"Remember Elvis"

My pal The Anchoress is telling Michael Jackson, in no uncertain terms, to "Beat it, already." She's had about enough of the endless coverage of his dying, his death, his post-death, and everything leading up to his funeral (which we're still waiting to get over with.) As she notes, dryly:

Are the cameras and the press covering the teeming crowds of “mourners” because they are there? Or are the teeming crowds there because of the cameras and the press? As Jimmy Durante said, “everybody’s trying to get into the act!”

Indeed.

It reminded me of how CBS News covered (or, in the eyes of some, failed to cover) the death of Elvis -- the last musical giant to cast such a large and overwhelming shadow over the culture. This was no small matter in 1977; the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite was the "broadcast of record," watched by an overwhelming majority of Americans at dinnertime. NBC and ABC at that time were a distant second and third in the ratings, respectively. When I worked at CBS, a few years post-Presley, the Elvis obit story was legendary around the halls of the Broadcast Center. (Another legend would grow around CBS's less-than-rapid reaction to the death of Princess Diana, exactly 20 years after Elvis. But that's another story.)

Now the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal has brought it all back for us, and put that Elvis coverage -- and everything we're now enduring -- in proper context:

The CBS Evening News" on Aug. 16, 1977, led with a story on the Panama Canal. Former President Gerald Ford had come out in favor of a plan, announced the week before, to give control of the canal to Panama. Former California Gov. Ronald Reagan said he was against it. Again.

Elvis Presley's death was reported later.

There are those who contend that if Walter Cronkite had not been on vacation, CBS would have led with Elvis, as ABC and NBC did. But the fact that it was even a close call was hard to fathom Friday as news organizations continued to scramble to keep pace with new developments in Michael Jackson's death the day before.

"Our job is not to respond to public taste," Richard Salant, then-head of CBS News, had offered as an explanation of the Panama/Presley call, according to various accounts. "Elvis Presley was dead -- so he was dead."

The only thing more dead, even then, was that kind of thinking, which Roone Arledge, applying what he learned as head of ABC Sports to a revamp of ABC News, was quick to brand elitist.

News is a business, and no business can talk about giving people what they want and then deem that desire unworthy, if it wants to survive. Not everyone cares, obviously. But by nearly every measure, more than a few people have more than a passing interest when what might be deemed fluff intersects with hard news.

CBS would come to repeat the mantra "Remember Elvis" for years afterward, fearful of ever again seeming out of touch with what touched viewers. There was no debate at the House of Murrow when Bing Crosby died two months after Presley.

By 1980, when John Lennon was murdered, the major-media template for handling celebrity deaths -- prominent coverage, specials and other remembrances -- was established, straddling between tribute and exploitation, news and sensationalism. And you saw it still last week for Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.

What has changed is how, and how fast, the news is gathered and spread.

If CBS' stubbornness fed ABC and NBC the millions interested in the King of Rock 'n' Roll in 1977, imagine today when the audience not only has more alternatives for information sources but is better able to monitor who's delivering what they want at any moment.

Those on Twitter on Thursday were trading links to the latest Jackson info in real time and sharing judgment on their quality. (Spurious Tweets killed actor Jeff Goldblum but later revived him and others said to have followed Jacko and Farrah on the Final Red Carpet, but still.)

Time Warner's TMZ.com and Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s LATimes.com were out front on Jackson's condition, and other outlets -- initially able neither to ignore the dispatches nor corroborate them -- had to tread carefully.

TMZ's Time Warner cousin, CNN, seemed to hesitate as much as anyone in acknowledging TMZ's reporting, preferring to refer to the reports of the Los Angeles Times, and even then expressing concern. "CNN is an independent news organization; corporate affiliations do not factor into our editorial decision-making," a CNN spokeswoman said.

CBS, meanwhile, used video from the tabloid show "Inside Edition," produced and syndicated by another wing of its parent company, in its "Evening News" report on Fawcett. Later, in its prime-time special on Jackson, it used branded content from "Entertainment Tonight" and the host of "The Insider."

There's more at the link, including some thoughts from Susan Stamberg at NPR -- another big news outlet that decided not to lead with Elvis 32 years ago.

For a sampling of the coverage of Elvis Presley's death, check out the video below. Fascinating. The more things change...

Did he play "We Are The World" for the processional?

And now for something different: a brief Michael Jackson tribute, played as the postlude on the organ of the Trinity (Episcopal) Church on Wall Street in lower Manhattan. It's a blending of "Beat It" and "ABC." (A wave of the deacon's sequined white glove to Mike Paulson at Articles of Faith.)

Memories of holidays past

Sifting through old pictures I found the snapshot below. Walt Disney World. July 4th, 2006.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The crowd you see started to collect at about 4 in the afternoon, and it never let up. Wall-to-wall humanity. The picture was snapped around 8 pm, if I recall. Over an hour before the fireworks. (Just click on the picture for an enlarged view. Prepare to gasp.)

Still...I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Would I do it again? I'll get back to you on that...

Go Fourth!

As only the Muppets can...

Happy Independence Day, one and all.

Twittering for Jesus

Technology and the Church: what a concept! Take a look at how some faith-filled Facebookers (and Twitterers) are sharing the Good News:

Things went smoothly for the first hour of the Twitter experiment at Trinity Church in Manhattan on Good Friday in April.

While hundreds of worshipers watched the traditional dramatization of the Crucifixion from pews in the church, one of New York’s oldest, thousands more around the world followed along on smartphones and computers as a staff member tweeted short bursts of dialogue and setting (“Darkness and earthquake,” “Crucify him!”).

The trouble began in the second hour.

Twitter’s interactivity — its essence — made it easy for an anonymous text-messager to insert an unscripted character into the Passion play: a Roman guard who breezily claimed, “I’ve got dibs on his robe.” When another texter introduced a rogue Mary Magdalene, the intrusion only confirmed the obvious: Twitter’s trademark limit of 140 characters per message is no bar against crudity.

Religious groups from Episcopalians to Orthodox Jews have signed up for Twitter, Facebook and other social media networks with the same gusto that celebrities and politicians have, and for some of the same reasons — to gain a global platform and to appeal to young people who might never go near a church.

Still, many clerics admit to an uneasiness about the merger of worship and electronic chatter.

In online debates and private discussions, leaders of all faiths have been weighing pros and cons and diagramming the boundaries of acceptable interactions: Should the congregation have a Facebook page, or should it be the imam’s or priest’s? Should there be limited access? Censoring? Is it appropriate for a clergy member to “friend” a minor?

Some recoil at the informality and unpredictability of the crowds marshaled by social media, and at their seeming immunity — even hostility — to the authority of established institutions. More deeply, some in the clergy see a basic tension between the anonymous world of online life and the meaning of religious community.

“In Judaism, we believe that God resides in the community — among people in the same room at the same time, hearing each other’s voices and looking in each other’s eyes,” said Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik of the Forest Hills Jewish Center in Queens, who also wanted it known that he carries an iPhone and a laptop and is talking with his congregation about a Facebook page.

“But can you tweet a minyan?” he asked, referring to the quorum of 10 people required for most Jewish devotions. “I don’t think so.”

Religious groups are answering many such questions for themselves — and, for the most part, signing up for interactive media, said the Rev. Bill Reichart, a Presbyterian minister in Atlanta who leads an informal network of Web consultants who work with people of a broad spectrum of faiths.

“If total control is what you want, social media will frustrate you,” he said, reprising his advice to the clergy. “But the trade-off is the ability to hear and learn, reach out in new directions.” Many clerics, desperate to connect with young people, have been like radio dispatchers using the wrong bandwidth, he said. “The young don’t do e-mail anymore,” he said. “They do Facebook.”

Check out the rest of the story. And tweet on!

Death of a salesman: Billy Mays' Catholic funeral

I wasn't aware that celebrated pitchman Billy Mays was Catholic, until I read this account of his funeral this morning:

References to television pitchman Bill Mays' trademark image were everywhere at his funeral Friday near Pittsburgh.

Most mourners wore stickers showing a cartoon image of his distinctive bearded face. The six pallbearers eschewed suits and instead wore bright blue button-down shirts like the ones Mays wore on TV. At the conclusion of the ceremony, they gave a "thumbs up," just as Mays did at the end of one of his commercials.

Mays, whose high-energy hawking turned products like OxiClean from infomercial curiosities into mainstream successes, was remembered as a pop culture icon who never forgot his hometown or spiritual roots.

"He sold more OxiClean than Andy Warhol sold Campbell's Soup," cousin Dean Panizzi said in eulogizing Mays and comparing him to the Pittsburgh-born pop artist who turned soup cans into works of art.

Panizzi's 20-minute eulogy evoked everything from memories of their childhood together — complete with a Christmas Eve remembrance of their parents ringing sleigh bells outside — to Mays' devout Christian faith. Panizzi recited various lines Mays made famous, including "Life's a pitch, and then you buy" and drew a standing ovation parroting Mays' signature introduction, "Hi, Billy Mays here."

Hundreds of mourners packed the black brick, gothic Catholic church in the suburb of McKees Rocks, where Mays was raised, to remember the popular pitchman. Mays developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other "As Seen on TV" gadgets on Atlantic City's boardwalk and worked for years as a hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.

Mays got his start on TV on the Home Shopping Network and then branched out into commercials and infomercials. He developed such a strong following that he became the subject of a reality TV series, Discovery Channel's "Pitchmen."

"Pitchmen" creator and executive producer Chris Wilson said the outsized personality that earned Mays a place in the pop culture lexicon was paired with an innate ability to reach viewers.

"Billy had an amazing way of just making you believe that everything he said was true," Wilson said Friday. "He didn't sell you, he told you."

The likable personality Mays presented on TV viewers existed in real life, too, Wilson said.

"As great as a pitch man Billy was, he was an even better man and an even better individual," he said.

PHOTO: from Associated Press

Homily for July 5, 2009: 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

My mother grew up in a small town in South Jersey, named Pitman, not far from Philadelphia. It was the kind of place you passed through on your way to someplace else. It was pretty unremarkable – there was a Main Street, called Broadway, with a few stores, a bank, a movie theater and a bakery. It was settled by devout Methodists. My mother grew up attending camp meetings and carrying a small, well-thumbed bible to services on Sunday, the kind of bible that had Jesus’s words printed in red ink.

Like a lot of small towns, it had its own culture, and its own way of looking at the world. Everybody knew everybody – and everybody’s business. I know it caused my mother pain. Her parents, my grandparents, ended up divorcing when she was a teenager. This was in the 1930s, at a time when divorce was still considered scandalous and rare. Years later, when she spoke of her hometown, my mother was not always kind.

“It was a good place to be from,” she’d say – implying that she couldn’t imagine spending her whole life there.

After hearing today’s gospel, I can’t help but wonder if Jesus ever felt that way about Nazareth.

In Mark’s telling of this event, Jesus returns to his hometown – another place where everybody knew everybody and everybody’s business. He finds people who dismiss him as merely a carpenter, Mary’s son, someone who couldn’t possibly be capable of greatness. They can’t understand how someone like that could have such power and wisdom. And we’re told that Jesus was amazed at just one thing: their lack of faith.

Faith.

We’ve been hearing that word a lot lately, haven’t we?

Two weeks ago, when Christ confronted the storm at sea, he asked his disciples, “Do you not yet have faith?”

Last week, he marveled at the woman who touched his garment and told her, “Your faith has saved you.” Moments later, he said to the synagogue official whose daughter had died, “Just have faith.”

But this week, it isn’t the power of faith that makes the biggest impression.

It is the absence of it.

We live in an age when faith is often absent. Last week, there was an item in the New York Times, asking readers to define faith. They got thousands of responses, ranging from the secular to the sacred, from the disbelieving to the devout. A lot of them were discouraging and took a cynical view of any kind of belief. I was reminded of the words of the great lay leader Catherine Doherty: “Faith walks simply, childlike, between the darkness of human life and the hope of what is to come.”

That kind of childlike wonder may have been something the people of Nazareth just couldn’t accept.

And faith, ultimately, requires acceptance. It is a gift – freely offered from a loving and generous God.

But it is a gift many of us reject.

According to polls, only about a quarter of Catholics attend mass every Sunday. Fewer Catholics are getting married in church. Fewer still are celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation. Many don’t believe in the real presence of Christ in the eucharist. The mystery and beauty of the faith that binds us together -- that defines our values and that ultimately saves our souls -- are all becoming lost.

Too many of us are living in our own Nazareth, blind to the great gift before us.

Do we realize what we have been given?

Do we understand it?

Do we see the wonder before us?

Do we believe it?

Do we even want to?

Because wanting to – that is the very beginning of faith.

And faith, once accepted and embraced, yields extraordinary dividends. It helps us to understand how God works in our lives. It lets us see the world through different eyes.

Eyes that can see with tenderness and hope.

Eyes that can see a carpenter as a king.

Thinking about all this, and what Jesus encountered when he returned to his village, I went back to one of the greatest accounts of small town life, Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” It never fails to break my heart.

In the beginning, the stage manager who is narrating the story of life in Grover’s Corners describes it this way: “Nice town,” he says. “Nobody very remarkable ever come out of it, s’far as we know.”

But what you find as the play unfolds is that everyone is remarkable. Every blessed person in the town. But nobody living there realizes that. And in the final scene, in the graveyard, one of the dead says of the living, with sorrow and regret, “They don’t understand.”

So many of us don’t.

Whether it’s Grover's Corners, or Pitman, New Jersey, or Queens, or Nazareth.

We tend to see with the hard eyes of the world, and not with the eyes of faith. We see only what is -- not what can be.

This weekend, we celebrate a great holiday that exists, really, because men and women 233 years ago saw what could be.

They had faith. Faith in the future. Faith in their ideals. Faith in the God who created them.

As we are reminded of their courage and sacrifice, let us also be reminded of their faith – and pray that we, too, might be moved to see the world differently.

To see in Jesus not just a carpenter, but a king.

To see in the host not just bread, but God.

To see in one another God’s continuing spark of creation.

To see, above all, possibility.

To do that, I believe, is to see the world as God intended.

It is to see … quite simply ... with the eyes of faith.

A prayer for our nation

Let us pray [for God's blessing on our country]...

Father of all nations and ages
We recall the day when our country claimed its place among the family of nations.
For what has been achieved we give you thanks;
for the work that still remains we ask your help.
Grant that under your providence
our country may share your blessings
with all the peoples of the earth.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

-- Alternative Opening Prayer,
from the Mass for Independence Day and Other Civic Observances

"Jesus Calls Women": a new vocations DVD

What's a good way to attract women to the religious life? How about this DVD:

A San Bernardino Catholic production company is using DVDs to address a vexing problem for the Catholic Church: a severe and growing shortage of nuns.

The half-hour DVD, which will be distributed nationwide by Wordnet Productions, features women talking about what led them to become religious sisters.

The number of nuns nationwide has plummeted from nearly 180,000 in 1965 to fewer than 62,000 in 2008, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. That 66 percent decline is more than double the 31 percent drop in the number of priests during the same time period.

The average nun in the United States is in her mid-70s, said Mary Gautier, a senior research associate with the center.

Most of the 18 nuns interviewed for "Jesus Calls Women" are in their 20s and 30s. Scenes show them playing guitar, cooking and playing basketball. They smile, laugh and talk about the joys and challenges of being nuns.

Sister Joanna Strouse, a nun at Sacred Heart Retreat Camp at Big Bear Lake who is featured in the DVD, said she never seriously considered becoming a nun until as a teenager she went to a vocation day -- in which girls and women see what religious life is like -- at the invitation of a family friend.

At the time, Strouse, now 38, was a senior in high school planning to become an aerospace engineer. Then she heard nuns discuss how they viewed being religious sisters as God's plan for their happiness.

Something clicked.

"I had never thought of God in that way, the fact that God has a personal love for me and a plan for me," Strouse said.

Sister Pat Phillips, who saw oversaw production of the video and conducted most of the interviews, had briefly thought of religious life after attending Catholic youth workshops the summer before her senior year of high school.

But, she said, "I kind of pushed it aside and didn't want to think about it."

Several months later, she got sick with the mumps and finally had time to reflect. She realized she had a calling.

Phillips said one reason fewer girls and young women do not even consider becoming sisters is because nuns are less visible than in the past. Few teachers in Catholic schools today are nuns. And the sexual revolution of the 1960s made chastity a more difficult concept, said Phillips, a sister of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus.

You can read more about it at the link. And you can purchase the DVD right here.

It wasn't even close

I got a nice e-mail a short time ago, announcing the winners of the Catholic New Media Awards.

No, I didn't win. But I did come in second.

A very, very, very distant second in the category for "Best Blog by A Cleric."

Check out the rest of the winners at the link. My thanks to all who voted. And a hearty congrats to one and all!

Cardinal praises Obama's "humble realism"

As if the warm words he's getting from the Vatican newspaper weren't enough, President Obama now has a prominent cardinal and former papal theologian in his corner.

John Allen has details:

In the run-up to President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated July 10 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, an influential cardinal and Vatican adviser has praised Obama’s “humble realism” and compared the president’s approach to abortion to the thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas and early Christian tradition about framing laws in a pluralistic society.

Swiss Cardinal George Cottier, 87, former theologian of the papal household under Pope John Paul II, laid out those views in a cover essay in the current issue of 30 Giorni, perhaps the most widely read journal of Catholic affairs in Italy.

Styled as an analysis of two Obama speeches – his May 17 commencement address at the University of Notre Dame and his June 4 speech to the Islamic world in Cairo – Cottier’s essay was overwhelmingly positive, repeatedly arguing that Obama’s “realism”, as well as his commitment to finding “common ground”, resonate with Christian tradition and the social teaching of the Catholic church.

Seen through American eyes, perhaps the most striking element was Cottier’s analysis of what Obama had to say at Notre Dame. The university’s decision to invite Obama, and to award him an honorary degree, were widely criticized in Catholic circles in the States, given Obama’s positions on abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other life issues. More than 80 bishops publicly objected to the event.

Cottier, however, compared Obama’s Notre Dame address to Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, in its accent on dialogue and common ground, and to the document Dignitatis Humanae of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) on conducting the search for truth in a pluralistic society. Christians, Cottier wrote, “can be in agreement” with Obama’s “way of framing the search for solutions.”

Cottier noted that many American bishops have been critical of Obama on abortion, writing that “on the one hand, those criticisms are justified, because … non-negotiable values are involved.” Yet, he wrote, Obama offered “positive indications” in his Notre Dame address of a desire to find common ground on the issue.

Cottier argued that Obama has not defended abortion as an absolute right, that he recognizes the “tragic gravity” of the problem, that Obama does not defend “relativism,” and that “his words move in the direction of reducing the evil” by seeking to make “the number of abortions as small as possible.”

Cottier invoked early Christian history to suggest that efforts to reduce the actual number of abortions, rather than to seek an outright legal ban, might be justifiable as a temporary expedient.

“I’m reminded of the first Christian legislators, who didn’t quickly abolish the tolerant Roman laws regarding practices which didn’t conform to the natural law, or which were actually contrary to it, such as concubinage and slavery,” Cottier wrote. “Change happened along a slow path, often marked by steps backward, as the Christian population increased, and, along with them, the impact of a sense of the dignity of the human person.”

“At the beginning, in order to guarantee the consent of the citizens and to protect social peace, the so-called ‘imperfect laws’ were kept in force, which avoided persecuting actions and behaviors in contrast with the natural law,” Cottier wrote. “St. Thomas [Aquinas] himself, who certainly had no doubt that the law must be moral, added that the state must not enact laws which are too severe or ‘high,’ because they’ll be disrespected by the people, who won’t be able to follow them.”

“Political realism recognizes evil, and calls it by its name,” Cottier wrote. “Yet it also recognizes that one must be humble and patient, combating evil without the pretense of eradicating it from human history through instruments of legal coercion.”

As always, head to the link for the full text.

From the e-mailbag: more thoughts on busy clergy, and loneliness

A deacon sent this along, from a Presbyterian elder who works with him in ministry at an assisted living facility. "It's from the 'Church Wellness Report,'," he wrote, "and I really think it ought to be read by every priest and deacon in our church as well. There is a lot of wisdom here."

I agree.

Take a look:

A Facebook group to which I belong recently held a discussion of loneliness among senior pastors.

People commented that pastors tend to have few friends -- someone with whom they can be relaxed and just themselves -- that they spend their public time needing to be guarded about what they say and wary of being judged for superficials such as their attire, and that their work is so demanding that they rarely have time for friendships outside the congregation.

It isn't just senior pastors, said participants, but all clergy, and indeed most organizational leaders and politicians. Something about leadership leaves them cut off from sustaining friendships, even from their families.

My contribution to the discussion was to say this:

* Number one need is to have a life outside church. A life filled with non-church activities and non-church friends, where the pastor can be just a guy or gal. If the pastor has a family, that life outside church should put family first. Children need a parent, not a role model standing in a pulpit.

* Number two is to have healthy boundaries, where church work ends and rest-of-life begins. Fuzzy boundaries lead to loneliness.

* Number three is to have realistic expectations of church members. To them, the senior pastor is never out of role. True intimacy with church members tends to be problemmatical.

Loneliness takes a serious toll. It can lead to sadness and depression. It can lead to boundary problems, acting out and inapropriate behavior. It can sap the pastor's energy and self-confidence.

Some laity impose loneliness as a way of keeping the clergy under control. Most, I think, contribute to the loneliness unwittingly, by making comments that depict the pastor as a curiosity, by not including the pastor in certain activities, by having stilted conversations when the pastor is around, and by letting the pastor know that his or her actions are being watched and discussed.

Politicians learn to exploit such behavior -- although they get into boundary troubles -- and celebrities ride it to the bank. Clergy occupy a strange middle ground: needing to be political but not blessed with a politician's thick skin; serving as a local celebrity but not equipped to manage the spotlight.

As church staffs shrink and judicatories provide less collegiality to clergy, the loneliness is likely to worsen. I think that dealing with loneliness should be a primary task for any pastor.

-- Tom Ehrich

What do you think??

A bright day for deacons in the Sunshine State

Two weeks ago, they ordained what the local paper has dubbed a "bumper crop" of deacons in Pensacola-Tallahassee.

From Florida Catholic:

God blessed the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee abundantly with a bumper crop of new permanent deacons June 20 when Bishop John H. Ricard, SSJ, ordained 17 men during Mass at St. Paul Parish.

Coming from parishes across the diocese and beyond, friends and family members filled the year-old church to capacity. The ordinands were seated with their families as the Mass began. Priests of the diocese concelebrated the Mass, assisted by the deacons of the diocese.

Following the Gospel, Deacon Tom Kennell called the 17 forward, and Deacon Gerard Williamson, the retiring director of permanent deacons and deacon formation, presented them to the bishop and attested to their proper preparation. The bishop accepted them, saying, “Relying on the help of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, we choose these, our brothers, for the Order of the Diaconate.

The assembly concurred, responding, “Thanks be to God.”

In his homily, Bishop Ricard referred to the Gospel chosen by the ordinands for the Mass. “In this Gospel, Jesus says, ‘Greater love than this no man has, than to lay down his life for his friends.’ We wonder if we could ever muster the courage to do that – to lay down our lives for our friends. Jesus described something very real that was about to happen in his life. And who were the friends of Jesus?”

The bishop listed a number of Jesus’ unlikely friends: the prodigal son, the woman caught in the act of adultery, the thief who was crucified alongside him, his first disciples who abandoned him, Peter who denied him. “Yet Jesus placed himself between each of them and condemnation. For all of them, and for all of us, Jesus allows himself to be led to the cross that we might achieve our full potential to share in the life of his Father.

“Jesus has taught us what true love really is. And he gives us this command: ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ In this, my dear brothers, is the ministry you are about to receive: to love as Jesus loves. Such is the ministry of the diaconate, a ministry of service. You may not realize it now, but this ministry is one of extraordinary influence over the lives, hearts and minds of many people, but it is a servant leadership. The success of your ministry will depend on how you decide to love, who you decide to love,” the bishop said.

There's more, along with the names of the new deacons, at the FC link. Congratulations, brothers! Ad multos annos!

PHOTO: by Peggy Dekeyser/Florida Catholic

An airport chaplain offers mass on the fly

This is a busy travel weekend, but people passing through many airports across the country can find a quiet corner to stop and reflect and pray. (No, I'm not talking about Cinnabon or Hudson News.)

Meet the priest who ministers to the flying flock at Chicago's O'Hare Airport:

In a small room above the crowds of Terminal 2, the Rev. Michael G. Zaniolo prepared to deliver his airport version of Mass.

In other churches it can take an hour or more. But as an American Airlines pilot strode into the chapel with his luggage, Zaniolo was ready to deliver it a bit quicker -- 30 minutes or less. His homily, a thoughtful sermon with messages of hope, was whittled to 1 minute, 46 seconds.

"People have to rock and roll," said Zaniolo, a 50-year-old Catholic priest. "Every second counts."

For the last nine years, Zaniolo has been hearing confessions and offering Mass to workers and travelers at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. It is a community bigger than most Chicago suburbs. Thirty-nine thousand people work there. Nearly 71 million passengers crossed its concourses last year.

Along a quiet stretch of the mezzanine level, Zaniolo deals with a ministry of the moment: reassuring nervous fliers, praying with anxious workers, helping flight crews whose friends died in plane crashes.

When it comes to flying, Zaniolo said, "there are few atheists in the air."

O'Hare is one of 32 airports in the U.S. with places set aside for worship, meditation or prayer.

The interfaith chapel, which some call St. O'Hare, was opened in 1960. Protestant ministers hold Sunday services here. Jewish rabbis and Muslim imams meet with families waiting to receive a loved one's remains.

Between services, the chapel is kept bare of religious iconography. When Catholics come for daily Mass, the priests bring out a silver cross and a golden banner. When Muslims arrive for prayer, the imam pulls out prayer rugs and the Koran.

The mainstay of the chapel is Zaniolo, president of the National Conference of Catholic Airport Chaplains. He and a team of local volunteer priests offer Mass at O'Hare once each weekday, twice on Saturdays and four times on Sundays.

Their chapel is a small room, no bigger than a two-car garage. Rows of brown-cloth chairs sit before a low stage and a pair of flickering oil lamps. A glass wall looks out onto parked planes and luggage carts zooming across the tarmac.

O'Hare has always been a part of Zaniolo's life. He grew up in northwest Chicago, in the airport's flight path, and would lie in the grass, watching planes crisscross the sky.

He worked as an electrical engineer for four years, before entering the seminary in 1984. By 1988, he had graduated with a degree in theology and served as an associate pastor on Chicago's northwest side. After a dozen years of working in different churches, he asked to become O'Hare's chaplain.

He'd become fascinated by the airport and the people in it after his predecessor led him and a church youth group on a tour.

"I'm thinking, this is a cool job to have: to be a part of people's lives in the place where they're working, and to be a significant presence for the travelers," Zaniolo said.

Now, he makes a walking tour of the airport every day. "If they don't come to the chapel, it's up to me to go to them," said Zaniolo, a short, gray-haired man with a quick wit and a patient attitude. O'Hare is so big it takes him a month to visit every location.

Assaulted by the scent of stale coffee, the priest skirted around the crowds preparing for their flights.

"How's life, Father Mike?" asked a janitor emptying a trash can. Security guards at the X-ray machine smiled and wished him a good morning. So did a pair of businessmen waiting to have their luggage screened.

Fear of flying rarely comes up in conversation these days. Instead, Zaniolo listens to worries about jobs, the economy and city budget cuts.

There's much more at the link.

Start the presses!

The Pres met the press today.

Barack Obama sat down with several members of the Catholic media -- Your Humble Blogger, I should note, was inexplicably not on the guest list -- in advance of next week's trip to Italy, where he'll meet the pontiff.

The National Catholic Register is a complete write up. Fr. Drew Christiansen, editor of America, was also there, and filed this report.

Stop the presses!

Lino Rulli catches up with Ed Wilkinson, the editor of our diocesan newspaper, the Tablet.

Watch the scoop here.

One busy priest writes: "Despite us, God breaks through..."

This post on one priest's busy day off generated some comments and e-mails, including the one below, from Fr. Austin Murphy, an FOB who runs the always-engaging blog Jesus Goes to Disney World. (He has posted the e-mail there, along with a few more thoughts on the topic. Check it out.)

But take a look at this:

Dear Greg,

This morning I was reading your post about the priest's "day off," and all the commentary that went with it. I think it is important for parishioners to know and appreciate that their priests, more than often these days, do get caught up in some sort of work on their day off. We need to be better stewards of our time in that regard and see that day as a necessary part of the week. The commentary about prayer was particularly interesting to me. I have found that if I don't make time in the morning for that special time with God, I often lose it altogether. Today, actually, was one of those days. I toted my breviary along to the office, having woken up late, with the intention that I would "pray at the office." As I dragged my sleep-deprived body into my desk chair, a man who had visited the Newman Center where I work two weeks ago came in. He had visited before looking for assistance for his teenage daughter who was dying of sickle-cell anemia. Today, he came with the sad news that she passed away on Saturday.

"Have a seat," I told him, gesturing to my easy chair in the office. "I am so sorry."

He told me of the generosity of the sickle-cell community here in Baltimore (which had brought him and his daughter to Baltimore in the first place a month and a half ago). He had questions about the permissibility of cremation (which was barely all he could afford). Then he told me of the new-found faith that he and his daughter had here in Baltimore. You see, they had been both Jehovah's Witnesses, and they were told that they were excluded from "salvation" if she got a blood transfusion. "I love my daughter, Father," he told me through tears. Now, she told him, "without Jesus there is no grace, and without grace there is no salvation." Her faith made him a believer.

He misses his daughter, but he also rejoices that she had the chance to find Jesus before she met him finally. I told him that her prayers for her mother's conversion were all the more powerful now, and that we would remember her at Mass this Sunday. Her name is Jasmine.

I tell you all this, Greg, because this is so often the life of the pastor - of the priest, deacon and pastoral staff worker. Moments where (often despite us) God breaks through the plans, the bureaucracy, and our laziness, and He reveals the purpose for all that we do. We are connected - to God and to one another. The "business" of the parish life is not the "demon" (as one commenter called it). Rather, the demon is one of forgetfulness - losing sight of the fact that God is there - in the meeting, in the encounters that you don't schedule, in the work - and yes, in the day off! Thank you for pointing out that priests are busy.

What is more important, though, is that we remember Whose work we are doing.

Your fellow worker,

Fr Austin

PS - I'm off to pray now!

Pray for me, Austin! :-)

Should the flag be displayed in church?

A regular reader and FOB (Friend of The Bench), Msgr. Thomas Welbers from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles offers a few thoughts on the subject in this week's issue of LA's The Tidings:

There is no law, either ecclesiastical or civil, either requiring or explicitly forbidding the flag in a church. So we have to look carefully both at our experience as American Catholics and at the principles behind our documents. Then we can determine when and where the display of our flag is appropriate.

We have to look carefully both at our experience as American Catholics and at the principles behind our documents. Then we can determine when and where the display of our flag is appropriate.

The custom of displaying a national flag in church is uncommon outside the United States and has its origins here about 150 years ago in an effort to counter the rampant and often violent anti-Catholicism that raged throughout our country.

In the mid-19th century, Catholic immigrants were often accused of being loyal to a foreign ruler - the pope. (Until 1870, the pope also ruled the Papal States, a sovereign nation that included much of present-day Italy.) Catholics often had to go out of their way to demonstrate their loyalty to the United States.

In the 20th century, Catholics became more integrated into the mainstream American culture, but as residual anti-Catholicism and suspicions persisted even up to the election of John F. Kennedy, so did the need to demonstrate our patriotism by displaying the American flag in the sanctuary.

However, if we examine both the nature of our worship and the requirements of due respect for the American flag, the reasons why it is not appropriate today as a permanent fixture in our worship space will become evident.

Church documents carefully regulate the furnishings of the church because everything must focus on the transcendent mystery that is celebrated there. Anything that creates a secular focus, even a noble and worthwhile one, detracts rather than adds to the nature and meaning of what we are doing in church. Our worship must raise our minds and hearts beyond earthly things.

The U.S. Bishops' 1978 Environment and Art in Catholic Worship explicitly discouraged the display of a national flag. This was repeated and amplified in a 1982 question and response in the Newsletter of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy. The more recent document, "Built of Living Stones: Art, Architecture, and Worship" (2000), omits any specific mention of flags, but repeatedly articulates the principles that exclude furnishings and artifacts extraneous to worship and devotion.

We come to worship as Americans, justifiably proud of our American heritage and identity. But our focus at Mass is not on Americanism; it is on our union with Christ as his faithful disciples, a reality that transcends both national boundaries and national interests. The symbols in our worship environment emphasize that the true banner that we follow is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In addition to liturgical principles, the U.S. Flag Code itself suggests the inappropriateness of the American flag in our churches. Section 175k states: "When displayed from a staff in a church or public auditorium, the flag of the United States of America should hold the position of superior prominence, in advance of the audience, and in the position of honor at the clergyman's or speaker's right as he faces the audience."

Such prominence is impossible by the very nature of our worship. And to tuck our nation's flag away in a secondary place would not give it proper respect.

There's more, so be sure to read the whole thing.

Just try to watch this and not be moved

I mentioned this video here. But take 10 minutes out of your day, and see it for yourself. I guarantee: you'll feel a little bit better about vocations and, just maybe, the state of the world in general.


A grateful wave of the deacon's stole to The Anchoress.