day. These include Chapman, Corrigan, Cram, deGolian, Dickey, Hill, Holloway, Hopkins, Lucchese, Mackey, Mitchell, O’Gara, Prater, Rich, Robinson,

Monsignor Moylan and the Cathedral By many accounts, Father Joseph Emmett Moylan was a true “character,” as full of personality as he was devoted to establishing and building the new Cathedral after his appointment in 1936.

With his shock of black hair, wiry frame, and intense stare, Father Moylan could be intimidating. Parishioners recalled him exuding fire from the pulpit, often chastising the miserly as he bounced on his toes and ground his dentures, hair flopping on his brow: “We can’t run this parish on Cuban quarters, Canadian dimes, and Alabama tax tokens! And, if you must put buttons in the basket, please make them black so I can use them.”

Proud of his Irish heritage, Father Moylan was once asked why he had the architects make the Cathedral so “dark and austere.” According to those who knew him, his reply was classic: “So no Italian priest can come in here and change everything around.”

Named Monsignor in 1939, he was thereafter distinguished by his red “Superman” (Monsignor’s) cape, which he wore over his trademark shabby clothing. Colonel Spalding, according to his son Jack, went to great lengths to upgrade the Monsignor’s appearance. Once, Spalding had a housekeeper slip one of the priest’s suits out to have a new one made at Muse’s, a popular Atlanta clothing store. The benefactor was puzzled as to why, after the new suit had been hung in his closet, Monsignor Moylan never wore it. Then Spalding received a call from the store manager, who told him the pastor was in the shop to return the fine new suit. When asked about it later, the Monsignor matter-of-factly told Spalding he had returned the suit and given the money to the poor.

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Architecture and Design

Monsignor Moylan stands proudly in front of the new Co-Cathedral.

With most of the funding in hand or pledged, the committee members and Bishop O’Hara selected Philadelphia-based Henry D. Dagit and Sons as architects for the project. The firm was already well known for its churches, many of them Catholic, and Bishop O’Hara, who had come to Savannah from Philadelphia, was doubtless very familiar with the Dagits’ work, which included some 175 buildings for the Archdiocese of Trenton (New Jersey) as well as the Byzantinestyled Saint Francis de Sales Church in Philadelphia itself.

Bishop O’Hara, Father Moylan, the committee members, and the Dagits agreed on a fashionable and imposing French Gothic style. Father Moylan personally contributed many ideas to the building, including the purely Gothic aesthetic, devoid of frills and superfluous statuary. The Dagits were well prepared to deliver what was wanted, having already built what might be regarded as a smaller-scale version of the Christ the King design two years earlier: the Immaculate Conception Chapel at Rosemont College in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. For the Atlanta project, the firm employed many of the same craftspeople and materials, including the beautiful marbles, limestone, and granite. The commitment to high-quality, authentic material was always strong, as Father Moylan made clear in a letter to J. J. Haverty, in which he took particular note of the architect’s close attention to detail: Mr. Dagit has just returned from Florence where he personally supervised the choice of marbles and the models from which these groups are taken. Likewise he inspected samples of the mosaic work, studying from color and materials the finished product.

You will be interested to know that the lighting system which he devised for the church together with his brothers is precisely the same as has been employed in the restoration of the Rheims Cathedral (France). The Dagits were of the opinion nobody had hit upon this arrangement [other] than themselves.

The great vaulted sanctuary was designed with seating to accommodate seven hundred worshipers, even though the parish consisted of only four hundred at the time.

Father Moylan foresaw the need to serve a growing congregation, and the years have vindicated his vision. Christ the King would become the center of one of the ten largest Cathedral parishes in the country, with a current membership of approximately fifty-two hundred families.

The design of the altar, much admired today, was a special focus of the Dagits.

Conceived as an immense solid block of golden Sienna marble and limestone framing a white marble crucifixion group in bas-relief with a background of golden mosaic, the altar would be, the architects claimed, like nothing else in the United States.

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Cost of Furnishings, 1936 Bishop O’Hara presented the following list to Christ the King parishioners who wanted to contribute items for the new Cathedral. Today’s costs would be many times these amounts, of course, and in many cases the items simply could not be bought at any price.

Marble/Altars • High altar marble work: $5,000 • Mosaic panel for high altar: $2,500 • Two side altars: $2,000 each—marble works on altars $800, mosaic panel $1,200 • Statues for shrine: $750; mosaic Stations of the Cross $300 each • Baptismal font marble work: $500, metal work on font $250 • Communion rail: $2,000 • Marble pulpit: $750 Woodwork • Pews: $6,000 • One sedilla (set of seats built into the wall near the altar): $150 • One Prie Dieu (padded kneeler): $150 • Bishop’s throne: $500 • Altar boy benches: $150 each Metalwork • Tabernacle: main altar $750, side altars $300 • Fourteen nave lamps: $250 each, $3,500 • One sanctuary lamp: $175 • Six high altar candlesticks: $60 each • Crucifix: $150 • Easter candlestick: $350 • Four sanctuary gates: $150 each • Keys for 3 tabernacles: $2 each Windows • Two large rose windows: $1,100 each • Fourteen bays with two lancelet windows and one rose window: $2,200 each bay Other • Organ: $15,000 • Statue of Christ the King over entrance: $1,000

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Willet’s Jewels: The Stained-Glass Windows

One of seven windows located

As important as the design of the altar was that of the great stained-glass windows of Christ the King. These were commissioned from another Philadelphia firm, the studios of Henry Lee Willet, a master famed for his gemlike work in the French Gothic style (see sidebar, “Willet Studios, Stained-Glass Designers”) As with the rest of the building, the beauty of the glass work is founded in the choice of materials. Artistically rendered in hand-blown pot-metal glass and “Norman slabs”—a specialty glass that is no longer manufactured—each piece would vary in thickness to create deeper and lighter color gradations, enhancing the subtle appeal of the work. In all, Willet craftspeople would design and install twenty-two main windows and forty-three smaller ones in the Cathedral, each of which tell stories from the Gospels and the Catholic faith.

J. J. Haverty’s daughter, May, funded some of the windows, including the Chancel

in the outer sacristy.

Willet Studios, Stained-Glass Designers The Philadelphia glass designer William Willet started Willet Studios in 1898. He became well known for the traditional designs he created for buildings by Ralph Adams Cram, an architect specializing in collegiate and ecclesiastical structures. Many of Willet’s designs for Cram were judged to rival stained glass in the great cathedrals of Europe. William’s son Henry Lee took over the studio after his father’s death in 1921. Under his leadership, the company grew from a regional studio to a national one, taking on projects in all the states as well as fourteen foreign countries.

The Willet Studio was one of the first to develop the “sculptured” gold window technique and to experiment with different techniques for laminating stained glass. To this day, the studio remains under family leadership, with E. Crosby Willet—Henry Lee Willet’s son, William Willet’s grandson—becoming president of the company in 1965. In 1977, the studio became a division of the Hauser Art Glass Company and changed its name to Willet Hauser Architectural Glass in 2005.

Working with noted Besides the windows of the Cathedral of Christ the King and Christ the King School, notable examples of Willet Studio work can be seen, in Buckhead, at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip, across the street from Christ the King; at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC; and at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco. After submitting the winning design for the large chancel window in the Cadet’s Chapel at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Willet Studio received commissions to design and fabricate all of the stained-glass windows in that chapel for the next sixty-six years.

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C hapter O ne A C hurch R ises Rose above the main altar. This striking central piece depicts Christ the King surrounded by symbols of his reign: the winged man, signifying wisdom and emblematic of the evangelist Matthew; the lion, embodying nobility and representing Mark; the bull, icon of strength and associated with Luke; and the eagle, a symbol of swiftness and an emblem of John. May’s sister, Katherine Haverty Bellman, and Katherine’s husband, Russell Bellman, also funded several of the windows.

While the stained-glass windows of the baptistery and the St. Joseph’s window in her father’s honor were being designed, May Haverty formed a close personal friendship with the artist, Henry Willet. Their correspondence offers a unique view into the creation of the windows. Clearly, May saw her role as more than financial.

She freely discussed the subjects depicted in the windows and the details of their design, and she was not afraid to disagree with some of the artist’s proposed choices. “We all like the Flight into Egypt,” she wrote.

“It has fine emotion, action and is really a lovely gem. . . . I would rather have the Flight a large design and the Presentation and Visitation smaller medallions.”

The Willet studio was also contracted to design and build the nine stained-glass windows in the Christ the King School chapel, the d’Youville Chapel of the Grey Nuns.

The depictions of Mary, female saints, children, and works of charity and faith by the Grey Nuns, all rendered in vivid primary colors, are now admired as some of the most striking and dramatic windows on the property.

The stained-glass windows of Christ the King, both Cathedral and School, would be hailed as “jewels.” Fabrication and installation would not be completed until 1952, and in 1956, Bishop O’Hara wrote to Willet with heartfelt admiration: In my travels in many parts of the world I have often had reason to admire the artistry of the makers of stained glass and have seen many examples of their work. I venture to say that the windows that you produce are equal to the best that I have ever seen. This observation is made without the slightest desire to flatter you but merely to mention a firm conviction of my own. I take this occasion to compliment you on your unparalleled knowledge of Catholic symbolism.

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The Chancel Rose Window above the main altar.

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A Parish Church Becomes a Cathedral

(Above) The commemorative spade used to break ground for the building of the church. (Below) January 19, 1939, telegram from the Vatican blessing the new Cathedral.

On April 11, 1937, a year after the establishment of the new parish, and with plans for Christ the King completed, the Vatican approved Bishop O’Hara’s petition to change the name of the Diocese of Savannah to the Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta. This elevated the new church to Co-Cathedral status, and Atlanta became Savannah’s equal in the eyes of the Church. On April 12, the Atlanta Constitution reported: “Among ‘canonical effects’ of the decree listed in the Bishop’s announcement are that the Church of Christ the King, to be built in Atlanta, will be raised to the dignity of a Co-Cathedral honoris causa.”

(Although familiarly called a “Cathedral,” Christ the King would officially remain a “Co-Cathedral” until the Diocese of Atlanta was established independently of Savannah on July 2, 1956.)

Bishop O’Hara explained that the change would not diminish the prestige of Savannah as a Cathedral city, but that Savannah would be “merely sharing the honor, which it has always enjoyed, with Atlanta, the capital of the state and sister city.” He formally announced the decree on May 9, 1937, at Immaculate Conception Church in downtown Atlanta. After receiving bids for construction, he turned to the founding parishioners to move quickly ahead in raising the needed building funds. They did, and the cornerstone for the new church was blessed and laid on October 31, 1937, the Feast of Christ the King in the Catholic Church calendar.

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Christ the King School under construction, 1937.

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That date, October 31, 1937, was doubly significant. Even as the Cathedral cornerstone was blessed and laid, the original building of Christ the King School was officially completed. Ground for it had been broken just a little over six months earlier, on April 18, 1937, and, during construction, which was supervised by parishioner George P. Donnellan, students attended classes in the rectory. They moved into the new school building on November 29, 1937.

Before beginning the construction of the school, architect Henry D. Dagit Jr. carefully explained the rationale behind the design of a building destined to shelter generations of Catholic school students, teachers, and staff: “Considerable care was exercised in the selection of materials for both buildings so that they would present not only a good appearance but also serve for years to come with a minimum of maintenance and eliminate costly recurring repairs. With this in mind, Indiana limestone was selected for the walls with cut limestone trim around the doors and windows.”

Dagit designed the school in particular to serve its young students, choosing materials that were especially durable and safe (“stair halls and corridor floors are finished with terrazzo which is easy to keep clean and always looks nice because of its lustrous color and smooth surface,” he noted) yet in perfect aesthetic harmony with the Cathedral.

Like that structure, the school featured a roof of Vermont slate. “Such a building,” Dagit summed up, “surrounded by the towering trees on the site, adds greatly to the charm and beauty of the community. It will mellow gracefully with age, always standing

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with age, always standing and serving the high and noble purpose to which it has been

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CKS eighth grade class of 1937-1938.

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and serving the high and noble purpose to which it has been erected.”

The School Crest Christ the King School chose blue and gold for its colors. In the traditional iconography of the Catholic Church, the color blue represents Mary, the Queen of Heaven, and gold, because of its brilliance and incorruptibility, evokes the kingship of God. An early logo developed for use at the school and the Cathedral showed Christ’s crown placed under a cross.

This design would eventually evolve into the current school crest, which incorporates the crown imagery at the top of the cross while including four quadrants, all surrounded by leaves of the oak, the trees Dagit mentioned, which surround the school. The upper left quadrant depicts the rose window above the main altar of the Cathedral, while the upper right fleur-de-lis represents the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, who staffed the school from 1937 to 1989.

The lower left quadrant features Roary the Lion, the school mascot. The lower right section, a textbook with a cross on the cover, emphasizes the school’s academic strengths. The banner at the base commemorates the institution’s 12

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founding year, 1937.

Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart When Marguerite d’Youville and three companions vowed to care for the poor in Montreal on a December day in 1737, the widow and mother became the founder of an organization that would expand into six different orders, including the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, the only U.S. congregation of Grey Nuns.

One of the order’s ministries was education, and Bishop O’Hara invited five Grey Nuns based in the Northeast—Sister Mary Clement Groat, Sister Mary Martha McKenna, Sister Rosella Welch, Sister Mary Evangeline O’Donoghue, and Sister Marie Christine Fitzgerald—to move south to Atlanta to help establish Christ the King School. The sisters began teaching all classes, grades one through eight, on September 13, 1937.

More Grey Nuns would come to the Atlanta area to teach at other Catholic schools and to serve in ministries at St. Joseph’s Hospital, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and other archdiocese-related services. A total of 179 Grey Nuns would live and serve in

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Parishioner and CKS alum Genny Lucchese Kelly with Grey Nuns at a school picnic in the 1940s.

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Colonel Jack Spalding’s funeral Mass was the first rite held in the new church on December 12, 1938.

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C hapter O ne A C hurch R ises the Atlanta community before the last two left the city to retire to the Motherhouse in Yardley, Pennsylvania, in 2010.

Dedication Day, January 18, 1939

By December 1938, with construction of both the school and the Cathedral finally completed, a dedication committee chaired by parishioner Estes Doremus, a prominent Atlanta attorney, was called to implement plans that had been in the works during the past two years, plans for a dedication ceremony, a gala luncheon, and other events to inaugurate the Cathedral.

The ceremony took place on Wednesday, January 18, 1939, the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter in Rome. According to the Sunday American, at this event was the “greatest assemblage of Catholic dignitaries ever gathered in Atlanta.” Officiating was His Eminence, Dennis Cardinal Dougherty (who was also archbishop of Philadelphia) and Bishop Gerald O’Hara. Seating was by reserved ticket only, as was attendance at the luncheon reception that followed at the Piedmont Driving Club. Sadly, before the dedication ceremony could take place, one of the Cathedral’s founders, Colonel Jack Spalding, passed away at age eighty-two. His funeral service, on December 12, 1938, was the first rite conducted in the new church, approved before the Cathedral’s dedication through a special dispensation.

Two days prior to the dedication, Bishop O’Hara consecrated the three altars in the new church.

Additional preparations included the installation of temporary altars at the Biltmore and Ansley hotels, so that visiting clergy—twenty-one Archbishops and 110 Bishops from across the country—could celebrate Mass at least once a day during their visit to Atlanta, in compliance with Catholic ritual. Bishop O’Hara told the Atlanta Constitution that special acolytes were selected for these hotel Masses, which were closed to the public.

On January 17, a grand welcome of close to three thousand people greeted Cardinal Dougherty at the Terminal train station downtown, where Mayor

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A “Card of Admission” ticket for the dedication.

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Atlanta Constitution photograph of Cardinal Dougherty, Bishop O’Hara, and KKK Leader, Dr. Hiram Evans.

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William B. Hartsfield and a group of city and church leaders and Catholic schoolchildren had gathered. Alongside the train from Philadelphia, the Marist College cadet corps stood at attention as the Cardinal stepped off.

Governor E. D. Rivers of Georgia, as well as priests, prelates, and other dignitaries were in attendance at the ceremony the next day. Among these was Dr. Hiram Wesley Evans, an Atlanta dentist who had become Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in 1921, the year in which the Klan purchased the property on which the Cathedral and school now stood. Evans would step down as Imperial Wizard in June 1939, but he still held that office when he attended the dedication. He had, however, already publicly renounced the Klan’s anti-Catholic platform, proclaimed a “new era of religious tolerance,” and even spoke glowingly of the service that day. Ralph McGill, the new executive editor of the Atlanta Constitution, noted in the January 19, 1939, issue of his newspaper the significance of Evans’s attendance: “And here was the magnificent new Catholic Co-Cathedral on grounds once owned by the Ku Klux Klan. And at the door, a smile on his round, genial face, the wind ruffling his gray hair, was Imperial Wizard Hiram Wesley Evans, of the Ku Klux Klan. With him was his family, all smiling pleasantly.” In a letter thanking a Catholic dignitary, Bishop O’Hara also noted the significance of Evans’s inclusion: “The former Imperial Wizard of the KKK, who in former years was the arch enemy of the Church in the U.S., and conducted a villainous campaign throughout the country against the Church, asked for, and received, an invitation to attend the ceremony!” Clearly, the church leader relished the opportunity to show the community that the new Cathedral would always stand for acceptance, redemption, and forgiveness.

As the day drew to a close, Father Moylan, Bishop O’Hara, and the founding parishioners so instrumental in the establishment of the Cathedral were no doubt full of pride and awe at the task they had accomplished in such a relatively short time. Perhaps none articulated this better than architect Henry D. Dagit Jr., in the notes he composed for the ceremony’s program: Here, then, is a truly noble work of art, a genuine Cathedral. Its plan, design, construction and materials are frankly what they appear to be. There is no attempt to make them otherwise. Each line, molding and proportion has been studied and re-studied to achieve a massive simplicity with authentic and beautiful detail to add interest, charm and scale to its dignified and monumental proportions. Color has been introduced to give warmth, tone and contrast between the materials employed and this color is a natural, integral part of the materials itself. This can be seen in the stone walls, the marble altars, stained glass, and wrought iron. There is a permanence which attempts to symbolize the everlasting qualities of God in whose honor and glory this House of Worship has been erected. CTK

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Chapter Two

The 1940s and 1950s:

The Parish and the Community Late in the 1930s, Paul D. Williams, a prominent Catholic layman, native of Richmond, Virginia, envisioned an organization of southern Catholics who would commit themselves to social action aimed at discovering the causes of “poverty and powerlessness” and to work toward their remedies. In 1939, Williams enlisted the aid of Monsignor T. James McNamara, of Savannah, and Bishop Gerald P. O’Hara to ensure that a Southern program was included in the 1939 National Catholic Social Action Congress. Bishop O’Hara addressed Congress attendees, declaring, “You have heard President Roosevelt say the South is the country’s No. 1 economic problem. Let me say that the South is the country’s No. 1 religious opportunity.” With this call to arms, the Southern Catholic Conference for Social Action was born.

Social Action and the Cathedral The first Southern Catholic Conference for Social Action was held in Atlanta in April 1940, with the Cathedral playing a central role by hosting several events, including, on the 15th, an inaugural Solemn Pontifical Mass. Keynote speaker Monsignor McNamara told the assembled group, “We are here to face facts and not to make patriotic utterances. The South is supernatural. Its people still

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Monsignor Moylan with 1941 first communicants.

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believe in God. It is a fertile field to translate into action the Christian social philosophy.”

Bishop O’Hara also stressed the positive. “‘Bible Belt’ is a term of honor, not derision,” he reminded the assembly.

The convention would be the first of ten, held from 1940 to 1953. These events were notable for confronting problems and opening dialogue in six areas: education, youth, lay apostolate, rural life, industrial relations, and race relations. According to Catholic University’s summary of these gatherings, the two committees responsible for race relations and industrial relations were the most active, “cementing the Committee’s liberal position against segregation and for the rights of organized labor.” All ten conventions were attended by blacks and whites alike, even though integrated meetings were illegal in some parts of the South. From 1940 through 1953, the Southern Catholic Conference aided labor organizations, mediated strikes, and sponsored a regional summer school, among other programs.

The Cathedral and World War II As its participation in the Catholic Conferences attested, while the Cathedral might have been seated among the stately oaks of prosperous, leafy Buckhead, the church and its members did not cut themselves off from the problems of the region, the nation, and the world. When Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, started World War II in Europe, additional prayer services were conducted at Christ the King, as parishioners expressed their hopes for the deliverance of Europe and for the safety those serving, including their sons, in what was as yet the peacetime American military.

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That very September, Father Moylan would accompany Bishop O’Hara on a trip to Italy and Spain. On his return, he told the Atlanta Constitution that he hoped our country could “pray and stay out” of this latest war. “If we would only remember the lesson of 1917 and 1918, no other course would be possible. We received nothing except a cordial hatred for our help then, and there is no reason to believe we would get anything else this time.” For his part, Bishop O’Hara described his timely meeting with newly elected Pope Pius XII in Rome. He told the reporter that the Pontiff “looked rather sad, but maintains his customary optimism . . . I saw him before war was declared, and his holiness told me at the time that he would continue every possible effort to bring about peace in the world.”

The isolationist sentiments both Father Moylan and his Bishop expressed were hardly peculiar to the Catholic Church. In 1939, 1940, and until December 7, 1941, they were the feelings of most Americans, especially those old enough to remember 1917 and the nation’s entry into the “Great War.” After the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, the Cathedral, its priests, and its parishioners added prayers for victory to their appeals for peace, and a survey of Cathedral parishioners conducted after the war revealed that a total of 164 men and women had served in the armed forces during the world conflict. Five of these—John C. Grabbe III, Thomas M. Healy Jr., John B. Kane, Joseph N. Kane, and James Parks—gave their lives.

The Parishioners in the Window Above the fifth Station of the Cross depicted on one of the windows of the left-hand (Peachtree Road) side of the Cathedral, we see a priest saying Mass before several young servicemen. Two more soldiers stand behind them as altar servers. These two young men were members of one of the founding families of the parish, their lives tragically cut short by World War II. Bernard and Maree Kane’s home was across the road from the church on Peachtree, where the present-day Park Place condominiums are located.

Bernard was an active member of the finance committee that was responsible for building the church and school.

The family had five sons—one died in childhood—and two daughters. All four surviving Kane sons, graduates of Marist School, served in the United States military during World War II, three in the army and one in the navy. John was killed in Germany on August 8, 1944, at age twenty-four, and Joseph died in battle on February 8, 1945, also in Germany, at age twenty-two. A third son, Richard, escaped twice from a German POW camp. He survived to attend the Silver Star ceremonies for his brothers at the Cathedral in August 1945. A fourth son, U.S. Navy aviator Lt. Vincent Kane, was stationed at the Naval Air Corps base in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania.

The window representation is a testament not only to the selfless service of these military heroes, but also to a family’s devotion to the Cathedral of Christ the King.

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Bishop O’Hara Visits: One Student’s Remembrance From parishioner Richard Reynolds III: I well remember Bishop O’Hara’s 1945 Atlanta visit. I was then a fifth grade student at Sacred Heart. All the students in the Catholic schools assembled at Immaculate Conception at 9:30 Wednesday morning (April 11th), where Bishop O’Hara offered a Solemn High Pontifical Mass. The different parochial schools wore ribbons showing their respective school colors. Marist College’s Catholic students were there as well, in their regular blue-gray military uniforms.

The children assembled into their various school groups and classes.

We Sacred Heart fifth-graders lined up under the direction of our teacher, Sister Frances Theresa of the Sisters of St. Joseph Carondelet. The church was jammed with kids. Christ the King altar boys served the Mass—natural, since they served the Co-Cathedral and the Bishop when he was there.

The school children had contributed to purchase a gift for the Bishop.

It was either a crozier (the familiar bishop’s staff symbolizing his shepherding the faithful) or a mitre (a bishop’s pointed ceremonial hat). I think it was the latter. At the appropriate time, Bishop O’Hara climbed into Immaculate Conception’s ornate old pulpit to give his blessing and his thanks. He was all smiles and announced that he was so pleased by the children’s generosity that tomorrow would be a holiday from school. At that, students from all the schools broke into a frenzy of cheering and applause. When it subsided, he said, “Not one but two.” The old church erupted again into cheering. Remember, this was at a time when one honored the presence of the Blessed Sacrament with reverent silence. One spoke to another inside the church only when absolutely necessary and then in the most hushed tone possible.

When Mass was over, we fifth-graders were met with a terrible and frightening scowl on the face of our teacher, Sister Frances Theresa. We went back to our classroom, and there she laid down the law, telling us she had never seen such a horrid and sinful outburst in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and that each of us should be ashamed of our conduct. Then she said, “The Bishop may have given you two holidays, but you are going to spend them working.” With that she assigned each of us page after page of long division problems to be turned in after the holiday. To make matters worse, the weather was just beautiful, irresistible for romping and playing.

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Bishop O’Hara’s Silver Jubilee On April 10, 1945, shortly before war in the European theater came to a triumphant end, Bishop O’Hara’s quarter-century as a priest was commemorated with a Silver Jubilee celebration. The occasion began with a Mass of Thanksgiving at the Cathedral, followed by a luncheon at the Ansley Hotel for visiting and area clergy. Additional receptions were held throughout the day.

Ordained in 1920 in Rome, Bishop Gerald Patrick O’Hara had been a priest for only nine years when, in 1929, Pope Pius XI named him titular Bishop of Heliopolis, Syria, and auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia. He was just thirty-four. Before being named Bishop of the Savannah diocese in 1936, Bishop O’Hara served as secretary to His Eminence, Dennis Cardinal Dougherty, Archbishop of Philadelphia. Among his intellectual achievements was a law degree, which had been awarded by the Pontifical Roman Seminary, at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome.

When he arrived in Savannah, Bishop O’Hara was described in a newspaper profile as “distinguished in bearing, in intellect and in spirit, in piety and faith.” Philadelphian by birth, he would nevertheless prove himself a tireless champion of the South.

As he told the Savannah reporter who interviewed him, he found southern people to be “warm-hearted and generous.” Throughout his career, he was regarded as a skilled diplomat, who was popular not only with Catholics but with people of all faiths.

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Leadership Changes, Parish Development, and Parish Life

Bernard Kane, Hughes Spalding, and Clarence Haverty entering the Cathedral to receive papal honors in 1949.

Founding pastor Joseph E. Moylan, who had been elevated to Monsignor in 1939, was transferred from the Cathedral in 1945 to become vicar general and chancellor of the Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta. In 1946, Bishop O’Hara was appointed by the Vatican as an official to Romania, with special duties for the persecuted Church in that Iron Curtain country. He served in this capacity until July 1950, when he was elevated to Archbishop of Savannah-Atlanta. Monsignor Joseph G. Cassidy replaced Monsignor Moylan, becoming the second pastor of the Cathedral. Although he was a native of Brooklyn, New York, Monsignor Cassidy came to Atlanta well known to Catholics in rural Georgia, having ministered in country counties all over the state as a one-man traveling “trailer” parish-on-wheels.

The new Monsignor introduced into the life of the Cathedral a varied host of activities and programs, including Bible study clubs, carnivals, and fund-raisers dubbed “Heavenly Parties.” While these kept all church members engaged with social events, the Vatican itself extended special recognition to Clarence Haverty and Hughes Spalding, who were appointed supernumerary privy chamberlains of the Sword and the Cape—in essence, honorary members of the papal court. For his service to the Catholic Church, Bernard Kane received from the Pontiff the honor of a knighthood in the Pontifical Equestrian Order of Saint Sylvester Pope and Martyr.

Not surprisingly, given his earlier ministry in rural Georgia, Monsignor Cassidy was tireless in his outreach to the larger Atlanta community. In 1947, he was actively

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involved on the Citizen’s Crime Prevention panel with Atlanta solicitor general Paul Webb, and he also hosted a Tuesday morning radio show, Cathedral Hour, on WATL. The Monsignor worked closely with the Catholic Laymen Association, an Augusta-based group that had been founded in 1915 to combat anti-Catholic prejudice.

Founding Cathedral parishioners Bernard Kane and May Haverty served as officers of that organization throughout the early 1940s.

While the ongoing Korean War and the electoral contest between Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower and Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson dominated national headlines in 1952, Atlanta quietly continued to grow, tripling its incorporated area that year to 118 square miles. This period of rapid civic development is also remembered as the “glory years” for the Cathedral. It was a time of lively popular engagement that included annual Christ the King School carnivals, marked by wooden booths full of games and treats dotting the Cathedral’s grounds after school. Cakewalks, silhouette drawing, pony rides, and face painting were just some of the favorite attractions of these extraordinarily successful fund-raisers, which did much to defray the cost of construction of the convent and a school addition.

During this time as well, the Cathedral Women’s Club, under the direction of Baba Bull, was organized into the neighborhood “circle” format, which still exists today, and the Catholic Youth Organization (today known as the Catholic Youth Metro League) offered young people the opportunity to participate in a variety of sports and other activities.

Windows Completed As the atmosphere of Christ the King Cathedral and School was increasingly enlivened by the activities and initiatives of the postwar years, so the final work of building moved ahead as well. World War II had delayed completion of the last stained-glass windows in the Cathedral. Throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s, Willet Studios continued to craft and install them, amid ongoing contributions and fund-raising. Correspondence with Henry Lee Willet in May 1945 refers to scheduling matters and to payment of $7,000 for several stained-glass sections and for the second nave aisle window on the Peachtree Road side of the Cathedral. More windows were gradually added, with the help of donations from Katherine Haverty Bellman, who joined her gift to those of siblings May and Clarence Haverty and grandfather J. J.

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The bottom portion of the window above the sixth Station of the Cross on the Peachtree Road side, this work features Bishop O’Hara’s coat of arms.

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Haverty, and also with funding generated by community raffles and other events. Other sponsors included the Kane family, who funded a window on the Peachtree Road side, and Mrs. Alex Smith, who sponsored a window above the choir loft. In 1950, Mrs. Lawrence McEvoy paid for another window, and the final window, also on the Peachtree Road side—“Mass said at the home of Patrick Lynch”—was completed and installed in 1952.

With the addition of the last of the jewel-toned windows, the building took on an increasingly spiritual quality. Monsignor Cassidy recalled his view from the pulpit soon after the final stained-glass window replaced panes of clear glass. “I felt like I was standing in an atmosphere of blueness. . . . It was the first time I realized the real depth of colors, the blues in particular,” he told the Atlanta Journal. “I don’t think you can understand the beauty of it except on an overcast day when all the colors of the windows flash forth.”

A Convent Built, the School Expanded

Convent addition (presentday d’Youville Center) while under construction in 1954.

In 1954 Archbishop O’Hara dedicated a three-story, $500,000 convent for the Grey Nuns and an addition to Christ the King School. Today, the convent serves as the d’Youville Center, housing the school administrative offices and the chapel. The chapel features a set of Willet-crafted stained-glass windows that are smaller in scale than those of the Cathedral and, with their vivid use of primary colors, especially appropriate to children. As for the school expansion, the need for new classrooms had become pressing, since enrollment had increased to 643 students.

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This eleventh grade class would become the first to graduate from Christ the King High School in 1943.

Christ the King High School In 1943, the original class of just eight CKS High School students—who had persuaded Father Moylan to add a new grade each year, thereby creating the all-girl high school— became the first to graduate. Carroll Smith Offen, who was in that first graduating class with her twin sister, Joan, remembers the small classes held in the rectory and the basement of the main Cathedral building, which then had an open stream and trees behind it.

The first principal, Sister Mary Clement, was “a strong, kind woman,” recalls Carroll, who also praised her physics and geometry teacher, Sister Josephine, a convert to Catholicism, having been born into a Jewish family. Also occupying a prominent place in Carroll’s heart and memory is Sister Mary Regina, who taught the girls English, French, and music.

For Carroll Offen, one school day in particular stands out. It was when, abruptly summoned to the choir loft, the students were called to witness the annual group wedding ceremony of Irish Gypsies (sometimes called “Travelers”), performed by Monsignor Moylan. “I can still see the swarthy, plump, tired-looking women in wrinkled, gaudy finery and rough men in tight suits and yellow pointy-toed shoes,” she recalled. “They had only one wedding and one funeral a year for all who made either final step within the tribe. Monsignor Moylan had known them when he’d been pastor at Immaculate Conception before coming to the Cathedral. He obviously thought it educational for us, and it was.”

By 1958, with the opening of St. Pius X Catholic High School by the Diocese of Atlanta, CKS High School was closed.

Twenty-nine young women were the last to graduate, and from then on the extra classrooms would be used as art and music

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Sister Mary Gabriel Riley, principal, 1942–1943.

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(Left to right) Archbishop Amleto G. Cicognani, Bishop Francis Hyland, Bishop Gerald O’Hara.

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— Most Reverend Francis E. Hyland, D.D., J.C.D.

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rooms for the elementary school.

Atlanta Becomes a Separate Diocese On July 2, 1956, the Diocese of Atlanta was established separately from that of Savannah, and the Most Reverend Francis E. Hyland, D.D., J.C.D., was appointed its first Bishop.

His installation was celebrated on November 8, 1956, officiated by Archbishop Amleto G. Cicognani, apostolic delegate to the United States.

Fifty-five-year-old Bishop Hyland, like Bishop O’Hara a native of Philadelphia, had served as an auxiliary bishop of Savannah since 1949. He entered a community of Atlanta Catholics that was rapidly growing in number; there were 23,659 in the diocese by 1957, according to Archdiocese of Atlanta records. A number of new mission churches were established during Bishop Hyland’s five-year tenure, and many converts were also welcomed into the faith. Records show that Bishop Hyland confirmed 208 adults at the Cathedral on June 10, 1957, alone. Earlier that year, a total of 187 adults were confirmed at other parish churches. The Cathedral’s membership continued to grow, with 146 new adult members confirmed in 1958 and 278 the next year.

Bishop Hyland quickly distinguished himself by speaking out in 1957 against Georgia Senate Bill 117, which would have permitted forced sterilization of individuals “who would be likely to have a tendency to serious physical, mental or nervous disease or deficiency.” He spoke strongly against the eugenics bill on moral grounds, warning that “We cannot and must not attempt to breed children as we breed cattle.” Many gave him the lion’s share of credit for the final defeat of the controversial bill. It was a prelude

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C hapter O ne A C hurch R ises to the Bishop’s landmark stand in the desegregation controversy about to come. CTK

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Chapter Three

New Leadership for Turbulent Times

Like other southern cities,

Atlanta was swept up in the civil rights movement that was at its height in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. Bishop Francis E. Hyland was in the forefront of local civil rights initiatives, speaking out forcefully against segregation and helping to persuade the city to keep its public schools open in defiance of Georgia’s antidesegregation laws. The state’s bishops circulated a joint pastoral letter among the Savannah, Charleston, and Atlanta dioceses to reaffirm that Georgia’s Catholic schools would remain open to students of all faiths and races.

The Hyland Center Christ the King parishioners answered a call for contributions to the “Special Project of 1961,” construction of a much-needed building to house a gymnasium and meeting rooms for CTK School.

An analysis of the cost—$350,000, of which $150,000 would be due at the commencement of the funding campaign—suggested a logical fund raising strategy. Each of the Cathedral’s approximately fifteen hundred adult parishioners would be asked to contribute $100. Financial independence was another goal of this building campaign. As committee member George Gunning stated, “No longer will Cathedral parish members have to ask friends, Catholic and non-Catholic, to help the Cathedral with its financial obligations. From now on the Cathedral will stand on its own feet!”

Other key fund raisers included project chair Dr. Robert McMartin, cochairs Herbert Farnsworth and R. Eugene Steinhauer, and treasurer Robert E. Kennedy.

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The Metropolitan Province Is Established

Most Reverend Paul J. Hallinan, D.D.

With Georgia’s Catholic schools set on a progressive course of social justice and the Hyland Center project under way, another dramatic transformation came early in 1962. On February 21, the apostolic delegate in Washington, DC, announced that a metropolitan province had been formed of the Dioceses of Raleigh, Charleston, Savannah, St. Augustine, and Miami, with Atlanta named as its center. Atlanta was elevated to an Archdiocese, and Bishop Paul J. Hallinan of Charleston was named its first Archbishop. Bishop Hyland’s home on Brookhaven Drive was sold, and a new home was bought for the Archbishop at 108 West Wesley Road, within walking distance of the Cathedral.

On March 28, 1962, the Most Reverend Paul J. Hallinan, D.D., landed in Atlanta. He was transported from the airport to the Cathedral in a motorcade, complete with Atlanta Police Department escort. His installation as Archbishop of Atlanta took place the next day at the Cathedral, with all the ceremonial pomp and celebration to be expected of such an occasion. His sermon, which was reprinted in the April 14, 1963 Georgia Bulletin, recalled the history of the Catholic Church in Georgia and the Carolinas. The Archbishop mentioned the “special challenge” of Atlanta’s environment. “Urban and suburban parishes have their own problems,” he noted, “crowded schools, capacity congregations, changing neighborhoods.” He spoke as well of race and social justice, declaring that, as “St. Paul had his daily pressing anxiety in the care of the churches, so does the Church today face the daily task of putting into practical effort her clear-cut teaching on racial justice. Neither in the North nor in the South can she bear the ugly blemish of prejudice and fear.” It was a sermon that gave all a glimpse of the strength Catholics would see from Archbishop Hallinan as he would lead the new Archdiocese through the turbulent 1960s. On June 10, 1962, he built upon the work Bishop Hyland had begun by formally declaring that desegregation would be implemented in all Atlanta Catholic schools.

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The Orly Tragedy A high point for the Archdiocese and the Atlanta community, the June 10 declaration came just a week after one of the greatest losses the Cathedral and the city have ever suffered. On Sunday, June 3, 1962, 130 passengers and flight crew of Air France Flight 007 were killed in a fire when the Boeing 707 was forced to abort takeoff after a catastrophic mechanical failure. (Two Air France flight attendants, seated in the rear of the aircraft, were the only survivors.) The victims included 106 prominent Atlanta patrons of the arts, returning home on the charter flight after a three-week tour of European art treasures. Among the dead were sixteen Cathedral parishioners. At the time, it was the world’s worst disaster involving a single aircraft.

Atlanta, devastated, was cast into mourning, and a stricken Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. immediately flew to Orly to inspect the site of the crash. One of the largest assemblies ever to gather at the Cathedral met for a Pontifical Requiem Mass on Tuesday, June 5, 1962. Sixty priests attended as Archbishop Hallinan conducted the service, assisted by Monsignor Cassidy, rector of the Cathedral.

Parishioner Milton Bevington suffered one of the most poignant losses in the crash.

He and his wife, Betsy, the parents of three young boys, had an agreement always to fly separately. Bevington had surprised his wife by meeting her in Paris before the end of the tour. They spent priceless time together in the days before the scheduled departure from Orly. He watched his wife and her mother board the doomed aircraft that day in France.

Monsignor Cassidy’s Music “I remember, one day, Monsignor Cassidy came into the [school] office and said, ‘Take me over to the convent and don’t ask any questions.’ I didn’t know what was going on because even the pastor didn’t go into the so-called cloister.

He asked, ‘What do you do at night?’ and I said, ‘Well, we sew and talk.’

“He said, ‘I want to see the Community Room. What kind of music do you have?’ (Monsignor Cassidy, an opera fan, had a collection of two hundred complete operas and was known to listen to them with his headphones well into his seventies.) I said that sometimes we brought the little records home from the classroom. He said, ‘That’s all I wanted to know.’ He looked around the room and left. I guess it was right around the Feast of the Epiphany, a holiday he liked to celebrate much more than Christmas.

“The doorbell rang around 6:15 at night during dinner—and here’s this beautiful Magnavox. It was a radio and phonograph, and the delivery man said that this was a gift for the Sisters from an anonymous donor. I called Monsignor to thank him, and he said he didn’t know what I was talking about. I said that priests shouldn’t lie. He just laughed and said that he hoped we all enjoyed it.”

—As told by Sister Betty Donohue in 1987 for the First Fifty Years book.

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In 1968, the Memorial Arts Center (now the Woodruff Arts Center) was founded at the High Museum of Atlanta, to which the French government donated Auguste Rodin’s sculpture Le Shade. The Center and the French gift are enduring testaments to the artists, art lovers, and family members who perished that terrible June day.

The Cathedral Mourns a Bishop and a President

Monsignor Cassidy prepares to distribute communion at a children’s Mass in honor of President

Too soon, there would be more occasions for grief among the Cathedral community. On July 16, 1963, Archbishop Gerald O’Hara died from a heart attack. He had been living in London as the apostolic delegate to Great Britain since 1954. Prior to that, he had been the last papal representative in Romania and even suffered arrest at the hands of the Communist government. After his release he had served as apostolic delegate to Ireland before moving to London. As Bishop of Savannah, and later of the SavannahAtlanta diocese, he was fondly remembered at the Cathedral and throughout the South for his leadership.

On November 22, 1963, some five months after the passing of Bishop O’Hara, John F. Kennedy fell to an assassin’s bullet. A tragedy for the nation, the murder of America’s first Catholic president was perhaps even more devastating to citizens who shared his faith. At Christ the King Cathedral, Masses were held in the president’s honor on Monday, November 25, including a children’s Mass conducted by Monsignor Cassidy.

John F. Kennedy on November 25, 1963.

Parish Life Goes On Heavenly Party at the Dinkler Plaza Hotel with Monsignor Cassidy, Jane Simons, and Mary Ashby.

Completed in 1963, the Hyland Center was immediately put to use for such activities as gym classes, evening meetings, weekend sports (managed by recreation director Gary Puckett), and religious education classes. By 1964 the parish had established groups, ministries, and various fund-raisers, including “Heavenly Parties” sponsored by the Altar Society, to raise money for further expansion. But this year also saw, under the guidance of parishioner Wallace Winborne, the introduction of tithing as the sole means of financing parish projects, programs, and activities. The successful transition from dependence on fund-raising programs and drives to regular tithing raised the offertory collection from approximately $3,500 to about $8,000 a week.

The year 1964 witnessed one more change. After nineteen years as the Cathedral’s leader, Monsignor Cassidy retired and was succeeded by Father John F. McDonough, who had been serving as his assistant.

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Christ the King Enters the Era of Vatican II In December 1965 Pope Paul VI formally enacted the new Church policies that emerged from the Second Vatican Council.

Popularly known as Vatican II, the council, opened under John XXIII on October 11, 1962, and closed under Paul VI on December 8, 1965, brought the Catholic Church into modern society at a time of intense cultural turbulence worldwide.

The spirit of reform embodied in Vatican II had an especially powerful impact in fast-growing Atlanta, where the Catholic community was experiencing an influx of new residents and the coming of age of a restless baby-boom generation.

With the decade’s counterculture movement and revolution in mores heating up in America and elsewhere in the world, many Atlanta Catholics were excited by the prospect of a more liberal and open Catholic Church. New ideas previously closed even to discussion, such as priests marrying, were now discussed openly. Not all of the proposed changes came to pass, of course, but many traditional trappings of the Church were modified or discarded as a result of Vatican II. During this period, the Grey Nuns who taught at Christ the King School moved out of the convent and into an apartment nearby. They traded their habits and other regalia for more comfortable pantsuits and turtlenecks. These steps toward integration into the larger community foreshadowed even more dramatic developments to come. During the 1970s, while the Grey Nuns continued to teach most of the classes at Christ the King, a growing number of lay teachers were hired. It was a trend that would continue steadily through the years, as fewer Grey Nuns became available to teach at the school.

At the Cathedral, a more relaxed and informal liturgy and music program proved extremely popular among the rising generation of Catholics. At the Sunday afternoon Folk Mass, parishioners were encouraged to come as they were—in jeans and T-shirts, if that’s what they were comfortable wearing. The point was to get people into the habit of going to Mass. The laid-back atmosphere was enhanced by contemporary music with a rhythmic beat, a development that would have been unthinkable before Vatican II. Soon, the Folk Mass became an established and highly popular institution at Christ the King, as it was in parishes around the world.

During and after the Vatican II era, a new generation of priests came to the Cathedral—including one, Father Thomas Kenny, who would later return as pastor.

These young men brought fresh ideas and energy to the parish. They were ready to engage with young audiences about current issues, ranging from social justice to their impressions of Broadway’s depictions of the life of Christ in the musicals Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. While not all Catholics were pleased with the changes wrought

by Vatican II, at Christ the King during these years, membership swelled, and the congregation became increasingly diverse. Parishioner involvement continued to grow as well. Two Cathedral members, George Boulineau and Gladys Gunning, were among eight from the Archdiocese who were honored with a Papal Award for their contributions to the Church in 1965.

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Father McDonough saying Mass at the post–Second Vatican Council altar.

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The Folk Mass led the way for the introduction of contemporary music into the liturgy presented in the Cathedral, and a folk group (now known as the Cathedral Ensemble) flourished at Sunday evening Mass time.

The transformation in the music of the Cathedral did not take place on its own. For many parishioners, the evolution of the music program in the era of Vatican II was most closely associated with longtime music director Hamilton (Ham) Smith, the son of the Cathedral’s first music director, Helen Riley Smith. Helen was a native New Yorker and Juilliard School graduate who moved to Atlanta in the early days of Christ the King. Recognizing that Masses in the new era invited worshippers’ musical involvement in the liturgy, pastor Father John McDonough asked Ham to succeed Jane McEvoy, who had directed the Cathedral choir for decades.

Ham Smith was a banker by day, who eagerly volunteered his years of service. To create a modern Ham Smith: Man of the Year, 1979 and Cathedral-worthy singing group, he borrowed a practice used in many mainline Protestant churches.

In January 1979, Hamilton (“Ham”) Smith was The new director hired a cadre of professional singers named Man of the Year by the Georgia Bulletin for to serve as the core of the mostly amateur volunteer his contributions to the worship life of the ArchdioCathedral choir. cese and the Cathedral. Some forty-eight years after “People should sing for the love of God,” Ham first being named choir director, Smith is still a vital noted, “but at a Cathedral church, with its many part of the music program, and his influence and additional requirements (ceremonies and visiting expertise are always in demand. dignitaries), you have to have reliable singers and high-quality music.” The professionals in the group would also inspire the other choir members musically, Ham observed, thereby raising the quality for all.

Still, there were challenges. All of the new Vatican II directives “came out very quickly,” Ham recalled. “We were not given a lot of time to digest [the changes].”

Some pastors interpreted Vatican II as requiring that members of the congregation do all the singing, so that choirs were no longer needed. Ham Smith, however, believed that “the heritage of Roman Catholic music could not be presented without choirs, and,” he added, “happily this earlier view [that choirs were superfluous] was eventually set aside.”

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1966 article refers to the first synod, The Church of Christ.

The First Synod of the Archdiocese In May 1966, Father McDonough was named pastor of Holy Spirit Church, and, in response to Archbishop Hallinan’s petition to Rome, Monsignor Joseph L. Bernardin, elevated to auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, was appointed to succeed Father McDonough as rector of the Cathedral. Bernardin was a young Italian-American priest from Columbia, South Carolina, when he first served in Charleston with Archbishop Hallinan, who was at the time Bishop of Charleston. A Mass of Reception for the new Auxiliary Bishop was held on May 4, 1966, at the Cathedral.

Although Archbishop Hallinan was suffering from the symptoms of hepatitis, which he had contracted while in Italy, he and Auxiliary Bishop Bernardin organized “The Church of Christ,” the first synod of the Archdiocese, in 1966. Inspired by his participation in the Second Vatican Council, Archbishop Hallinan organized this “mini-council” with the participation not only of Catholics but also of those from other denominations in the community. Synod sessions produced written statements and decrees on everything from social services to a call for unity. The documents were duly presented to the apostolic delegate for Pope Paul VI. Deaths of Monsignor Moylan and Archbishop Hallinan On April 11, 1967, the Cathedral’s first pastor and vicar general of the Diocese of Atlanta, Monsignor Joseph E. Moylan, passed away at age seventy-eight. His remains lay in state for two days in the rectory of the Cathedral he had helped to design and build.

Besides posts at other churches all over the state, Monsignor Moylan had also been the first pastor at Atlanta’s Our Lady of the Assumption in 1951, an office from which he oversaw the building of another church, a school, rectory, convent, and parish hall.

Appointed vicar general in 1956, when Atlanta became an independent diocese, he chaired several key commissions, including the Commission on the Sacred Liturgy, Development, and served as episcopal vicar for priests.

On March 27, 1968, the Cathedral, the community, and the Church suffered another loss in the death of Archbishop Hallinan. In addition to his liturgical expertise and involvement with the Second Vatican Council, the Archbishop provided unwavering leadership and support of the civil rights movement, which made him a part of the South’s history as well as that of the nation and the Church. His leaving a hospital bed

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Monsignor Joseph E. Moylan passed away April 11, 1967.

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in 1964 to attend a dinner recognizing the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an example of Archbishop Hallinan’s determined stand for equality and faith. His presence touched everyone he met. Parishioner Alex W. Smith III (who passed away in 2008) recalled many visits from the Archbishop, who was his neighbor on West Wesley Road. “We still have warm memories of this saintly and charming man,” he recalled in his memoirs.

School Accreditation As always, the passing of those central to the Cathedral was deeply mourned, but, also as always, the work of the Cathedral and the School went on. In 1969 Monsignor McDonough asked second-generation parishioner Alex Smith III, an attorney, to serve as chairman of the CKS school board. In his memoirs, Smith, the father of eight, recalled with characteristic wit the challenges and satisfaction he felt when he led the effort to gain state accreditation for Christ the King School: I soon found out, to my dismay, that the school was not accredited. The fact that salaries were lower than required was supposedly made up by the pleasure the teachers garnered from teaching the well-behaved Catholic children. I saw this as a dubious savings at best.

I insisted that we move to meet all the requirement of accreditation by the [Georgia] State School Board. The first thing we had to do was get the salary levels up to the same as the city’s, then apply and qualify for accreditation. This cost money, of course, but we worked at it and succeeded in getting accreditation.

That success was one of the most rewarding accomplishments I ever had, and the school has succeeded beautifully since then.

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While CKS High School students had been wearing uniforms since 1951, elementary school students did not start until 1966. The call for a uniform requirement was met with some grumbling, but school authorities managed to persuade both students and parents that “mothers vote for them wholeheartedly.”

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Hours of work were required from teachers, parents, and the principal, Sister Mary Margaret O’Hara, to compile the statistics and complete the forms required by the state. It paid off. CKS became the first parochial school in Atlanta to be accredited.

The Hispanic Ministry As the Cathedral’s congregation grew, it also changed during this period.

Large groups of Latin American immigrants had been settling in Atlanta since 1959, in the wake of Castro’s Cuban revolution, and the Cathedral opened its doors and its ministry to them. In November 1967, Archbishop Hallinan and Auxiliary Bishop Bernardin celebrated the first Mass in Spanish at the Cathedral, in honor of Latin American Week. Even earlier, Cathedral parishioners had already been reaching out to and assisting immigrants in the area.

As the community continued to grow with immigrants from Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, and Central America, weekly Spanish Masses were held in the Hyland Center. Members of the Hispanic community constructed a wooden altar—still in use—and recruited readers, altar servers, and ushers. Father Juan de la Cruz, a native of Colombia, came to serve the CTK Hispanic community and remained for fifteen years.

Parishioner Raul Trujillo, who moved to Atlanta from Cuba in 1961 and married his wife, Annie, at Christ the King, recalls seeing the “growth of the city and its Catholic population, and the tremendous increase in numbers and in the spiritual life of the Cathedral.” In 1976, Archbishop Donnellan would offer his support to the first Archdiocesan Hispanic mission held at the Cathedral. Conducted during January 26–30, it would draw more than five hundred attendees nightly. The mission became an annual event through 1981, the year in which each parish began celebrating its own program.

Today at the Cathedral, four Masses a week are held in Spanish.

New Archbishop and Pastor In April 1968, a month after Archbishop Hallinan’s death, Auxiliary Bishop Bernardin stepped down as rector of the Cathedral to become General Secretary of the National Conference of Bishops, in Washington, DC. From this post, he would go on to become Archbishop of Cincinnati, followed by Archbishop of Chicago. Elevated to Cardinal in 1983, he became a nationally recognized spokesman for millions of American Catholics.

In July, the Most Reverend Thomas A. Donnellan, Bishop of Ogdensburg, New York, was named as the second Archbishop of Atlanta and he, in turn, appointed Reverend John Stapleton, from Savannah, to be the new rector of the Cathedral.

Father Stapleton focused on the growth and structure of the parish, a concentration that resulted in the establishment of the Parish Council and more women’s circles. He

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Monsignor Stapleton with parishioners

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also supported Hamilton Smith’s successful fund-raising efforts, which resulted in the purchase of a new Ruffati pipe organ. Truly worthy of a great cathedral, the instrument was installed in 1972. Elevated to Monsignor in 1969, Father Stapleton struggled with ill health for the next few years and died on August 26, 1972.

New Rectory The same year that marked the installation of the Ruffati organ and the passing of Monsignor Stapleton, 1972, saw completion of a new rectory. As the antebellum house that had long served as a home for the Cathedral’s priests continued to age, repairs became both more frequent and more costly. In 1970, a review by the finance committee and the parish council determined that some $200,000 was needed to pay for a new building. The funding was authorized, the old structure torn down, and construction of a new rectory was begun while the priests were temporarily relocated to apartments nearby on East Wesley Road.

As the new building rose to completion in 1972, Monsignor John F. McDonough returned to the Cathedral to succeed Monsignor Stapleton as pastor. He would serve as pastor until 1987, when ill health forced his retirement. CTK

Worshippers gather August 15, 2011, in front of the rectory to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first Mass held at the site.

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Growth and Generations The Cathedral parish entered the 1980s The Cathedral parish entered the 1980s as both Georgia and Atlanta increasingly became the focus of national attention. News stories of the times included the reelection defeat of home-state politician President Jimmy Carter by Ronald Reagan, the start of Ted Turner’s Cable News Network, the horrific “Atlanta Child Murders” of 1979-1981, and the investigation of a “new” disease, called AIDS, by the Atlanta-based CDC (Centers for Disease Control).

The mayor of Atlanta was Andrew Young, formerly a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and United States ambassador to the United Nations, who served in city hall during a real estate boom sweeping the South’s unofficial capital. In this heady climate, the parish of Christ the King continued to grow and to change, as more and more people settled in the area.

Monsignor Cassidy’s Death The beginning of one era means the end of another, and Monsignor Joseph G. Cassidy’s death on September 9, 1982, marked that end. Pastor of the Cathedral from 1945 to 1964, when he was succeeded by Monsignor John F. McDonough, he had been a vigorous and colorful leader, as well as the oldest priest in the Archdiocese of Atlanta— eighty-four at the time of his death. Ordained in 1923, the Monsignor served the Church in Georgia for fifty-nine years in a career that included adventurous travels around the state driving the “trailer” missionary truck and serving numerous parish churches and state hospitals. In 1981, the Catholic Extension Society conferred on him the Lumen Christi Award for outstanding missionary work, and he was cited as “the premier priest” of the Catholic Church in Georgia.

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1987: The Parish Celebrates its Fiftieth Anniversary Riding the tide of prosperity and growth that marked Atlanta in the 1980s, the Cathedral parish looked forward to celebrating its upcoming fifty-year anniversary in 1987. A committee was formed in 1986 to begin the planning.

The golden anniversary festivities began in February with Jubilee or Not Jubilee.

Composed by Richard Farnsworth and directed by Jim Doherty, it was an original musical comedy chronicling the history of the church. There were also a parish renewal and a series of concerts featuring the Atlanta Singers, the Cathedral Choir, and noted British organist Ian Tracy. Several hundred former Christ the King School classmates gathered in a reunion on the evening of May 3, after a school Mass and open house.

On the next day, Monday, May 4, evening Mass was celebrated by Monsignor McDonough—Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan, having suffered a stroke days earlier, could not attend the celebration—with Joseph Cardinal Bernardin serving as homilist.

The Cardinal recalled his “two short, happy years” spent as pastor of the Cathedral in the late 1960s, noting that it was the “only time in my thirty-five years of priesthood that I have been pastor of a parish.” With some seventy-five archdiocesan priests in attendance and Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart and the uniformed Knights of Columbus also a very visible presence, the Mass was embellished with sacred music performed by the Cathedral Choir and the Atlanta Symphony Brass. Afterward, a reception for the more than 650 attendees was held in the school courtyard, where a lavish champagne buffet was served under large tents.

Cardinal Bernardin’s Fiftieth-Anniversary Homily When former pastor Joseph Cardinal Bernardin agreed to return to the Cathedral to speak at the fiftieth anniversary celebration, he was a nationally known figure who had appeared on the cover of Time magazine for his Cold War-era writings on the subject of peace. As he recounted his days at the Cathedral (1966–1968), he also remembered saying “a tearful goodbye” to Archbishop Hallinan. He touched on many of the current issues of the day as he recalled the church’s construction during the Great Depression and parishioners coming to pray for loved ones during World War II: In these past fifty years, historians estimate that more change has affected the human family than occurred in the previous fifty centuries. The atomic bomb.

Civil rights and the quest for equality. Instant worldwide communication.

Communism. The Vietnam War, Watergate, Iranian hostage taking. Space exploration. Divorce, alienation, and the immense pressures on family relationships . . . We gather today to celebrate the astonishing reality that the God of supernovas and galaxies, the God of Majesty and Immensity bends down to meet his people in a place like this Cathedral. But we also attempt to expand our minds, our spirits, our lives around the even more remarkable reality that God dwells within us as individuals and among us as a community. As beautiful as stones and stained glass, wood and metal, weavings and artistry are, even more beautiful are the living temples of flesh and blood, sinew and spirit, memory and imagination.

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C hapter F our G rowth A Sad Passing and a Historic Appointment Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan passed away After his stroke, in itself comparatively mild, October 15, 1987.

Archbishop Donnellan suffered from declining health that proved to be the onset of cancer. A native of New York City who had been ordained at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1939, he served nineteen years as Archbishop of Atlanta. His series of booklets about religious life and family education and, even more, his service to the National Council of Bishops established him as a national figure in the Church, but perhaps his greatest achievement was having guided the Diocese of Atlanta during a period of tremendous growth and progressive development. His selfless stand on school integration—he barred new enrollments at Catholic schools in 1970 in an effort to help maintain racially balanced enrollment in the Atlanta Public Schools—and his service on the Atlanta Community Relations Commission earned him the admiration of Mayor Andrew Young and other civic leaders. A month before his death, which came on October 15, 1987, while he was under the care of the sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cancer Home, the Archbishop received a personal call and a blessing from Pope John Paul II. The funeral Mass for Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan, celebrated at the Cathedral, ended four days of services and was attended by dozens of religious leaders and all 180 priests of the Archdiocese. Earlier that year, the Archbishop had returned to his childhood parish, New York City’s Holy Family, for its seventy-fifth anniversary celebration. In his homily on that occasion, he reflected on the depth and strength of the emotional bond that is formed with one’s native parish. “The house where one was reared may become the home of strangers,” he said, “but the parish church where one is served and celebrates the sacraments is always home.”

On May 5, 1988, Archbishop Eugene A. Marino was installed in Atlanta as the first African American Catholic Archbishop in the United States. The fifty-three-year-old Mississippi-born priest was appointed by Pope John Paul II after having served as an auxiliary Bishop in the Washington, DC, archdiocese.

Changes Considered—and Rejected The installation of an African American Archbishop and the many Second Vatican Council innovations relating to worship came as profound changes to the Cathedral community. Unchanged, however, was the physical structure of the Cathedral, and in 1988, its new pastor, Father Richard Kieran, with help from a liturgical

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consultant, began forming plans to “open up” the sanctuary. Among other alternations, he proposed to move the altar forward and provide seating on all sides.

The proposals occasioned round after round of meetings and forums with parishioners in a debate that was at times heated and even divisive, yet that ultimately brought renewed energy and renewed purpose to the community. “This has put a spark in people. . . . [They have] become friends, become more involved,” parishioner Van Waddy told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In the end, what united the parish was a consensus that shelved the plans and preserved the Cathedral structure unchanged.

Father Kieran would later be assigned to Immaculate Heart of Mary, and Father Thomas Kenny would return to the Cathedral, this time as rector, in June 1990.

The Cathedral’s Perpetual Adoration Chapel (originally the baptistery).

Perpetual Adoration: Open Twenty-Four Hours After Archbishop Marino stepped down in 1990 and the all-too-brief succession of Archbishop James P. Lyke in 1991—he succumbed to cancer on December 27, 1992— Archbishop John F. Donoghue was installed as Archbishop of Atlanta on August 19, 1993, at the Cathedral. The following year, the new Archbishop initiated a Perpetual Adoration ministry at the Cathedral, in the quiet stone room behind the Blessed Mother altar. It was the first in the Archdiocese, and ever since, parishioners have signed up for day and night shifts to serve as constant guardians of the Blessed Sacrament.

Second Vatican Council Changes Many younger parishioners may not recall a time when Mass was entirely in Latin and the priest did not face the congregation when saying Mass.

The Second Vatican Council radically changed the way Mass is conducted, and, little by little, physical alterations at the Cathedral reflected and facilitated this “new” way of worship.

In the late 1960s, the Communion rail gates were removed, and a temporary altar (now in the present-day Kenny Hall) was placed in front of the marble one. By 1990, the middle pews had been removed, allowing access into the main Cathedral from the side door, and by 2005 it was decided that a new altar was needed. With the help of Hamilton Smith and Steve Callahan, Dave Roberts, and others, Monsignor Kenny raised the necessary funds for the new altar, which was made by craftsman Andrew Crawford of Atlanta. Parishioners should credit Monsignor Kenny with “recycling” the original iron Communion rail gates, recalled church assistant Margaret Jones. “They had been stored in the basement of the rectory for years, and it was Monsignor Kenny’s vision to make them into the new altar.”

New candle stands and a wider pulpit were added as well.

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More Music at the Cathedral In 1987, Keith Langworthy, who had served as Cathedral organist for a quarter-century, retired.

Longtime music director Hamilton Smith described him affectionately as “a very quiet, unassertive person,” who was “very easy to work with as a musician because of his flexibility in accommodating the interpretive ideas of others.”

Not least of all, Ham Smith appreciated Keith’s “dry wit, which could enliven rehearsals.” Keith Langwothy passed away on March 4, 2011.

In the year of Keith Langworthy’s retirement, 1987, Kevin Culver was appointed choirmaster.

He would later be named Liturgy Coordinator as well. A versatile musician, Kevin founded The Atlanta Singers, a distinguished Atlanta amateur choral ensemble, and had also served as personal assistant to Robert Shaw, the internationally famed conductor of the Robert Shaw Chorale and Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Timothy Wissler, then a member of the music faculty at Georgia State University and a former Mercer University (Atlanta) associate professor of music, became the Cathedral’s new organist, and Ham Smith remained overall music program director. Also during this time, the Cathedral Folk group, originally influenced by the Vatican II innovations, evolved into the Cathedral Ensemble, directed by Elyn and Ken Macek. Additionally, to serve the needs of the growing Hispanic community, the Coro Hispano was formed in the late 1990s.

Other distinctive choirs have developed over the past decades in response to varying liturgical styles, notably the Children’s Choirs (Girl Choir, Boy Choir, Preparatory Choir, and Cherub Choir).

With more than 250 active choir members, the Cathedral’s liturgical ministry truly encompasses all ages. As Ham Smith observed, “The acquisition of Kevin [Culver] and Tim [Wissler] as accomplished, full-time musicians raised the quality of the Cathedral music program to a superior level from the mid-’80s to the present.”

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Dr. Timothy Wissler (seated) and Kevin Culver in the Cathedral’s choir loft.

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Many Ministries

One of Christ the King's outreach programs include the Mustard Seed Mission Trip. Volunteers pictured below with children in the Dominican Republic.

Music and Liturgy is only one of the staff- and volunteer-driven ministries that have flourished with the Cathedral’s growth over the years, enriching all aspects of parish life. Today, the principal ministry areas include Adult Education and Evangelization, Family & Children’s Ministry, Pastoral Care, Hispanic Ministry (Bilingual), Outreach, Recreation & Enrichment, Parish Life, and Youth Ministries in addition to Music and Liturgy.

One of the most dynamic of the ministries is the Family & Children’s Ministry, which oversees religious education at the Cathedral. As its mission statement explains, the department is “Committed to proclaiming the good news of God’s unconditional love to the children and youth of our parish . . . Together with parents, catechists, aides and our faith community, we seek to enable our youth to form a lifelong commitment to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ through an understanding of the Catholic Faith, Mass celebrations, prayer and the Sacraments.”

In the early days of the parish, religious education for children who were not enrolled in the parish school was entrusted to the nuns. Sister Mary deMontfort began a CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) program in a small office and library in the basement of the rectory. As the program grew, class sessions met offsite in the homes of parishioners. During the 1970s, Sister Celine Gorman served as coordinator of religious education for children who were not CKS students. The first lay coordinator was Carroll Keen—still a parishioner—who succeeded Sister Celine in 1985.

As the parish continued to grow, it became clear that a more formal religious education program was needed for children and adults.

In the 1990s the ministries flowing out of what became the Family & Children’s Ministry grew to include the Rite of Christian Initiation for Children and Youth, Children’s Liturgy of the Word, Rainbows (a support group for grieving children), Baptism Parent Preparation, a host of parenting programs, and numerous special Life of the Parish Events.

By 1980, the Cathedral’s Hispanic ministry had grown to greater and greater importance.

To help serve parish needs, services such as a clothing donation center was established and staffed by the Hispanic community on the top floor of the d’Youville building. Assistance to families of immigrants became another priority, and members of the Cathedral in 1986 actively

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C hapter F our G rowth participated in helping many to apply for legal status under the new Amnesty Law. In 1987, the Cathedral created its Office of Hispanic Ministry. Up to this time, various congregations of religious women, including the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart and Franciscan Sisters, had been serving the needs of the Hispanic community. The new office greatly expanded the outreach they had begun.

Service and outreach constitute only one aspect of the Hispanic presence at Christ the King. Hispanic immigration into the Cathedral community has also enriched its celebrations. Since 1980, the celebration honoring Our Lady the Virgin of Charity, patroness of Cuba, has been an annual Archdiocesan tradition, and on September 8, 1985, a small statue of the Virgin of Charity was brought to the Cathedral, where it is located near one of the side altars.

Marian celebrations in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico, and the Mother of the Divine Providence, patroness of Puerto Rico, in addition to other special liturgical celebrations from Colombia, El Salvador, Peru, and other nations have become treasured features of the Cathedral’s tradition.

Established in 1992, the Hispanic mission on Lindbergh Drive has been a special blessing for the families who attend Mass and religious education there. Sunday Mass is celebrated to standing-room-only crowds. Of equal importance is the outreach to the Bolton/Chattahoochee community, where religious education and liturgical celebrations are conducted regularly.

The Hispanic community at Christ the King is an example of diversity shared through a common language. Since the beginning of the 1980s, the community has continued to grow. Many of its members now hail from Mexico in addition to Colombia, Central America, the Caribbean, Peru, and other Latin American countries.

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Father Jorge Arevalo Alzate blessing twin sisters Kennedy and Kimberly Lopez during Quinceanera, the celebration of a young Hispanic woman’s fifteenth birthday, in the d’Youville Chapel (September 2011).

Deacons at the Cathedral From the early days of the Church, “deacons” (a word meaning both “ministers” and “servants”) were called upon to serve the parish community. In 1967, Pope Paul VI reestablished the sacred order of Permanent Diaconate, and, under Father Richard Kieran, Deacon Richard Narey became the first permanent deacon assigned to Christ the King in 1987. Since then, many deacons have been a part of the Cathedral, baptizing, preparing couples for marriage, visiting the sick, preaching, and serving on the altar. Six currently serve the Cathedral, including Deacon Whitney Robichaux, assigned to the Cathedral since 1993 and celebrating twenty-five years of ministry in 2012.

Deacon Scott McNabb and Deacon Whitney Robichaux with Archbishop John F. Donoghue

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The year 1987, in which the Office of Hispanic Ministry was created, also proved to be a landmark for Christ the King School, which was named a National School of Excellence, an award that acknowledged the rigorous dedication of teachers and administrators to superb academics. Under the leadership of CKS principal Sister Jean Liston—the last Grey Nun to serve in this position—high standards were established and consistently maintained. Twenty years later, on October 2, 2007, Christ the King School received word from the office of U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings that it had been designated a Blue Ribbon School.

One of the most coveted education awards in the country, it is presented to only fifty private schools throughout the United States annually. In a record-breaking year of applications for the award, Christ the King School was selected based on its strong academic record, evidenced by outstanding standardized student achievement scores. Announcement of the Blue Ribbon recognition coincided with the school’s seventieth anniversary.

Principal “Sister Jean” Remembers Memories of my twelve years as principal of Christ the King School bring a smile to my face and joy to my heart. It was a privilege to work with teachers, parents, and students to build a school community where the gifts of children were recognized and developed.

The colorful banner in my office proclaimed “Every Child Can Delight in Learning,” a message that motivated the efforts of all. During those twelve years, new programs were developed and implemented: the establishment of pre-first as a grade, advanced writing classes, and a state-of-the-art computer lab.

In 1985, CKS was growing, and the need for space resulted in the renovation of the original convent. The newly transformed building became the d’Youville Center, housing an expanded library, additional classrooms, a computer lab, and offices.

The spiritual aspect of Christ the King School was the primary purpose for its establishment and continues to be the essential reason for its existence. Nurturing the faith of children, teachers, and parents was and is of the highest priority. In the spirit of St. Marguerite d’Youville, founder of the Grey Nuns, the members of the school community internalized the tenets of the Catholic faith as well as St. Marguerite’s message of love.

The success of Christ the King School can be traced to its early founders. . . . Bishop Gerald P. O’Hara, cathedral Rector Father Joseph Moylan, and, of course, the first five Grey Nuns: Sister Mary Clement, Sister Mary Martha, Sister Mary Evangeline, Sister Marie Christine, and Sister Rosella. They set a standard of excellence that has continued for seventy-five years. I believe the children who attended Christ the King School in the 1970s and 1980s did delight in learning. Lasting friendships were formed, and today these CKS graduates have become exemplary leaders in both Church and community.

I am honored to have had the privilege of leading the school community from 1976 to 1988, an era of growth and continued excellence.

—Sister Jean Liston, Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, director of Pastoral Services, Church of St. Andrew (Newton, Pennsylvania)

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Principal Peggy Warner and students celebrate the school’s National Blue Ribbon award in 2007.

Father Kenny and the Cathedral As large and diverse as Christ the King has become over the years, for many current parishioners, memories of such pivotal family events as weddings and baptisms revolve around a single figure: the smiling, mild-mannered “Father” (even after becoming a Monsignor, he preferred the title “Father”) Thomas Kenny, rector of the Cathedral from 1990 until 2008. With his Irish brogue and low-key presence, he became not only a familiar sight at the church, but a reassuring, welcoming shepherd of faith for thousands.

Father Kenny was born in the small Irish village of Caltra, Easkey (County Sligo) in 1939 and was ordained in 1965 at All Hallows College, Dublin. He came to Atlanta with fellow Irish priests and began his assignment at the Cathedral, to which he would return after serving at several area parishes, including St. Michael’s (Gainesville) and Corpus Christi Church (Stone Mountain). Named a “prelate of honor” and given the title of Monsignor in 1994, Father Kenny celebrated forty years in the priesthood with a Mass of Thanksgiving on June 20, 2005, graced by a homily given by his friend and golfing partner Monsignor Paul Reynolds.

It is a fact that Father Kenny loved to play golf with his regular foursome, a priestly group who played the game on their day off. He was always grateful for the sport, for being outdoors, and for the fellowship of the outings. As Monsignor Reynolds told the Georgia Bulletin, “He would return from his day off . . . [and] he would ask a question

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Father Kenny on the golf course: “Have you ever had a better day?”

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of one or more of his clergy friends, ‘Have you ever had a better day?’”

As pastor during the ambitious building project that would result in the new parish center, parking deck, and sound system, his calm demeanor served to allay any concerns.

“He exuded warmth and accessibility to all who came in contact with him,” recalled Hamilton Smith. Father Kenny’s love of God and people was always evident, whether at the annual St. Patrick’s Day parties he threw for the parish (occasions on which he delighted in being the gracious host as well as a most entertaining storyteller) or in the way he expanded the community awareness of the parish by involving the Cathedral in Buckhead Christian Ministries and other charitable organizations.

Monsignor—“Father”—Kenny died peacefully in the rectory sometime during the night of October 29 or the morning of October 30, 2008. Over one hundred priests and hundreds of other mourners attended his funeral Mass, which was celebrated on November 6, 2008, by Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory and featured Irish hymns, traditional Irish instruments, and the Children’s Choirs. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery in Sandy Springs.

Building the Church of Tomorrow In 1998 Archbishop John Donohue led the groundbreaking for a major parish and school building endeavor. The $11.5 million construction project comprised the threestory Parish Center (today called the Donoghue Center), in which Kenny Hall is now located, and the parking deck across Peachtree Way. Surber Barber Choate & Hertlein Architects designed the project, working with Beck Construction. The chairman of

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the building subcommittee was parishioner Roger White, Cornerstone Contents: 1999 who had also supervised other improvements at the school and Located on the southeast edge of the Donoghue Center, facing Peachtree church. Attorney and parishWay, a cornerstone encases a time capsule of the Cathedral’s history. The ioner Alex W. Smith III served cornerstone is inscribed on one side with the Greek letters Iota Eta Sigma, as campaign chairman and lead the first three letters of the name “Jesus,” and, on the front, with the year: fund raiser. Other members of the “AD MM,”the Year of Our Lord 2000. Editor’s note: we will try to use fund-raising committee included Greek font for the lettering, etc. as a visual here.

Tim Cambias, Dave Fitzgerald, Inside the cornerstone is a sealed copper box. Inside the box is a CD Carroll Sterne, Hamilton Smith, with the following inscription in Monsignor Kenny’s handwriting: and Jim Winchester.

Thanks to the dedication, This compact disc was made September 2, 1999, to be placed in the generosity, and expertise of these cornerstone of our new Parish Center. It contains the parish roster and the and other parishioners as well parish budget in this final year of the second millennium. Since Christ is the as the leadership of Monsignor cornerstone of our Church, we, by this symbol, consecrate our entire Church Thomas Kenny, the project was a and its joint contribution to His divine mission as we cross the threshold to success. Parishioners now enjoy the new millennium . . . Christ Yesterday, Today and Forever. much-needed meeting space for Also placed inside the box is a CD of our choirs, a current Sunday activities that are at the heart of Bulletin, a Time & Talent brochure, and the history of the Cathedral everyday activity at the Cathedral. brochure—as symbols of our organization and liturgy as the body of Christ.

The new building also cleared the way for other improvements, including more space in the school, the addition of parish offices, choir space, and an elevator—all attractively incorporated and adjoining the Cathedral. A new sound system was installed as well, a great contribution to the effect of liturgy and music in the Cathedral. The parking deck significantly reduced the need for street parking, and the parish reception area in the new parish center has become one of the most heavily used spots on campus.

Renovations to the school included additional classrooms, a second story for the breezeway, and restoration of the beautiful d’Youville Chapel in the school building.

As the process of these and other improvements unfolded, many parishioners were indispensable to organizing and fund raising. Among these were Lee Berg, Tee Barnes, Steve Callaghan, Craig Mullins, Mary Beth Grady, Frank Craft and Neal and Lib Quirk. Their contributions, and those of many more parishioners, have enhanced the longevity of the property and set the stage for more to come. The new space was dedicated on May 26, 2000.

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Speaking for

my generation, every single one of us will always remember exactly where we were when we received word of two monumental events—the shooting of President Kennedy, and the attack on the

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— Principal Peggy Warner

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9/11 and the Cathedral Dedication of the building projects that had begun in 1998 looked forward to a new century and a new millennium. The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon shook the Cathedral community, but did not undermine its faith in the future. At Christ the King School, as Principal Peggy Warner recalls— I was in our usual weekly meeting as we wrapped up final details from the last capital campaign. There was a knock on the door, and Mimi Bryan, my administrative assistant, came in and asked me to step outside where she told me of the plane crashing into the first Twin Tower at a time when the tower was full of people at work. After sharing this awful news with those at the meeting, we were interrupted about twenty minutes later, again by Mimi, with news of the second plane attack. Shocked, we quickly adjourned the meeting so that I could gather administrators and decide on a course of action. Electronic messaging was not available at that time, so we used every available person to contact room moms to call parents to come pick up their children—many parents were already arriving. The Archdiocese called to make sure we were dismissing ASAP due to our close proximity to the Atlanta Financial Center, just a few miles north on Peachtree Road.

We were concerned about how to tell the classes and not create panic. Putting our hearts and heads to the task, we crafted scripts that each of us would read, appropriate for each grade level, kindergarten to grade eight, and headed off to prepare the students to be dismissed when their parents arrived. As news will do, the word had already spread to some of the upper-grade students. The dismissal was very sober, some parents arrived crying, but also very orderly.

Speaking for my generation, every single one of us will always remember exactly where we were when we received word of two monumental events—the shooting of President Kennedy, and the attack on the Twin Towers.

Father Richard Morrow remembers that “everyone had seen the same thing on television,” and that later he stopped by the Cathedral reception desk to tell the volunteers there that the 6 p.m. Mass might be crowded. It was, in fact, packed with hundreds who came together that evening, as a community, to pray, even as the narrative of the attacks was just beginning to be told and comprehended.

Ten years after the attacks, on September 11, 2011, the Cathedral held a commemorative Mass, presided over by Archbishop Gregory and Father Frank McNamee. Prior to the service, a remembrance ceremony featuring members of the military and an Atlanta Fire Department chaplain was held, and CKS also held a special Mass that day.

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Peggy Warner: Twenty-Nine Years at Christ the King School Peggy Warner, successor to Sister Jean as principal at CKS and the school’s first lay principal, attributed her school’s success to the hard work of the dedicated teachers and supportive parents, whose spirit and generosity (she says) go “above and beyond what is expected to what is needed to excel.”

Faith, academics, and service—Peggy Warner has never lost sight of these priorities through her twentythree years at the helm of the seventy-five-year-old school. Through a shared Catholic faith, she says she has “drawn strength” from the power of over five hundred students in prayer, always mindful of balancing tradition with innovation to provide excellence in education.

A native of Pennsylvania, she arrived in the Atlanta area when her husband Dale’s job brought him here. In 1983, she decided to seek work as a substitute teacher in 1983. When she inquired at St. Jude the Apostle School, the principal referred her to Sister Jean Liston at CKS, who was seeking a long-term substitute teacher.

“I was thrilled when Sister Jean called later that afternoon to offer me the ten-week sub job,” Peggy recalled.

After Peggy completed the assignment, Sister Jean offered her a full-time teaching position. Accepting, she also decided to register two of her three children, daughters Amy and Becky, for the following school year. After three years teaching the third grade, Peggy took over the pre-first class (“which I loved,” she noted) and worked happily there for another two years. In 1988, when Sister Jean announced that she would be leaving to return to the Grey Nuns’ Mother House, Father Richard Kieran hired Peggy to become the vice principal for a year and then principal the following year.

The historic CKS building had its problems, chief among them the fact that it had been built in the days before air conditioning. During Peggy’s years and thanks to the financial support of the Parent Volunteer Association (PVA) and parish community, many improvements were made, including modern zoned AC. More recently, SMART Boards and netbooks have replaced chalkboards and typewriters, as the school became wired and Internet-savvy. Communication among staff, parents, and teachers has been facilitated with advanced information software, data management systems, and upgraded voicemail and email systems.

The expansion of CKS in the early 1990s—which added new classrooms, an administrative office, a reception area, and the second-story breezeway—was a large project, and Peggy, parents, and former parents met weekly over it, often devoting weekends to the work of meticulous inspections. Principal Peggy Warner also credits teachers and fellow administrators for their dedication to the school’s improvements, both academic and structural: “In the twenty-plus years we’ve worked together, we’ve become like family, sharing more than five hundred children each year.”

A spectacularly successful example of a working mother, she gives praise to her family as “the source of my inspiration and energy.” Having applied herself to acquiring additional graduate-level degrees while she worked fulltime, Peggy recalls how her children in middle- and high-school years helped with meals and household chores, and how husband Dale “always made sure there was a hot meal when I arrived home after evening classes.”

Peggy retired after the end of the 2012 school year, leaving the school and parish grateful for her years of service.

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not just a parish, but a culture. You have to respect that culture,

Death of Archbishop John Francis Donoghue On November 11, 2011, two months after the 9/11 commemorative Mass, Archbishop Donoghue, who had retired in 2004, passed away at the age of eighty-three. His funeral Mass at the Cathedral gave tribute to this leader and champion of Catholic education, Eucharistic renewal, and Perpetual Adoration.

work within that

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— Father Francis McNamee

“Father Frank” and the Future of the Cathedral When Father Francis McNamee was appointed pastor in January 2009, he humbly considered himself “the least likely person to be named the rector of the Cathedral.”

But the already accomplished young priest had come to Christ the King with a history of having managed the thriving St. Peter Chanel parish in Roswell. In a decade of service there, he had overseen construction of the main church, had served a growing Catholic community, and had worked closely with Blessed Trinity High School, Queen of Angels School, and St. George Village retirement center, all nearby the church.

Stepping into a parish that was more than seventy years old, “Father Frank” said he was not only aware of the importance of the church as the seat of the Archbishop of Atlanta but also of the powerful legacy instilled through the generations who had lived in the area and worshipped at the Cathedral.

“You inherit not just a parish, but a culture,” he said. “You have to respect that culture, work within that culture.”

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Christ the King's pastoral staff has always been critical to the success of the Church. Some of the functions that fall under their purview can range from visiting the sick, celebrating baptisms to hearing confessions and saying Mass. (Left) Father Michael Silloway with CKS students.

(Middle Left) Father Jorge Arevalo Alzate at a senior luncheon. (Bottom Left) Father Richard Morrow greeting parishioners after Mass. (Bottom Right) Father Jaime Rivera visiting with CKS students at an ice cream social.

(Middle Right) Monsignor Richard Lopez at a baptism in the d'Youville Chapel.

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Mrs. Warner and Father Frank with CKS students.

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Father Frank’s enthusiasm for the parish and the school are evident by his very presence. He is often one of the first faces children see as they unload at carpool and walk through the school gates in the morning. He has also made weekly school Mass an integral part of the CKS makeup, as well as encouraging priests as role models and mentors.

Social chairman is an unofficial role of any pastor, and at the Cathedral, that function shapes many facets of the job. Father Frank enjoys the fellowship and daily lunches with the other staff priests who live in the rectory: “Your house is your home,” he observes. For him, the day-to-day bustle of providing Mass, events, and rituals for a large community is balanced and his energy renewed by the laughter and one-on-one conversations that mealtimes provide.

Father Frank is also focused upon building relationships among parishioners, which is a special challenge in a church that conducts a dozen Masses each weekend, in English and Spanish, serving thousands of people. By reviving the popular Men’s Club as well as the Women’s Guild and offering small home Masses with more intimate groups, Father Frank hopes to make it easier for newcomers and established members to get to know one another. A dinner honoring the long tradition of ladies’ “church circles” was an overwhelming success. Service projects, Bible studies, and the many vibrant ministries offer even more ways for important human connections to be made.

Not the least significant product of Father Frank’s leadership was the installation, in 2009-2010, of a beautiful green space where there was only blacktop before. The grass not only put an end to years of skinned CKS student knees, replacing hard falls with soft landings, it created, thanks to donations raised by both church and school, a truly beautiful open space with a landscaped rock feature on the East Wesley side. School children look forward to playing on what is now a much-beloved area, and two years of Easter sunrise services have been held there as well.

The green space heralds more improvements forthcoming, which include a new middle school, rectory, and renovated Hyland Center. Looking to the future while working with the parish to treasure and preserve its unique history, Father

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Windows in the Grey Nuns' d'Youville Chapel

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Leaders of the Church and School Pastors of the Cathedral Monsignor Joseph E. Moylan, 1936–1945 Monsignor Joseph G. Cassidy, 1945–1964 Monsignor John F. McDonough, 1964–1966, 1972–1987 Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, 1966–1968 Monsignor John D. Stapleton, 1968–1972 Father Richard A. Kieran, 1987–1990 Monsignor Thomas A. Kenny, 1990–2008 Father Francis G. McNamee, 2009–present Bishops of the Atlanta Diocese/Archdiocese Most Reverend Francis E. Hyland, First Bishop, 1956–1962 Most Reverend Paul J. Hallinan, First Archbishop, 1962–1968 Most Reverend Joseph L. Bernardin, Auxiliary Bishop, 1966–1968 Most Reverend Thomas A. Donnellan, Second Archbishop, 1968–1987 Most Reverend Eugene A. Marino, Third Archbishop, 1988–1990 Most Reverend James P. Lyke, Fourth Archbishop, 1991–1992 Most Reverend John F. Donoghue, Fifth Archbishop, 1993–2004 Most Reverend Wilton D. Gregory, Sixth Archbishop, 2005–present Most Reverend Luis R. Zarama, Auxiliary Bishop, 2009–present

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PASTORS OF THE CATHEDRAL Monsignor Joseph E. Moylan 1936–1945 Msgr. Moylan was vicar-general of the Diocese of Atlanta when he died in 1967 at age seventyeight. He was a native of Savannah who was ordained there in 1917. Before that he had attended St. Mary’s College in North Carolina (Belmont Abbey College) and St. Bernard’s Seminary in Rochester, New York. He began his career as assistant pastor of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Savannah and went on to serve churches in Milledgeville, Atlanta, and Columbus. Besides his pivotal time as the first pastor of the cathedral, he also served as pastor at Atlanta’s Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and Sacred Heart churches and was the first pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption in 1951.

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He was instrumental in the fund-raising for, and the building and establishment of, the Cathedral of Christ the King during the first years of the parish. He also oversaw the construction of the school. A portrait of the dark-haired, plain-spoken, and opinionated leader hangs by the doorway of the current rectory, a reminder of his personal importance to the founding of the parish.

Monsignor Joseph G. Cassidy 1945–1964 Born in Flushing, Queens, New York, in 1897 to a family of twelve children, Monsignor Cassidy was raised in Brooklyn. He went to seminary training at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, New York, and was ordained at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1923 before coming South. He was first appointed assistant at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Savannah and later assigned to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Atlanta. He served as pastor for St. Mary’s in Rome, Georgia, and in 1936 was appointed pastor of the Blessed Sacrament in Savannah.

His next assignment for two and a half years was director of the Rural Life Apostolate (also known as the “Trailer Apostolate”). With this role, he became famous among rural Georgians who visited the trailer “chapel” where he sang hymns, showed movies, and gave religious instruction. He then worked at Milledgeville’s Sacred Heart and parishes in Thomasville and Albany before his assignment at the cathedral in 1945.

Under his leadership, social activities, Bible studies, and school carnivals flourished.

The church went from being a co-cathedral to being named the Cathedral of Christ the King.

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The stained-glass windows were completed, the school was expanded with additional space, and a convent was added for the Grey Nuns.

Monsignor Cassidy celebrated his fortieth year of the priesthood in 1963, and left the next year to continue his ministry in rural areas. He worked at a women’s prison and with the mentally ill. When he passed away on September 9, 1982, he had earned many awards for his life of service, including the highest honor a priest can receive: the papal Protonotary Apostolic.

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Massachusetts. During time in the army in the 1940s he spent time in Alabama and liked it, and asked for a priestly assignment in the South. He then served as an assistant pastor at the cathedral in 1947 and later at churches in LaGrange and Rome (Georgia). In 1964 he returned to Atlanta as founding pastor of Holy Spirit parish and later that year became pastor of the cathedral.

He oversaw the Second Vatican Council changes that took place there with his trademark dignified style (he was known as the “dean of priests” among his fellow clergy).

In 1966 he went back to Holy Spirit Parish with the appointment of Bishop Bernardin as auxiliary bishop. (McDonough had urged that Bernardin also be appointed administrator of the cathedral.) He returned once again as pastor of the cathedral in 1972 after the sudden death of Monsignor Stapleton. After fifty-one years in the priesthood, Msgr. McDonough, age seventy-eight, died on August 9, 1992, at the

Monsignor John Francis McDonough 1964–1966; 1972–1987 Born in Boston, Monsignor McDonough was the third of seven children. He attended Boston College and St. John’s Seminary in Brighton,

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Vatican Council.

While at the cathedral, Cardinal Bernardin worked on expressing the Church’s views on the Vietnam War. Many of these ideas found themselves in his later work as the leader of the Conference of Bishops. As Archbishop Hallinan’s health worsened, many of the duties of running the archdiocese fell upon Bernardin. Recognizing the young priest’s talents in speaking for American Catholics, Hallinan urged him to accept a position with the National Council of Bishops, and he left Atlanta in 1968 for the job.

He went on to become the archbishop of Cincinnati and the archbishop of Chicago, and was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II. He died from pancreatic cancer in 1986.

Holy Spirit Church rectory.

Joseph Cardinal Bernardin 1966–1968

Monsignor John D. Stapleton 1968–1972

A native of Columbia, South Carolina, Cardinal Bernardin attended the University of South Carolina and studied for the priesthood at St. Mary’s College in Kentucky. He completed a master’s degree in school administration at Catholic University in Washington before being ordained at St. Joseph’s Church, Columbia, in 1952. His service began in Charleston, and he soon became assistant chancellor and then chancellor of the diocese. He was named vicar general of the diocese in 1962 and a monsignor the following year. Before he was named auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta and rector of the cathedral at age thirty-eight, making him the youngest bishop in the United States (Archbishop Hallinan had petitioned Rome for Bernardin’s appointment), he had served as director of Catholic Charities, director of cemeteries, and attended the Second

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Monsignor Stapleton was a Savannah native who had been ordained a priest in 1953. He began

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his service as an assistant pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption and was next appointed pastor of St. Bernadette’s in Cedertown before helping to start St. Jude parish in 1960. During Msgr.

Stapleton’s time at the cathedral he established the Parish Council and encouraged the popular folk Mass. He also oversaw construction of the new rectory and the installation of the Ruffati organ. He was only forty-seven when he passed away from a heart attack at the cathedral on August 26, 1972.

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member of the Georgia Christian Council.

Under his leadership, changes influenced by the Second Vatican Council were discussed and debated at the cathedral. The parishioners ultimately decided not to make all of the recommended physical changes to the building. He returned to Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in 1990.

Father Richard A. Kieran 1987–1990 Richard Kieran arrived in Atlanta from Ireland in 1965 (he was ordained the same year) and began his service at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church. He was a teacher at St. Pius X High School and the (now closed) St. Joseph’s High School, and he served as secretary of education for the archdiocese from 1974 to 1982.

Father Kieran served as pastor for churches around the state before coming to the cathedral in 1987, and as a bilingual priest was involved in the Cursillo, an international retreat movement, and has represented Catholics as a

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Monsignor Thomas A. Kenny 1990–2009 Monsignor Kenny, who was born in County Sligo, Ireland, in 1939, came to Atlanta with a group of his fellow countrymen to work in the South after being ordained in 1965. He attended All Hallows College seminary in Dublin, where he was recognized a scholar. He began his service at the cathedral and spent time working at Sacred Heart, Holy Cross Church, and St, Michael’s in Gainesville, where he served as pastor. He was the pastor of Corpus Christi Church in Stone Mountain for thirteen years before returning to the cathedral, where he was named a prelate of honor with the title of monsignor in 1994.

Monsignor Kenny oversaw the addition of the parish’s three-story Donoghue Center, school expansions, and building of the much-needed parking deck while at the cathedral. The school was recognized for its academic excellence with several awards, including the Blue Ribbon School Award from the U.S. Department of Education in 2007. He worked with the school and church leaders to improve and grow the parish, but his warmth and humanity made him one of the most beloved of the cathedral’s leaders. The day before his unexpected death, at age sixty-nine, he had been golfing, a favorite pastime, with his regular foursome. He served the parish for eighteen years.

“He was the ideal pastor for the cathedral parish,” Archbishop Gregory said at his funeral Mass on November 6, 2008. “He welcomed all.”

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Father Francis G. McNamee 2009–present Father McNamee, a native of Loughrea, Ireland, was ordained in 1995 at St. Brendan’s Cathedral in Loughrea by Atlanta Archbishop John F. Donoghue. He studied philosophy at St. Patrick’s College and attended seminary at St. John’s College in Waterford City (both in Ireland). After serving at parishes around the state, he was the founding pastor of St. Peter Chanel in Roswell, where he oversaw the growing parish and two new Catholic schools for ten years. Father McNamee also serves as the director for priest personnel for the archdiocese.

Since coming to the cathedral, Father McNamee has become a regular presence for the schoolchildren, officiating weekly Mass and often greeting them as they enter the gates during carpool. He oversaw the wonderful green space addition in 2010 and has seen the parish grow as it looks to the future with new learning and living spaces planned.

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CHRIST THE KING SCHOOL PRINCIPALS Sister Mary Clement Groat 1937–1942

Sister Mary Virginia McGuire 1964–1966

Sister Mary Gabriel Riley 1942–1943

Sister Catherine Laboure [Sister Rita Hofbauer] 1967–1969

Sister Jane Frances Cabana 1944–1947

Sister Mary Margaret O’Hara 1969–1976

Sister Mary Ita Poupore 1947–1949

Sister Jean Liston 1976–1988

Sister Mary Loyola Murphy 1950–1955

Mrs. Margo Wolke 1988–1989

Sister St. Raphael Carney 1956–1957

Mrs. Peggy Warner 1989–2012

Sister Mary Timothy [Sister Betty Donahue] 1958–1963

Mrs. Patricia Ward (interim 2012)

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Grey Nuns worshipping in the d’Youville Chapel, 1956.

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Sister Mary Clement Groat 1937–1942 Sister Mary Clement Groat was one of five brave Grey Nuns to move south from Pennsylvania to start a new Catholic school, nestled in an area where Catholicism had only just begun to take root.

Sister Mary Clement heeded the call by Savannah bishop Gerald O’Hara, who was responsible then for all Catholics in Georgia.

She moved to Atlanta in 1937 and helped found Christ the King elementary and high school. She taught ninth grade and was the school’s first principal, serving until 1942.

First- and second-grade students in 1937.

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Sister Mary Gabriel Riley 1943–1944

Sister Jane Frances Cabana 1944–1947

A native of Buffalo, New York, Sister Mary Gabriel interrupted her college education at D’Youville College to enter the Order of the Grey Nuns. After several years teaching high school science, chemistry, and serving as a librarian, she earned a master’s degree in sociology at Catholic University. Her brief time at the cathedral likely occurred because she was needed to head the newly established Department of Sociology at D’Youville College in the summer of 1944.

Sister Jane Frances Cabana, a native of Buffalo, New York, had a bachelor’s degree in French from D’Youville College when she entered the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart. After several years serving in elementary and secondary schools she became principal of Christ the King School and earned her master’s from Villanova University. After leaving Atlanta, she served as president of D’Youville College in 1947, and from there held various positions in the Grey Nuns’ administration. Following a gradual decline of health, she died on January 23, 1982, and is remembered as a warm, loving person who was devoted to Christ.

Sister Mary Ita Poupore 1947–1949 A native of Chichester, Quebec, Sister Mary Ita Poupore entered the Grey Nuns of the Cross in Ottawa. She taught in Canada, then came to Buffalo to teach at Holy Angels Academy. While there she decided to join the newly established Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart in 1921. She earned her bachelor’s at D’Youville College and did graduate work at St. John’s University, Brooklyn. She was widely known for her work in education, both as a teacher and as an administrator.

In addition to serving as principal at Christ the King School, she later was the principal at St. Joan of Arc and Blessed Sacrament in New York and as superior of D’Youville College. She was elected Superior General of the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart and served from 1954 to 1965. She is remembered as an example of prayer and devotion.

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Eighth-grade graduates, 1954.

Sister Mary Loyola Murphy 1950–1955

Sister St. Raphael Carney 1956–1957

A native of New Boston, New York, Sister Mary Loyola attended a one-room schoolhouse and the Normal School in Lowville, New York.

She later taught for two years there before she entered the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in education from D’Youville College and her master’s in administration and elementary education from Catholic University. She had a flair for writing; several articles and poems were published in various church and professional journals. She served in Atlanta for eighteen years at St. Jude the Apostle and as principal of Christ the King School and Immaculate Heart of Mary School.

She is fondly remembered as a creative, talented teacher and administrator who loved people. Her warm smile and hearty welcome were a treat for those whom she encountered.

Sister St. Raphael Carney was a native of Buffalo, New York, and a graduate of D’Youville College (bachelor’s degree in English and history) who also earned a master’s degree in history and political science from the Catholic University of America. She taught in schools in Massachusetts and New York before coming to serve as principal of Christ the King School. Her Grey Nun sisters remember her as kind and generous, and always willing to help. An accomplished organist, she loved music and was always ready to assist when an accompanist was needed at church services or elsewhere. When her health failed she retired to the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart Motherhouse in Yardley, Pennsylvania, where she died in 1994.

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Sister Mary Timothy (Sister Betty Donahue) 1958–1963 Sister Betty Donohue made a lasting impact as a loyal friend and a woman with answers.

Her service to Christ the King School began in 1939, where she taught for two separate stints before being named principal in 1958. She left in 1963 for Atlanta’s D’Youville Academy but returned to CKS as librarian in 1980.

Those who worked at the school at the time remembered her library as a cheerful spot

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with banners, flowers, and comfortable chairs.

In 1981 she was honored as Woman of the Year by the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women. During a Mass in 2010 honoring the service of Grey Nuns, Father Richard Lopez spoke of the impact that Sister Donahue, who took the name Sister Mary Timothy and was known as “Big Tim,” made on a generation of children. When she died at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in 1993, a group of men who had been boys at CKS gathered to form an honor guard in remembrance of her.

With the exception of one year in Pennsylvania, Sister Mary Timothy spent much of her life ministering to people in Atlanta.

Sister Mary Virginia McGuire 1964–1966 Sister Mary Virginia McGuire was born in Philadelphia and met the Grey Nuns at Little Flower High School. Her years of experience teaching in elementary schools led to her job

CKS 1954 high school graduates.

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as principal at CKS in 1964, where she was active in the archdiocese serving on the Liturgy Commission, the Regional Civil Defense Committee, and as chair of the Steering Committee of the Diocesan Sisters’ Congress.

She wrote articles for the Georgia Bulletin, the Catholic Educator, and others, and received the Sister of the Year award and Papal Honors for her work on the 1966 Atlanta Archdiocesan Synod.

Sister Catherine Laboure (Sister Rita Hofbauer) 1967–1969 A New York City native, Sister Catherine Laboure had a master’s degree from Villanova when she came to teach, and later to serve as principal at CKS. She went on to be assigned as director of novices at the Grey Nuns Motherhouse in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

Sister Mary Margaret O’Hara 1969–1976 Sister Mary Margaret O’Hara was principal at Christ the King School during a pivotal year—when it became the first elementary school of the archdiocese to become accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. At the time, CKS was staffed by eight Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart and eight lay teachers, with an enrollment of 445 students.

Sister O’Hara’s life was marked by her service in education—and the many schools she helped to lead. She was a teacher at CKS in 1964 before being promoted to principal in 1969, serving until 1976. She later served as principal at St. Jude School in Sandy Springs and supervised schools in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Sister Jean Liston 1976–1988 Sister Jean Liston spent more than a decade helping shape the values and educations of young people in Christ the King School. And in her office, students could always find a cheerful word—and a nice big jar of candies or cookies.

“Twelve of my happiest years as a Grey Nun were spent here,” she said during a return visit in 1998. “We really tried to foster a spirit of community and of love. I think we’ve succeeded because that spirit is still here.”

Sister Liston was principal when the school became a National School of Excellence in 1987.

She said she was inspired to become a Grey Nun because of the spirituality and commitment to excellence in education she saw at Immaculate Conception School in her hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. Sister Liston was principal of St. Rose of Lima School in Buffalo, New York, for six years before coming to Atlanta.

In addition to her visit in 1998, she returned to CKS in 2010 for a Mass celebrating the Grey Nuns’ seventy-three years of service to the diocese. She is retired at the Grey Nun’s Motherhouse in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

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Peggy Warner 1989–2012 A transplant to the South who is originally from Pennsylvania, Peggy Warner began her years at Christ the King School with substitute teaching in 1983. Twenty-nine years later, the grandmother of two CKS students can look back upon her years at the school with pride, knowing that her leadership oversaw changes including air conditioning in the classrooms, new technology, added classrooms, and most recently a beautiful green space for the 565 students.

The school was honored with the National Blue Ribbon School Award for academic excellence under Mrs. Warner’s leadership in 2007.

She has continued to honor the school’s guiding principles of service to the community, faith, and achievement. After twenty-three years as principal, Peggy Warner retired in 2012.

Margo Wolke 1988–1989 In 1973 Margo Miller (Wolke) answered a newspaper ad for a teaching position, walked in for an interview, and encountered a woman dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt dusting off some tables. She thought she was encountering the janitor. But that “janitor” was the principal, Sister Mary Margaret O’Hara, and Margo Miller got the job.

Margo Wolke later became assistant principal and helped author the application that propelled CKS to win the National School of Excellence Award. In the application’s final question, “Why your school differs from other good schools?” she wrote that CKS “teaches love from God will make us stronger . . . [and] help us grow to be our best selves.” She served as interim principal before leaving to become principal of Immaculate Heart of Mary School in 1989.

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CKS 2010 eighth-grade graduates.

Patricia Ward (interim 2012) Patricia (Tricia) Ward has worked at Christ the King School for twenty-three years, teaching social studies in the Middle School (where she was department chair) and then serving as vice principal for fifteen years. A native of Columbus, Georgia, she has a master’s in education from Columbus State University, an undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia, and an Educational Leadership Certification in Administration and Supervision from Georgia State University. Her teaching experience includes schools in Barrow and Muscogee counties as well as Germany.

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About the Author Amy Bonesteel Smith is a Cathedral of Christ the King parishioner and reporter whose work has been published in Time, Atlanta Magazine, Parenting and many national and local publications. She has an M.A. in English from Georgia State University and a B.A. in English from East Carolina University.

She is married to speechwriter and author William Rawson Smith, a greatgrandson of several founding members of the Cathedral. She and her family live in Buckhead.

Acknowledgments Special thanks to my mother-in-law, Betty Haverty Smith, whose archives and memories were of immeasurable help. I am also grateful to Julie Eidson, Father Frank McNamee, Father Morrow, Sharon Connelly, Bridget Lerette at the Archdiocese of Atlanta archives, and the members of the 75th Anniversary Committee (especially proofreaders Margaret Jones, Elizabeth Buyarski, and Peggy Warner) for their help and support.

The following persons submitted interviews, photographs, graphics, and text. I am thankful for their contributions: Sister Mary Karen Kelly, archivist for the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart Michael Alexander of the Georgia Bulletin Anne Boshinski Shannon Beirne Pam Fischer Meg Jones Fligg Mary Ellen Howley Margaret Jones Genny Lucchese Kelly Paige Maclane Carroll Smith Offen Richard Reynolds III Leslie Sharkey Teresa Penley Sheppard Hamilton Smith Lucy Soto Raul Trujillo Joan Smith Zillessen

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