Brothers and sisters, show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in
our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. Did not
God choose those who are poor in the world to
be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom
that he promised to those who love him?
James 2:1-5
We diocesan priests do not take a vow of obedience, but we do make a promise of obedience to our bishop and his successors. That means we promise “not to be attached to one’s own preferences and points of view” for the sake of the unified ministry of our bishop.
When I was pastor of Holy Name of Mary Church, right outside of Lebanon, Kentucky, I had asked for it after my ten years in the southern Kentucky missions. I loved being there, but after three years, I got a call from Archbishop Kelly asking me to be the pastor of the Cathedral, saying he knew I had a Doctorate in Parish Revitalization, and he wanted “something done” with the Cathedral. My first response was to say “no,” but I realized that if I didn’t take it, I would be violating my Promise of Obedience. I also knew that I would probably end up regretting it and always wondering what it would have been like if I had said “yes!” He gave me a few days to think about it! After a day and a half, I called him back and gave him my “yes.”
When I got to Louisville, I was told that the bishop would move in with me, that the parish only had 110 elderly members with little savings and that the last renovation had just covered over some very serious structural issues. I could almost smell the disaster ahead of me! I realized that I would be living with “the boss” and I would have heaps of exaggerated expectations ready to crush me!
These were the questions facing me. “How was I going to grow a downtown parish when almost nobody lived downtown in those days, except for a few tourists and a handful of little old ladies living in Kentucky Towers who had been struggling to keep the lights on?” How was I going to manage to grow the parish with my boss breathing down my neck every day and when the last pastor had warned me, in his words, “not to get my hopes up because nothing could be done downtown since nobody lived near the Cathedral anymore!”
The day I arrived there, before I actually unpacked, I took a folding lawn chair across the street from the Cathedral to Founders Square, unfolded it, sat in it for a couple of hours and just starred at the Cathedral. I noticed a lot of people walking past it going in and out of the high-rise office buildings, hotels and businesses. I saw hundreds of office workers on their lunch breaks. I noticed street people milling around looking for handouts. I observed tourists looking around for something to see! I thought to myself, “They may not live downtown, but there are a lot of people down here during the day!” Previously, I had thought to myself that to grow the parish, I had three options: (1) I could steal parishioners from other Catholic parishes, (2) I could try to convert people to Catholicism from other churches or (3) I could try to attract people who didn’t belong to any church. None of those options appealed to me as very realistic.
Finally, I thought to myself, “Half of those people milling around downtown are probably Catholic and half of those Catholics don’t go to church anymore. Some of them are divorced, some of them are gay, some of them are homeless and some of them have been hurt by religious people years ago!” In a “eureka” moment, it came to me “That’s what I will do! I will go after fallen-away, rejected, poor and marginalized Catholics - the people who have been run out of other parishes and no one else would welcome! There are probably enough of them roaming around these streets to fill that old church!”
In short, that’s what we did! In the fourteen years I was pastor there, we grew from 110 old ladies to 2100 members, mostly 25 to 35 year-olds, and our budget grew from $90,000.00 a years to $900,000.00 a year - without one single money-talk! Out of that, we gave away 25% of our income to local, national and international charities without having second collections or allowing people to sell stuff or collect money at the doors!
Our unofficial mottos were: “We’ll take anybody!” and “You can always come home to mother!” (The Cathedral is the “mother church” of the archdiocese!) We even earned the nickname, “The Island of Misfit Toys” from the kids’ film “Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” The “island of misfit toys” in that film was the place broken toys could go to be repaired so they, too, could be part of Christmas!”
We did not start with education like most
parishes, by reopening our old closed school! No, we started with serious preaching,
great music and intentional hospitality! We spent our time on preaching, our
money on music and our imagination on hospitality. We spent no money on
advertising. Our growth came strictly by word-of-mouth! At our high point, our
new parishioners came from 67 zip codes! Only later, after a few years, did
they start asking for education! On Sundays, I could look out and see millionaires
and street people, old and young, the educated and the uneducated, committed and marginalized Catholics praying and
singing side-by-side! Sometimes, especially at times like Midnight Mass and
Sunday evening Masses with its high-quality contemporary music, the crowds got so big that
the fire-marshal threatened to close us down if we let any more people in!
I thought of all this when I read the words of today’s second reading from the Letter of James. Show no partiality as you adhere to the faith. Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom?” In those days, I felt we were as close to heaven as we could get – as close to what an “ideal parish” could be! It was not that hard, really! All we had to do was believe that the “good news,” passionately preached, still had the power to attract people even these days and to aim our focus on affirming the goodness in people, rather than looking for their mistakes and weaknesses to condemn!
We were, of course, condemned by some self-righteous critics because we would not out-right condemn non-practicing Catholics, condemn gays and lesbians, condemn the divorced and re-married or hide the poor who came to our doors. We did not challenge church teaching, but we simply told people they could come and hear the gospel without fear of being singled out for condemnation and judgment, without fear of leaving Mass feeling worse about themselves than they did when they arrived there!
Let me be very clear! We didn’t invent that strategy!
Personally, I believe all that was just what Jesus did in his ministry. After
all, Jesus himself welcomed the marginalized, the left out and the excluded,
and we simply tried to do the same!
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