requiescat

We lost a holy priest, a tireless advocate, a wise mentor and a dear friend this morning at 4am. Rest in peace, Dave, you will be sorely missed.

Fr. David McDonald
September 8, 1929 - September 16, 2008
Ordained: May 19, 1955

in memoriam

.





For all the fallen and their families, remembrance and a prayer.



It happened seven years ago and I was 5125 miles away... but there's no forgetting.

Not today, not ever.



Peace.

hardly convincing

Recently, a Jesuit friend (yup, imagine that...) invited me to a screening of Jason Berry’s film Vows of Silence scheduled for screening at Fairfield University in a few weeks. I told him that I had seen it once already, on DVD. If the screening is part of a forum on the broader issues of the clergy abuse scandal and reform in the Church, I am definitely interested. If it’s solely centered on this specific bit of filmmaking... not so much. The Exorcist’s opinion, for whatever it’s worth, includes some of the following thoughts.

The DVD summarizes the basic content covered in more detail in Berry’s book by the same name. There are small historical imprecisions that neither help nor hurt the central thesis of the author. A generous portion of the footage is taken from the LC promotional videos of the ‘90s. There is no novelty, no surprise in the documentary-like program for anyone familiar with the controversy that ensued between Fr. Maciel and his ex-LC accusers some years ago after reporting by the Hartford Courant and lasted up to the Vatican’s statement on the case and the Founder’s death.

The program’s insistence that Fr. Maciel was somehow inspired by the likes of Adolph Hitler, Francisco Franco or Augusto Pinochet to found the LC is misguided at best. The images of goose-stepping foot soldiers and flat-handed, straight-armed salutes mixed with uniformed LCs from the 50s and 60s probably made for some excitement in the editing room, but have little to do with the reality of the LC. It is this type of overkill that raises credibility issues in the minds of even the more critically inclined among us.

But the fundamental and lasting complaint to be lodged with the fairness police about this film is also the oldest and the least politically correct.

Why should I believe Fr. Maciel’s accusers in the first place?

Why give instant and unquestioned credibility to persons whose stories might just merit a more critical look? Case in point, there’s a new face among the accusers that appears toward the end of the program. A young man, ex-LC priest, recounts that Fr. Maciel squeezed his arm and told him how strong he was while they were driving in a car with other passengers from Germany to Belgium back in the ‘90s.

That’s it. Fr. Maciel squeezed his arm.

This guy tearfully tells how later, as a midlevel Vatican official, he read the Courant articles on the web and – recalling the arm squeeze – suddenly realized that it was all horribly, scandalously true. The Founder he had once revered and respected was actually a monster in disguise.

Is it so coldly insensitive to those who have cloaked themselves in the mantle of victimhood to ask if that’s all there is to the story? Who is this guy that a squeeze on the arm, a pat on the back, a fist bump or a high-five reveals to him the hidden immorality of his religious superior? Are we to assume, as the program insinuates, that this accuser abandoned his job in the Vatican, his vocation to the LC and his priesthood because of what he read in the Hartford Courant? Is that really it? Might there not be some factor - other than an arm squeeze and a newspaper article - that induces this young man to reflect on his LC past with hindsight tinged by bitterness or disdain or shame or sadness or whatever?

I’ve said it before. When faced with the choice between my own experience of nearly thirty years in close contact with the Founder and the testimony of others, blurred by unanswered questions... I can only honestly be expected to hold on to what I know to be true. Jason Berry’s film has simply reinforced that conviction.

Peace.

dead man standing

I wonder if the antics of the living mortify the dead.

The dead are commonly well behaved. They wait patiently for the wake to begin. They silently bear the excesses of their loved ones. They seldom disrupt the exequial Mass celebrated on their behalf. They proceed relaxed and composed (as opposed to decomposed) to the burial site. And they surrender themselves discreetly to the finality of it all as they are lowered into their ultimate resting place.

The living are another can of worms altogether.

I have seen first hand:

- friends and family snapping photos on their cell phones as the deceased lies in state
- other family members squeezing in cheek-to-cadaverous-cheek to be in the photo with the deceased
- the photo of the deceased emblazoned on T-shirts that are worn the following day at the funeral Mass
- one friend hold the hand of the deceased out of the casket to allow the other friends walk by and reverently fist bump their dead homey
- mothers, grandmothers, wives and girl friends (recognized and suddenly revealed) throw themselves on the open casket and attempt to wrest the defunct object of their affection from a prone position, as if forcing him back to the land of the living
- sons and nephews pour cans of Tecate on papi’s casket as it is being lowered into the ground
- a live pet schnauzer resting on his ex-master’s legs as the mourners file by
- abuela being covered in sea shells before her coffin is closed because she always loved the beach
- junior clothed in pinstripes, fitted with a cap, adorned with a first baseman’s glove and wrapped in a Yankees blanket as he lays motionless
- a squirrel running into a wake in progress and scampering up onto the open casket of the departed
- el tío laid to rest in a fiberglass coffin fashioned into a pink Dodge pick-up
- friends dancing cumbia around the gravesite as mami waits to be inhumed
- fainting, screaming, vomiting, thrashing, laughing, cursing, crying and clapping... all by the living

But this takes the cake:

What ever happened to "rest in peace"?

The indignity of death is only surpassed by the insanity of the living.

smell the coffee

Raul is a pain in the ass.

I imply no moral judgment here. It is a fact, pure and simple.

Raul likes to ring the rectory doorbell at 5:45am on Saturdays. Saturday is the one day of the week that I do not have to be up early for Mass at any of the three parishes I celebrate at on Sundays and during the week.

I doubt that Raul knows this. If he did I would have begun this post with, “Raul is a malicious pain in the ass.” That would most definitely have been a moral judgment.

Raul rings the bell adamantly and shouts, “Padrecito!! Padrecito!!”. I can only assume, even in my sleep smeared semi-consciousness, that Raul is trying to get my attention.

Groggy and alarmed, I stumbled downstairs and opened the door the first five or six times that Raul roused me, half expecting to find someone bleeding profusely from gang inflicted shotgun wounds on the doorstep. I would not have minded getting up at 5:45 for that. Not as much, anyway.

But no, no comatose victim gasping for breath, no hugely pregnant woman on the verge of childbirth, no family of transient workers seeking refuge from immigration raids... just Raul.

Raul wants coffee.

It is amazing that I actually ran this drill five or six times before realizing that my Saturday wake-up call was summoning me, not to some life or death situation, but to Raul’s mistaking the parish for Starbucks. I must not be too intelligent.

I will not speculate on Raul’s intelligence.

The first time I responded to his beckoning, I could hardly believe my ears. I said something like, “Raul, I can hardly believe my ears!”. I told him that there would be no coffee at the rectory until 7am at the earliest. In fact, to be on the safe side, try back sometime after 10.

Raul looked at me as if he couldn’t believe his ears, and shuffled away.

In the meantime, a lot went down between 5:45 and 10am that particular Saturday and, sorry to say, I kind of forgot about Raul. Returning from hospital visits at around 10:50am, I stopped by the local Dunkin Donuts and ordered a double shot Turbo with three Splendas. This was to be my breakfast.

I got out of the car and, lost in thought, turned the corner to the rectory where I nearly stepped on Raul, who was patiently sitting on the steps.

Raul’s eyes welled up and he drew his tattered sleeve across his grimy, moist nose. “I knew it, Padrecito! I knew you did not abandon me!”

Ever the hero, I surrendered my steaming cup to this Jesus-in-disguise. Raul removed the cover and stared at its contents. “Padrecito, next time I like a little bit milk in my café.”

Weeks have passed and Raul and I have grown in our relationship. I have convinced him that Thursdays – food pantry days – are the best days for prompt and friendly service at the parish. Raul, on his part, has confided to me that he never really knows what day it is anyway so any further counseling I may wish to offer him on the issue is probably moot.

I was sorely tempted to disconnect the rectory doorbell on Saturdays, but, with my luck, the day I do one of this miserable city’s victims will actually show up at my door. I don’t even want to think about that.

So, I had the parish spring for a Braun with an automatic timer. Coffee is served from 5:45 on. There is milk in the refrigerator. All are welcome. Raul loves company.

Peace.

a prayer for the brokenhearted

.

I was celebrating a funeral Mass at 5pm this afternoon at St. Michael when my cell phone began buzzing wildly in my pocket. When Mass was over I learned that 9 young girls of our flagship school in Santiago had perished in a horrific bus accident in Putre, northern Chile.

I know some of the families of the deceased and injured and can barely imagine the pain and heart sickness of their families and the entire community that I was so deeply involved with for 10 years of my priestly ministry.

My thoughts and prayers for you all.
Peace.

withdrawl

From this:

and this:

to this:

and this:

I pine.