THIS I BELIEVE! THIS I HAVE TRIED TO LIVE!

 FOR MANY YEARS NOW, WHEN PEOPLE HAVE ASKED WHAT I BELIEVE, WITHOUT BATTING AN EYE, I HAVE ANSWERED.......

 

I am consciously Christian!

I am deliberately Catholic!

I am unapologetically ecumenical and interfaith!  

THESE BELIEFS HAVE NOT FADED WITH THE YEARS

One of the proudest moments, as the longest serving Catholic chaplain at Bellarmine University, was the day they showed me this large print hanging on the wall of the new Campus Ministry Office the day it was dedicated.  

 

Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite  to the feast whomever you find. The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. 

Matthew 22:9-10

When I was a newly ordained priest, serving in the "home missions" of southern Kentucky, I was urged by the pastor to "start some ministry among young adults." I decided to get involved at Somerset Community College (University of Kentucky). Since I was already friends with a group of four other younger ministers from smaller denominations in that community like myself in a "support group" and there were only a handful of Catholic students at the College, I suggested that we start a campus ministry program together and call it IF, Inter-Faith. We all agreed and went to work. We were able to offer several successful programs that we would not have been able to offer separately. I even ended up teaching a credited sociology class called "Modern Social Problems."  We were able to offer five back-packing trips to the ecumenical monastery in Taize (France) for a week and then for three weeks through several other countries afterwards. At that ecumenical monastery, we met up with 1,500 youth from many countries and many faith backgrounds for a week of discussions and prayer.     

When I was pastor at the Cathedral of the Assumption from 1983 - 1997, our unofficial motto was "We'll take anyone." I added another one later on. "You can always come home to mother!" (A Cathedral is the "mother church" of a Diocese.)  We also got the nickname "the island of misfit toys." In that Christmas story, that is where broken toys went to be repaired so they, too, could be part of Christmas. 

That spirit led to a period of tremendous growth. We all want to be included. The more excluded we are the more we want it. They came from 67 zip codes. 

Part of our outreach in those days involved the founding of the internationally-known inter-faith organization, the Cathedral Heritage Foundation (now called the Center for Interfaith Relations), that is still operational. 

When I was still working at Saint Meinrad, I established a World Priest program that helped integrate  international priests into US culture. As part of that effort, I was able to lead over 150 priest convocations in 10 countries. One of the major components of those presentations was about creating better ways to welcome, integrate and appreciate the international priests that we were bring into our presbyterates. No one appreciated it more than the international priests themselves. 

In a day when so many want so many excluded, I am proud that I have a record of ministry that has been broad in its inclusion.