HIGH POINT — Father Bernard A. Manley Jr., 94, died Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016, at his home at Pennybyrn at Maryfield in High Point.
The Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, at St. Lawrence Basilica in Asheville, with Bishop Peter J. Jugis as principal celebrant. Interment will follow at Riverside Cemetery.
A prayer vigil for the deceased will held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, at Groce Funeral Home, located at 1401 Patton Ave. in Asheville, after which the family will receive friends until 8:30 p.m.
Father Manley was born in Columbia, S.C. on June 12, 1922. He was the son of the late Bernard A. Manley Sr. and Mary Fae Collins Manley, and grandson of John Henry and Emma Hall Manley and Oscar Charles and Minnie Hampton Collins.
He attended Orange Street and Claxton elementary schools and was a 1940 graduate of Lee H. Edwards High School.
In June 1941, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and served overseas with the 8th Air Force. He was discharged as a senior master sergeant in October 1945.
Following discharge, he attended the Columbia Institute of Technology in Washington, D.C., and came to work for the City of Asheville as assistant city engineer. In addition, he was appointed chief building inspector and the first traffic engineer of Asheville. In the mid 1950s he designed the first "one-way" street system in Asheville, most of which is still in effect.
He later joined the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce and retired from there in 1983 as general manager.
He was very active in civic affairs. He was a founding board member of Mountain Area Hospice, Quality Forward and the Asheville-Buncombe Community Relations Council, as well as many other community boards.
He entered the Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., in September 1983, and in 1987, at the age of 65, he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Charlotte at St. Lawrence Basilica in Asheville.
He served at St. Patrick Cathedral in Charlotte; as pastor of St. William Church in Murphy, Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Hayesville and St. Francis of Assisi Church in Mocksville; and as priest in residence at St. Eugene Church in Asheville. He retired from priestly ministry in July 1996.
In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his wife, Mary Ellen Tull Manley in 1979, and by a daughter, Rachel Faye Smith, in 2014.
He is survived by a daughter, Geraldine (Jerry) Mulder of Portsmouth, Va.; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to: St. Lawrence Basilica, 97 Haywood St., Asheville, N.C. 28801; CarePartners Hospice, P.O. Box 25338, Asheville, N.C. 28813; St. Eugene Church, 72 Culvern St., Asheville, N.C. 28804; or Maryfield Resident Care Fund, 1315 Greensboro Road, High Point, N.C. 27260.
A register to offer notes of condolence can be found at www.grocefuneralhome.com.
Groce Funeral Home and Cremation Service of Asheville is in charge of the arrangements.
— Catholic News Herald
CHARLOTTE — “I’m sure a lot of you are either startled or just disturbed at the fact that we still have slaves in existence today in our country. We have to start to think that (human trafficking) is affecting us, even though we don’t think it is. And just because we don’t see it, doesn’t mean it is not happening,” warned Kailey Ellis, director of operations for Lily Pad Haven, at a human trafficking seminar Oct. 13.
The human trafficking seminar, offered at St. Gabriel Church in Charlotte, was sponsored by the parish’s Respect Life Ministry.
Carla Tweddale, Lily Pad Haven’s founder and director, as well as Ellis, spoke to about 100 people about the victims of human trafficking and the resources available to them in the Charlotte metro area.
“North Carolina is a top 10-ranked state within our country, and that should be something that is alarming to all of us,” Tweddale told attendees.
Charlotte-based Lily Pad Haven is a non-profit organization that provides transitional housing to human trafficking victims who have been rescued in the Charlotte area. According to its mission statement, Lily Pad Haven aims to provide human trafficking survivors a place “for healing, a loving home to restore body, mind and spirit.”
The seminar began with a task force presentation by an undercover FBI agent who asked not to be identified. He defined human trafficking as the “use of illegal means to compel person to perform labor, services or a commercial sex act.”
Although it is difficult to assign any accurate statistics to this often hidden crime, he said, it has been estimated as of last year human trafficking was a $31.6 billion per year industry – second only to drug trafficking in profits.
“The human trafficking industry in 2014 made more money than Walmart or a big corporation like GE,” the FBI agent said.
Human trafficking falls in two categories: labor trafficking or sex trafficking.
“Labor trafficking is holding a person in a condition of slavery and through prohibited means such as force, or threats of force,” he said.
Sex traffickers use force, fraud or coercion to lure and then keep their victims in the sex trade.
Human trafficking is a worldwide crime, but sex trafficking is particularly common in the United States, he said. Sex trafficking has been found in every state, and it is also pervasive and widely promoted on the internet, he said.
Speaking about Lily Pad Haven’s guests, Ellis said a typical human trafficking survivor needs “everything. These individuals are starting from the ground up.”
She added, “Traffickers will strip anything they can as a means of control, and to keep them emotionally enslaved, to keep them to do what they need to do and make money.”
Ellis explained that once their clients’ basic needs are met, including finding a safe place to live, helping them overcome the traumatic experience of trafficking becomes more manageable. Lily Pad Haven partners with various community resources to meet the needs of their guests.
“We provide them with a ‘care team,’ a counselor and a case manager that come and meet with them weekly at home to help them deal with a lot of the emotional struggles they are dealing with,” she said. “It’s a person-centered plan. I have to meet them where they’re at, and each person is going to have a different set of goals and a different plan.”
“This is an issue we should all be concerned about because it affects us all. It doesn’t know race or age or socioeconomic background. It’s a problem for all of us to be aware of,” St. Gabriel’s Respect Life coordinator Tammy Harris noted.
— Rico De Silva, Hispanic Communications Reporter
Learn more
For more information about Lily Pad Haven and how to donate or volunteer, go to www.Lilypadhaven.org or call 704-312-2011.