A Nominal Catholic

My first assignment as a diocesan priest was to Saint Mary parish in Elyria, Ohio where Monsignor William L. Newton was the pastor. We called him “The Fig” but never to his face. Years earlier, after his ordination he had been sent to Rome to earn a doctoral degree in Scripture, ordinarily a five-year process.  Newton was the first priest in the United States to earn a doctoral degree in scripture in four years.  A brilliant student, he came back to the States and taught at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. and later at the major seminary in Cleveland. I studied diligently under him for two years.

After teaching most of his priestly life in seminaries, the Fig decided that he would like to be a pastor.  The archbishop assigned him to be pastor of Saint Mary Church in Elyria and a couple of years later I was assigned to be one of his three curates.  John Neary and Ed Pevec (who later became and an auxiliary bishop) were the other two. The three of us were a year apart in the seminary and worked well together. We visited the hospital daily, gave convert instructions, took a yearly census, taught religion in the grade school and the high school, and most important of all, prepared our Sunday sermons.  The Fig was a great lover of the Bible and would not tolerate our winging a sermon on a Sunday morning.

On Monday evenings I was assigned to visit the Lorain County Jail, which was directly behind the rectory.  Often when men were released from jail, they would come to the rectory and ask for money. We usually took the opportunity to encourage them and talk to them about their spiritual life. One evening John Neary asked a recently released man whether he had made his Easter duty. The man replied that he hadn’t and that he seldom went to Mass.  Neary said, “You’re nothing but a nominal Catholic.” 

The man replied, “I resent that.  I’m not a nominal Catholic.  I’m a Roman Catholic!”

We all had a good laugh at that, but sometimes our jail ministry introduced us to problems that were far from laughable. 

One morning I visited the jail and was shocked to find a ten-year-old boy having breakfast with the inmates. I immediately went to Sherriff Carl Finnegan’s office and asked why that kid was in jail. 

Finnegan said, “Regrettably, the county doesn’t have a detention home for young offenders, so a cell in the jail separate from the older inmates is the only place we can hold them.”

“What did the kid do?” I asked.

“He was caught hitchhiking in the early hours of the morning and one of our deputies took him off the street. Evidently he ran away from a boys’ home in northern Michigan.  Right now we’re arguing with upper Michigan officials about who will pay the transportation to send the boy back to his parents.”

 “Carl,” I said, “you know jail is no environment for a ten-year-old kid. If he spends one more day in the Lorain County jail I’m going to have a Cleveland newspaper reporter and photographer here.”  (Lorain County politicians would do almost anything to avoid negative publicity from the Cleveland newspapers.)

Finnegan wholeheartedly agreed that the county jail was no place for a child.  He said, “Anything you can do to influence the county to build a separate facility for youthful offenders would be greatly appreciated.”

The St. Vincent de Paul Society responded to Finnegan’s request to come up with the transportation money.  One of the sherriff’s deputies took the child to the Greyhound bus station, bought a ticket, and returned the child to his parents.

That happened over 50 years ago.  Like most modern communities, today Lorain County provides separate facilities for youthful offenders.

Posted September 30, 2010

Back To Home Page

Comments on this essay? Email us

Copyright© 2010