Newspapers / Crossroads (Belmont, N.C.) / April 1, 1979, edition 1 / Page 9
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Alumni Donors (Cont. from page 8.) Ethicon Inc. William F. Dealy 111 First An. Merchant Co. Francis D. Gragani General Electric Fdn. Martin H. Peters, Jr. General Electric Fdn. Heriberto Hernandez General Foods Inc. Christopher Pollard Hallmark Cards Inc. William Marter Hanes Corp. Edward C. Eyler, 111 IBM Corporation Jim Obi IBM Corporation Ronald Motley IBM Corporation Thomas J. Carnpbell J.C. Penney Co. Inc. Bart Turner James H. Lynch Inc. Gerald G. Lynch Jefferson Pilot Franklin D. Mack Johnson & Johnson Dennis McEvoy Martin Marietta Corp. Francis Callan Milliken & Company Richard L. MaGovern Milliken & Company Donald J. Krafnick National Controls Co. Fredrick J. Santolucito New York Telephone Co. John Healey Peat Marwick Mitchell Bryan G. Rogers Prudential Ins. Co. Vincent J. Hirsch Security Trust Co. James Flatley Singer Company Michael J. Norris Tacoma Enterprises Inc. Joseph J. Mertes Western Electric Thomas D. Siegle Alumni Band ‘Killdevil’ ‘This is our final song, real ly!” shrieked Denny Desloge (74) as he led “Killdevil” back on stage for its third encore. As the other members of the group situated their equip ment, Desloge announced, “We would like to play something by Crosby, Stills and Nash.” As the group began to play “Carry On,” one could see a deep meaning behind the music. It had been five years since Desloge graduated from the Abbey, but today he returned with two other Abbey classmates. Bob White and Steve Dettmare, to provide entertainment for the Annual Spring Weekend celebration. Both Desloge and White were members of “Quail” along with three other Abbey men while they were students (1970-74). Now they are members of a seven man group playing mostly in the Washington, D.C. area. Dett mare is also with the group, working in production and writing. APRIL 1979 - CROSSROADS - Page 9 New Trustees Appointed Dr. Edwin Wilson, provost of Wake Forest University, and Father Lawrence Willis, O.S.B., assistant professor of history of Belmont Abbey College, have been appointed to the Board of Trustetes of B.A.C. The Board of Trustees of the college consists of seventeen members, four of whom are members of Belmont Abbey Monastery and elected by the monastic community. Board members serve three-year terms. As provost of Wake Forest University, Dr. Edwin Wilson is the chief academic officer of the University, as well as a pro fessor of English. A native of Leaksville, North Carolina, he received the B.A. degree summa cum laude in 1943 from Wake Forest, and the A. M. and Ph.D. degrees in English from Harvard University in 1948 and 1952 respectively. Dr. Wilson joined the Wake Forest faculty in the fall of 1951 as an English instructor. He was promoted through the usual ranks and was named professor of English in 1959. Meanwhile, he had become assistant dean of the college in, 1957 and acting dean in 1958. In 1960 he was appointed dean of the college and in 1967 provost of the university. During James Ralph Scales’s leave of absence in the fall term of 1974, he was acting president of the university. Fr. Lawrence Willis, O.S.B., received the B.A. degree from B. A.C. in 1962. He remained at the college for one year as an in structor before going to Pontificium Athenaeum Anselmianum where he received the S.T.B. and S.T.L. degrees. He has been a member of the Belmont Abbey College faculty since that time. A native of Winston-Salem, Fr. Lawrence made his solemn profession of vows as a monk of the Order of St. Benedict in January 1960. He was ordained as a priest at Assisi, Italy in July 1966. In addition to the appointments of Dr. Wilson and Fr. Lawrence Willis to the Board of Trustees, four current members were reappointed for additional terms. James G. Babb, Jr., executive vice president of Jefferson-Pilot Broadcasting Co., Charlotte; Edward J. Dowd, Jr., president of Central Piedmont Employers Association, Charlotte; Edward F. Dr. Edwin Wilson Fr. Lawrence Willis, O.S.B. Gallagher, chairman of the board of Good Will Publishers, Inc., Gastonia, and Father John Oetgen, O.S.B., professor of English at B.A.C., were all reappointed to the Board for additional three- year terms. Other members of the Board of Trustees include Basil L. Whitener (chairman), Gastonia attorney and former U.S. Con gressman; Robert P. Caldwell, president of R.P. Caldwell and Co., Gastonia; J. Bynum Carter, president of A.B. Carter, Inc., Gastonia, Dr. Bonnie E. Cone, vice chancellor emeritus of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Ms. Johnnie Falls, vice president of the Bank of Belmont; Fr. Raymond Geyer, O.S.B., prior of St. Benedict’s Priory, Richmond, Va.; Fr. Martin Hayes, O.S.B., assistant professor of accounting at B.A.C.; Louis C. Stephens, Jr., president of Pilot Life Insurance Co., Greensboro; Abbot Peter Stragand, O.S.B., chancellor of the College; Theodore B. Sumner, Jr., chairman of First Union National Bank, Charlotte, and George L. Wrenn, president of Wrenn Brothers Carolina, Inc., Charlotte. In Poland, There Is A Lesson For All Christianity Today by Fr. John P. Bradley A few months ago a good friend of mine. Dr. Stan Mooneyham, a Baptist clergyman and the president of World Vision, told me of a trip he had made to Poland last May. Discussing the trip with me he asked, “What is that service, John, you Catholics have every evening in May?” After thinking about this for a moment I replied, “Oh yes, you mean the May Devotions honoring Mary the mother of Jesus.” My reply was slow in com ing because we Catholics in the Western world have not in recent years paid much at tention to such devotional services. “Well,” Dr. Mooneyham continued, “I was enormously impressed and edified by the way the people in Poland attended the May Devotions: it seemed that almost everyone in the town where 1 stayed went to church every evening in May.” Dr. Mooneyham then went on to marvel at the remarkable vitality of Catholicism in Poland despite the efforts of the Polish Com munist government to sup press religion since it came in to power after World War II. This point raised by Dr. Mooneyham — the great Fr. John P. Bradley vitality of Catholicism in Communist Poland — has at tracted much attention recently, no doubt prompted by the election of the first Polish pope, John Paul II. Why has Catholicism in Poland been able to defy the power of the Communist government and keep religion not only alive but strong and central to the people’s lives? There is probably no simple answer to this question. A good part of the answer, however, has to do with the strong and wonderful faith of the Polish people and their deep commitment to- Catholicism for a thousand years. Another part of the answer, no doubt, is to be found in the close relationship throughout Poland’s history between its Catholicism and its national identity. One of the many indications of the strength and durability of this relationship is the annual pilgrimage to venerate the painting of the Black Madon na, Our Lady of Czestochowa, a pilgrimage commemorating the victory of Poland over Swedish in vaders. Even tdday, centuries later, a million Poles par ticipate in this .pilgrimage each year. A further part of the answer, 1 would imagine, is the magnificent raw courage of the Polish people who for centuries have been con tinually invaded, taken over, and persecuted by other coun- ries, yet have refused to be obliterated as a nation. For well over a hundred years Poland was occupied by Prussia, Russia and Austria, yet phoenix-like reappeared as an independent nation after World War I. Devastated by the Nazis in World War II and shamefully handed over to Russia by Roosevelt and Churchill as Yalta as a pawn in the negotiations with Stalin after the war, Poland nonetheless is vibrant and hopeful • once again today. Such a people do not easily yield their Catholicism to invaders, be these invaders armies or ideologies. That is a fact the Soviet-supported invading ideology of communism has discovered in our times. We Catholics here in the West, to some extent in disar ray since the Second’Vatican Council, might well wonder about the strength of our commitment to our faith com pared with that of Poland. Although we and the other Christian denominations in the West are able to practice our faith in freedom and com fort we seem to exert very lit tle impact on the prevailing culture. With a good deal of merit Western culture is fre quently described nowadays ■as post-Christian, and the “do- your-own-thing', pleasure -principle, me-first” values — anything but Christian — are widely embraced. Perhaps one of the lessons Poland and its history can teach us is that Christianity is purified in the fires of hardship and persecu tion. Not such a surprising lesson when we recall that the emblem of Christianity is the cross.
Crossroads (Belmont, N.C.)
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April 1, 1979, edition 1
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