Gordon:
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To
introduce you to our readers, here is a link to a great
article about you by
Dolores Madlener.
When you received your vocation with whom did you did
you first discuss it and what was their advice? |
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Father Joe:
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I
am not sure when I actually received my vocation, since I
spent so many years fighting it off. Through high school and
college I had a whole list of reasons why I thought I was
unfit for the job. The breakthrough came outside of
Walgreens one day. I finally realized that discerning a
vocation didn’t mean convincing myself that I was talented
in all the areas that a priest or religious might need to be
good at in the course of a lifetime. The essence of a
vocation was trust. What if I allowed God to work through
me? What if I allowed God to supply what I didn’t think I
had? Once I looked at it that way, I knew I had to talk to
someone. By this point I was working and living away from
home. On my next visit to Memphis I had a conversation with
a priest who had been the Associate Pastor in my parish when
I was in eighth grade. One thing he told me was, “St. Paul
said that he had become all things to all people; but I
think that’s impossible. You will never be able to meet some
peoples’ expectations.” I remembered that because it helped
me with my own struggle to say “yes” to God. The irony is
that some of the things I thought I could never do are the
very things I find most fulfilling today. It’s humbling. |
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| Gordon: |
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Where
did you attend seminary and what was your favorite
course and why? |
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Father Joe:
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I spent
a year taking undergraduate philosophy courses. I had a
novitiate or spiritual year and then attended
Catholic Theological Union in
Chicago. Because my undergraduate degree was in English
literature, I liked the Scripture courses more than the
theology courses, because Scripture is full of stories and
poems. Jesus was a great storyteller. He knew that stories
grab people in ways that ideas and concepts often fail to
do. Probably my favorite course was The Psalms. It was
taught by Fr. Carroll Stuhlmueller. It met for three hours
in the evening, and he would sometimes spend the entire
three hours talking about just one psalm. He was amazing. |
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| Gordon: |
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How has the
Servite order
influenced your devotion to the Blessed Virgin
Mary? |
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Father Joe:
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Although
the early Servites connected more with the call of Mary at
her Annunciation, for the last five hundred years, we have
been associated mostly with Mary’s Sorrows. During the
1930’s and 1940’s the Servites were behind an enormously
popular novena to Our Sorrowful Mother. Through the years of
meditating on Mary’s Sorrows I have come to appreciate her
faithfulness. It is one thing to say “Let it be done to me
as you say” when you do not yet know what is going to be
done to you or done to the son you love. At the foot of the
cross Mary is courageous and faithful, standing against a
background of mockery and cruelty. She was not to be moved. |
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| Gordon: |
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Why
do the Servites have a special devotion to
St. Peregrine? |
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Because
St. Peregrine was a Servite friar in the fourteenth century.
The interesting thing about St. Peregrine is that he started
out very anti-church and a member of what we would now call
a street gang. He was healed of cancer late in life, but he
was also healed of his anger and his propensity for violence
earlier in life. All that makes him a very relevant saint
today. |
| Gordon: |
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What
are some of the principal challenges as pastor of
Assumption Parish? |
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Father Joe:
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For many
decades after the Italian parishioners moved out, Assumption
was primarily a church of convenience for commuters who
worked downtown, with a small but faithful group of people
returning for Sunday Mass. Some of these people still come;
but over the past twenty years, the area has become
residential again, mostly apartments and condominiums. We
have a mixture of young adults, who work mostly in the
finance and high-tech fields, and the retired or
semiretired, who have moved downtown after raising a family.
Both groups are highly mobile. The biggest challenge has
been to relaunch Assumption as a real parish, with adult
faith programming, sacramental preparation, a pastoral
council, charity and justice work, etc. Because many of our
parishioners do not stay in the neighborhood a long time and
because Assumption was for so many years a very anonymous
place to go to church, it is also a challenge to get people
actually rooted here and involved in church life outside of
Mass. |
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| Gordon: |
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Based
on your experience, what are some of the reasons that the Catholic Church has lost many younger members? |
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Father Joe:
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The
biggest reason is simply cultural change. The movement from
a primarily religious to a secular world view has been going
on for hundreds of years, but has been felt in the US mostly
in the last fifty years. For a long time, our societal norms
and laws were in harmony with church teaching and practice.
One reinforced the other in a way that made churchgoing part
of being a good citizen. That is no longer the case. Also,
younger people have been exposed to a tremendous diversity
of viewpoints, beliefs, religions, and lifestyles that did
not challenge many of us older folks so directly when we
were younger. I finished high school in 1971. When I was in
high school, a classmate was no more likely to come out as
gay than they were to fly to the moon in a helicopter!
Remaining Catholic now is a deliberate choice, not something
you just do because everybody in your family is Catholic.
There is also a general mistrust of institutions today. When
you talk about “losing” younger members, you are really
talking about two groups. There are those who make a
deliberate decision to reject Catholicism or organized
religion because of our teachings, our institutional sins,
and the poor example of some of us on the front lines (the “nones”).
Then there are those who have no real beef with the church
but have simply drifted, because they don’t see church
involvement as very important. That one is on us. I believe
that in the post Vatican II era our religious education and
religious formation programs have been far too generic. What
I hear from a lot of the young adults in marriage
preparation is that when it comes to being Catholic, all
that really matters is that you try to be a good person.
While on one level that is true, what are they missing out
on having only a fuzzy idea of who God is or not having a
personal connection with Jesus or a sense of how their life
could be enriched by being part of a faith community and
participating in the sacraments? |
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| Gordon: |
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Your
homilies often reflect your exceptional sense of humor.
Considering that God is infinite, do your think that God has
an infinite sense of humor?
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Father Joe:
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I’m not
much of a joke teller; but I believe that the ability to
laugh at ourselves not only opens us up to change but helps
build bridges with people. I grew up in a racist culture in
the South in the late 50’s and early 60’s, and I don’t
believe at some deep level these attitudes every completely
leave you. So, when I was pastor of an African-American
parish I’d often reference this stuff, as a way of saying,
“I know I’m not black and I don’t fully understand what your
life has been like.” Now, talking to a congregation with
many young adults, I use humor to acknowledge how out of
touch I am because of my age. . . . As for God having an
infinite sense of humor, well, that’s a theology question,
and I said theology was not my strong suit. But I don’t know
how anyone could read the Book of Jonah and not think God
has a sense of humor and also that God really loves
practical jokes. Perhaps if God’s sense of humor really is
infinite, that would explain why some people think God lacks
a sense of humor. His jokes go over their head. |
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| Gordon: |
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How
have you spent you favorite vacation? |
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Father Joe:
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Since I
live in the middle of a big city, I enjoy vacations in wide
open spaces and exploring national parks. I also like
trains; and through the decades I have had some amazing
trips on Canadian trains that were still running because
they travelled through regions where there were no roads.
One beautiful trip through the Canadian wilderness ended at
Prince Rupert, a town on the west coast of Canada which one
rail builder thought was going to be a more important city
than Vancouver. He really had no luck with any of his
investments. A few years later he booked a first-class
ticket on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. |
