A WAYFARING STRANGER

A WAYFARING STRANGER 

In my first grade class in a Catholic school many years ago, there were three little boys destined to make their marks on society.  One always said he was going to become a priest. He was absolutely certain that he was going to become a priest.  The second boy said he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up, and the third boy never voiced what he wanted to be as an adult, but he was intelligent and destined to do something noteworthy. 

The first boy told everyone who would listen that more than anything else in the world he wanted to, and was going to, become a priest.  There was no doubt in his or our minds.  He-was-going-to-become-a–priest!  He was a beautiful boy.  As someone said, he was so pretty he should have been a girl. His skin glowed, and was the color of café au lait.  His hair was curly and jet black.  And when he smiled, the sun shone brighter. He was indeed a beautiful boy.  Our classmates knew that he would be an exceptional priest.  At our daily Masses he knelt perfectly straight on the hard wooden kneelers, hands folded in obeisance to God who he was preparing to serve.  We knew that he was well on his way to priesthood. 

At a very young age he entered a seminary to begin the rigorous studies to become one of the Lord’s own. Many years passed. Periodically when I returned home I asked about him, but no one had any information about him.  Somehow we all believed that he had become a successful priest. In my mind’s eye I could see him ministering in a parish somewhere near or far away. I hoped his parishioners were enjoying the young priest who so passionately wanted to serve them.

The second boy realized his dream and became a doctor – a gynecologist.  A friend who had just given birth looked up at a group of interns crowded around her bed as her doctor examined her, and she was chagrined to see a familiar face smiling at her.  It was our old classmate.  His dream had been realized.  But he knew nothing of our golden boy, the priest-to-be.

The third boy became a doctor also, a dermatologist, who I had occasion to visit after running into him and his sister in another city where I resided.  I asked about our friend who wanted to become a priest, but he knew nothing of him.

Years passed.  I always asked about him, but nobody knew where he was or if he had become a priest. I remembered him in prayer whenever I thought of his lofty ambition, and prayed that he was a successful priest.

Imagine my shock one morning when I read the obituary section in the daily paper and saw my friend’s name.  The obituary said at the time of his death, he worked at a clinic for  HIV patients in a major East Coast city.  What was even more shocking than his death was that there was no mention of his priesthood. That shock was compounded by another shock: he specifically requested that there be no church service.  My heart broke!  What could have happened to separate him from our Church?  What turned his dream of being a priest into a nightmare? I wept for his broken and unrealized dreams, and for this friend whose ambition was crushed somehow.

I often think of my childhood friend who went into the seminary barely in his teens, and it is always with great sadness that I remember him. I’ve never known anyone who wanted to become a priest, let alone someone with the passion that he had for the priesthood. Whatever happened must have been devastating to cause him to abandon that dream and to not even want prayers as his body was recommitted to the earth.

This wayfaring stranger who as a beautiful, young innocent was making his way through the world, died, sick and disappointed with his Church and maybe even angry at God. Now this wayfaring stranger is a stranger no more. He is now at Home where there is no sickness or fear, but only goodness, peace, and the presence and love of God. 

May my friend requiescat en pax.  

Black leaders who missed the spotlight

THE WASHINGTON POST

Opinion Writer

Black leaders who missed the spotlight

        

By Colbert I. King, Published: August 2      E-mail the writer

Think of them as the quietly courageous generation: African American men and women who embarked in the last century on the difficult trails that life laid before them. Think of them as the generation that took on the challenges, endured the slights and overcame the roadblocks, yet never stooped to whining and complaining. Think of them as the generation that succeeded with confidence, honor and their dignity intact.

They represent a face of Washington that the country, let alone this city, hardly acknowledges, if that face is seen at all.

Representatives of that generation recently surfaced with little fanfare at the State Department in Foggy Bottom. Another member was memorialized last month at the historic Asbury United Methodist Church on K Street NW.

At a June event, the State Department recognized the 40th anniversary of the Thursday Luncheon Group, an innocent-enough-sounding name for an organized, quarterly meeting of African Americans who work at State and other foreign affairs agencies.

In its four decades the group has grown from a gathering of its two founders to more than 300, counting among its ranks ambassadors, career ministers, Foreign Service officers and senior civil service staff.

They represent a sea change in U.S. diplomacy from the period in the 1930s when an all-white U.S. Marine band serenaded the president of Haiti, who was embarking on a trip, with “Bye Bye Blackbird.”

The group members are pioneers in a tough and demanding undertaking: representing and showcasing the United States throughout the world. To say it has been a tough slog for African Americans in the Foreign Service is, perhaps, to state the obvious. I learned that during my six years with State at home and abroad. If you want to know what it was like, look no further than “Being Black in a ‘Lily White’ State Department,” the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training’s 1995 interview with career ambassador Terence Todman.

So the achievements of diplomats such as Todman — who was honored at the 40th-anniversary event — are all the more remarkable.

Also present and lauded were Edward J. Perkins, who was the first African American to serve as director general of the Foreign Service and who also served as the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, and Aurelia Brazeal, the first female African American Foreign Service officer to rise from the entry level to the senior ranks, including stints as ambassador to Micronesia, Kenya and Ethi­o­pia.

Little does this country — or, for that matter, the world — know of their contribution to diplomacy and international development. And if left to the Washington media, it would remain that way.

Nonetheless, that generation of strivers has paved the way with courage and quiet determination that a younger generation should adopt.

To the Thursday Luncheon Group’s credit, many of its members are reaching back and reaching out to bring other young African Americans into the foreign policy arena through the use of scholarships and mentoring programs.

All done with little fanfare.

So, too, was a life well lived by Charles A. Hines, a D.C. native, Dunbar High School and Howard University graduate who rose through the ranks of the U.S. Army to achieve the rank of major general. He died July 4.

Hines, my college classmate, reached the pinnacle of all that he took on. Academic pursuit: two masters degrees and a PhD from Johns Hopkins; educational achievement: president of Prairie View A&M University.

He was the first African American to command a military establishment in the South: Fort McClellan, starting in July 1989. Before that, Hines was head of the officer personnel office at the Pentagon.

A decorated Vietnam veteran, he was awarded the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star and the Parachutist Badge.

I followed Chuck Hines’s path to Dunbar and Howard, but I never caught up.

My military career ended with me having the distinction of being one of America’s oldest first lieutenants. Chuck retired with two stars on his shoulders.

I went to Fort McClellan in 1963 for an experimental program in the selection of future commissioned officers. Chuck arrived 26 years later to run the whole show. He even surpassed me in the parenthood department: his seven children to my three, his 12 grandchildren to my seven.

He excelled at everything and bragged about nothing. He led by example, demanded and expected the best in others and himself, and was everything that the critics of black people say we are not.

Chuck Hines, members of the Thursday Luncheon Group and a host of unsung 20th-century African American achievers in other walks of life — scientists, lawyers, judges, professors, physicians, teachers, engineers, military leaders, clergy, architects, journalists, corporate executives — lacked a scandalous background, a history of buffoonery or pathological flaws. Hence they have gone largely unnoticed by the mainstream media.

But Hines, the Thursday Luncheon group and others like them belong to that quietly courageous and accomplished generation of African Americans who have overcome the odds. They are, and forevermore will be, truly worthy of the nation’s honor and respect.

Ambassador Andrew Young

Note:  Colbert King speaks of those in our embassies throughout the world working in dangerous areas due to the weather, snakes, floods, and those who hate us. The Diplomatic Passport is sometimes the signal for our destruction.  Some Foreign Service Officers carry two passports, and sometimes we carry three. When I worked in Swaziland I had three passports.  One was a special Diplomatic Passport to enter and leave South Africa only. A second Diplomatic Passport was for all other African countries that did not permit entry of anyone with a South African stamp in their passport! A third passport was a personal one in the event that it became necessary to not be identified as a U.S. diplomat. The diplomats who represent our nation abroad are there because they want to be, because they believe in what our country represents and want to reach out to others to help developing countries and, of course, to offer aid in the form of scholarships, equipment, USAID, and the Peace Corps for the  necessary basics such as water. 

Read more from Colbert King’s archive.

BE PROUD OF BEING A CATHOLIC!

Life isn't Tied With a Bow, but it's Still a Gift.

Below are excerpts of an article written by non-Catholic Sam Miller – a prominent Cleveland Jewish businessman:

"Why would newspapers carry on a vendetta on one of the most important institutions that we have today in the United States , namely the Catholic Church?

Do you know - the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at the cost to that Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars. The graduates go on to graduate studies at the rate of 92%.

The Church has 230 colleges and universities in the U.S. with an enrollment of 700,000 students.

The Catholic Church has a non-profit hospital system of 637 hospitals, which account for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people - not just Catholics - in the United States today

But the press is vindictive and trying to totally denigrate in every way the Catholic Church in this country. They have blamed the disease of pedophilia on the Catholic Church, which is as irresponsible as blaming adultery on the institution of marriage.

Let me give you some figures that Catholics should know and remember. For example, 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner; 38% acknowledged other inappropriate sexual contact in a study by the United Methodist Church , 41.8% of clergy women reported unwanted sexual behavior; 17% of laywomen have been sexually harassed.

Meanwhile, 1.7% of the Catholic clergy has been found guilty of pedophilia. 10% of the Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia. This is not a Catholic Problem.

A study of American priests showed that most are happy in the priesthood and find it even better than they had expected, and that most, if given the choice, would choose to be priests again in face of all this obnoxious PR the church has been receiving.

The Catholic Church is bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. The agony that Catholics have felt and suffered is not necessarily the fault of the Church. You have been hurt by a small number of wayward priests that have probably been totally weeded out by now.

Walk with your shoulders high and your head higher. Be a proud member of the most important non-governmental agency in the United States .

Then remember what Jeremiah said: 'Stand by the roads, and look and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is and walk in it, and find rest for your souls'. Be proud to speak up for your faith with pride and reverence and learn what your Church does for all other religions.

Be proud that you're a Catholic."

I am so proud to be a Catholic.  I was introduced to the Catholic faith in the first grade at St. Bridget's School in Indianapolis, Indiana a long, long time ago.  I was not Catholic, but I watched with great envy as my friends prepared for their First Holy Communion and other special things that only Catholics could do.  I have wonderful memories of the Sisters of Providence who taught us.  One, Sr. Agnella, was not the nicest nun, but she and I tolerated each other.  The first and second graders were in one room.  In another were the third and fourth graders. Our third grade teacher is still alive and still remembers us by name! Amazing! She came to us so young and so sweet. She always had a smile and still does.

I lived with my grandmother.  She made me wear snuggies - they were underwear that you wore over  panties and they came down to the knees. They were made of something warm. Well, I decided I was not going to wear them all day in class, so I usually took them off and tucked them in my coat sleeve
in the cloakroom, and put them back on when school ended for the day.  One day, in the early afternoon, one of those wicked boys stood in the doorway of the cloakroom waving a pair of snuggies.  From the doorway he called out, "Who do these belong to?" The class burst out laughing. I was mortified. At first I was going to ignore him, but then I realized that I could not go home without those snuggies.  So, I mustered up the courage and stood up and snatched them out of his hands and sailed into the cloakroom. I stayed in there as long as I could, and then I went back to my desk. I never looked at Sr. Agnella or that bad boy!  Thereafter, I kept on my snuggies rather than risk him waving them like a flag!

The students attended Mass five days a week, and those who lived near a Catholic Church were expected to attend Mass on Sundays. I attended Mass six days a week - how I loved it! - and on Sundays, after Mass, my grandmother took me with her to Sunday School and church services at her Baptist church across the street from St. Bridget's.  I did not understand why people in her church had to "get happy" and scream and shout and fall out.  The music was loud and I was very, very unhappy, but I dared not say anything to my grandmother. In the summer we went to evening services in a tent a few blocks away.  It was hot and I was miserable.  I ached to be in the Catholic Church with its dim lighting, incense, the statues and, above all, the quietness. Masses were said in Latin and I knew every word of the Mass.  My grandmother and I lived in one room in a rooming house one block from my school. I guess I thought I would always attend that school.  But life stepped in, and my grandmother became ill. Within a very short time she died. I was ten years old and felt so alone. I had been with my grandmother every day of my life since I was born. Suddenly she was gone, and nothing would ever be the same.

My aunt and uncle where we had moved to began urging my mother to go out with some man my uncle knew.  He was a strange man. He never talked to me; in fact, he never even looked at me when he came to take Mother out on a date. She had been seeing another man who drove us to Kentucky for my grandmother's funeral.  I prayed that she would marry him.  He was funny, loved our family, loved me, and he was a joy to be around. Eventually my mother married the other man and suddenly we moved to a house in the suburbs, far from my school and my beloved Church, and all of my friends. I was enrolled in a public school.  Once a week the students in my class were taken to some church for some sort of religious instructions.  When I told Mother that I did not want to go, she notified the school that I was Catholic and would not be attending those classes. My world had been turned upside down.

Our first Sunday in that strange neighborhood I thought Mother would be going to church.  She began preparing an elaborate breakfast which came to be the usual Sunday breakfast - steak and gravy, potatoes, biscuits and apple sauce and/or fried apples. I was accustomed to going to church. But the family said I was too young to take two trolleys across town to go to St. Bridget's. I asked Mother if I could become a Catholic. She said, "If you still feel that way when you turn 15, then you can become a Catholic."  Thereafter I went to various churches with friends, but nothing appealed to me. I knew that I had to be in some church every Sunday, and so I persevered.  The day after my 15th birthday I reminded Mother of her promise, and she agreed! I was going to become a Catholic! I wanted to shout it from the tallest building in Indianapolis! I was ecstatic! Finally, I was going to be a Catholic! A few months later I was baptized and I was a proud, proud Catholic. Thereafter, every member of my family lived by the motto:  "If you promise Charlene something, you have to do it because she will not forget it."

The family became proud of my Catholicism.  When my uncles or aunts or my mother introduced me to someone they usually said, "This is my niece, Charlene.  And she's Catholic!" The other person would look at me as if I had horns and a cloven hoof! I would smile proudly.  It was hilarious! "This is my daughter. She's Catholic you know." How on earth would that person know?  Such introductions just made me smile. I was the odd one in the family. I was the hatchet woman when somebody in the family  had to get tough, and of course I was also a Catholic.  It was said with such pride, and never failed to amaze me.  How many people do you know who are introduced to someone with,"This is my daughter. She's Catholic." I loved it! I thought it odd, but loved the reaction it got.

Yes, I was Catholic and proud of it! I will never cease to be proud of being a Catholic. The sex abuse crisis got every one's attention, but I wrote to some priests in prison. I wanted to know how they were being treated. The responses were astonishing. I continued to write to them and added others as they went to prison. I have been told by many priests that my work is admirable. Of course they can't say that out loud and I understand why. Priests in prison seldom, if ever, have visits from their brother priests.  I don't know of any bishops who have encouraged their priests to visit priests in prison. They are so afraid of the two vile groups, SNAP and VOTF.  I love these priests that families and friends and brother priests have turned their backs on.  I love them because our Lord loves them. They thank me for writing to them, for contacting their bishops when necessary or a health unit, for sending books, etc. They have enriched my life beyond belief. If I live to see Fr. Gordon MacRae freed from those stone walls, I would die happily.  His was a wrongful conviction and he has served 19 years for crimes that did not happen. I firmly believe that, as do a number of his virtual parishioners. If he dies in prison, I know that his cell will become very special because a true saint lived in it. He has touched so many lives. I know what he does for others because I am his hands and feet. I read to him the touching emails from those who love him, and even from those who don't - definitely a minority.  He is an amazing man. I hope that he will one day write his own story - no one else could do it justice.

Yes, we are Catholics. We should stand tall and proud! What a Holy Father we have! He is spectacular - moving quietly, not listening to anybody (if anybody dares offer him advice), and he is one of us. He is one with the people. I am so proud of him! He is extraordinary in his simpleness, in his desire to hug people, to dispense with the robes and ermine trim, and to stay in his little guest house and to eat in the dining room with others - notably not the Curia - but with the common people. Ah, I can see members of the Curia lying on the floor kicking in sheer frustration. Just wait.  They haven't seen anything yet!!

My mother died in 1995 four months after I retired and moved back to Indianapolis.  In her purse I found an old leather case that contained a Rosary. I had no idea that she had carried that Rosary that I left behind when I moved to New York City in 1956. I never knew. It must have meant something special to her even because it was special to me and my Catholicism.  How I wished I had known.

I am a Catholic! Be proud Catholics! Hold your heads up high! Viva Cristo Rey! Viva Pope Francis!

A FINAL PUSH FOR THESE STONE WALLS! 

Dear friends These Stone Walls is at this moment just 3 percentage points away from first place in the category of Best Catholic Blog. It would mean a lot to the morale of falsely accused priests, and the priesthood itself, to win this thing, something that seemed impossible just a few weeks ago. The voting ends at midnight tonight. 

WE NEED YOUR VOTE! IT WOULD BE A TREMENDOUS BOOST FOR FR. GORDON!

Can you please ask your FB and Twitter friends to consider going to this link to cast a vote for These Stone Walls? May God bless your effort - and you!

http://catholicism.about.com/library/bl-readers-choice-awards-best-catholic-blog.htm

THESE STONE WALLS IS A FINALIST FOR BEST CATHOLIC BLOG!

In a time of controversy in the priesthood, These Stone Walls, the blog of a falsely accused and wrongly imprisoned priest, is a finalist in the About.com Award for Best Catholic Blog. The blog now in the lead pretty much wins this every year, but These Stone Walls has come from behind to make this a closer contest than ever before.

The Key is voting once per day between now and Tuesday, March 19. Please take a moment to visit the About.com Best Catholic Blog ballot page to vote for These Stone Walls.

It would also be a great help if you would share this message with your contacts and social networks.

Thank you and God Bless.