Denver Catholic

18 JULY 8-21, 2017 | DENVER CATHOLIC The faith of Father Solanus Casey The following is an excerpt of an article written about Father Solanus Casey, who will be beatifi ed in Detroit Nov. 18. " T hank God ahead of time!" This saintly wisdom was something Father Casey had learned through his own his experiences of su¬ ering and perse- verance in prayer. Born in the small farm town of Oak Grove, Wis., in 1870, Bernard Francis Casey was the sixth of 16 chil- dren born to Irish immigrant parents Bernard and Ellen. At eight years of age, Bernard, who his family nicknamed "Barney," con- tracted diphtheria which caused per- manent damage to his voice and took the life of two his siblings. Following his grade school education, Barney worked in a series of jobs including lumberjack, a hospital orderly, a state prison guard and a street car operator. It was in this last job that Barney witnessed a drunken sailor stab a woman to death. Barney began to seriously examine the direction of his own life and responded to a call he had long felt to the priesthood. In hopes of becoming a diocesan priest, Barney enrolled at St. Francis High School Seminary in 1891 at the age of 21, but did not understand the Latin and German languages in which the classes were taught. He was strongly advised to consider a religious order which might ordain him as a "simplex" priest who could celebrate the Mass, but would not have faculties to preach or absolve sins. Faced with an unforeseen dilemma, Barney turned to God. While praying before a statue of Our Lady, he heard a distinct female voice instruct him: "Go to Detroit." There Barney was accepted into the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor, a 16th cen- tury reform order of the Franciscans, and received the religious name of "Solanus." As predicted, Casey was ordained a "simplex" priest on July 24, 1904. What might have been an embarrass- ing humiliation for some, refl ected a Capuchin who knew Casey well, "brought forth in him a greatness and holiness that might never have been realized in any other way." For the next fourteen years, Father Casey served as a porter and sacris- tan in Yonkers, New York. Even in his fi rst parish, people were already beginning to refer to the young Capu- chin as "the holy priest." Father Casey served at parishes in Manhattan and Harlem, but eventually returned to Detroit where he continued his work as a porter and sacristan. It was during this period that Father Casey also began working at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen which served the city's poorest and hungriest during the Great Depression. At times the line of people waiting for their fi rst meal of the day grew to more than 2,000. By this time, Father Casey had garnered a reputation as a man whose prayers brought about miracles. As many as 150 to 200 people came to see him on a daily basis, seeking heal- ings, advice or simply his blessing. He died on July 31, 1953, and with his last breath entrusted himself to God, saying, "I give my soul to Jesus Christ." Perspectives Fifty years of friendship with Cardinal Pell M sgr. Thomas A. Whelan, my pastor when I was grow- ing up in Baltimore, was a striking character: Princeton friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald; former Wall Street broker; high-rank- ing Army chaplain in World War II; world traveler; founding rector of the Cathe- dral of Mary Our Queen. The latter two roles led to some creative thinking about arranging "coverage" at the cathedral during the summer, when he could be found abroad: one by one and year by year, Msgr. Whelan brought to Baltimore newly-ordained Australian priests who had studied in Rome, wanted to visit the U.S., and could use some money. And so, precisely fi fty years ago this month, a tall, gangly Aussie named George Pell entered my life. By the end of August 1967 he had become a fast friend of my family. Little did he nor I know that the next half-century would lead us into the same foxholes in various ecclesiastical battles; or to a shared friendship with a Polish priest, pope, and saint; or into synods, con- sistories, papal elections, and other adventures. We're both a little slower and a little heavier than we were in the summer of '67, when, if memory serves, I helped introduce the future cardinal to Frisbee at the beach. But the friendship is even closer and it is one of the great blessings of my life. That summer, Father Pell was heading for doctoral studies in history at Oxford after ordination in Rome from the Pontifi cal Urban University (horsemeat was a staple on the menu in his day). His intellectual gifts might have marked him out for a scholarly career. But Providence (and John Paul II) had other plans, and rather than teaching history full-time, George Pell made history, becoming the defi ning fi gure of 21st-century Catholicism in Australia. Had Pell not become archbishop of Melbourne, and later cardinal-arch- bishop of Sydney, it's a reasonable bet that Australian Catholicism today would resemble the Irish Church from which the Church Down Under largely descends: scandal-ridden, demoralized, intellectually shoddy, and somewhere out on the far periphery of the New Evangeliza- tion. Thanks to Pell's courage in facing-down the Australian forces of Catholic Lite, the Church in Oz today has a fi ghting chance. Cardinal Pell's accomplishment has not been cost-free. Australia is a con- tact-sport country, and that national tendency to hit hard extends to both the Aussie media and to intra-ecclesi- astical life. George Pell's enemies, and their media lapdogs, have not caviled to lie about him for decades. Perhaps the most absurd charge was that this man, whose sartorial style rings up "Salvation Army Thrift Shop," kept a house full of Church fi nery to satisfy his vanity. As it happens (and as I wrote at the time), I had just stayed in the cardinal's house when this nonsense appeared; I hadn't seen a vestment anywhere, but had noted thousands of books and the current issues of every major opinion journal in the English-speaking world. More recently, the calumnies have become much darker, as the man who designed and implemented the Australian Church's fi rst vigorous response to the sexual abuse of the young has been charged with being an abuser. His friends are confi dent that the charges, like other fanciful alle- gations the cardinal has consistently denied and of which he has been exonerated, will be shown to be gross falsehoods — not least because we believe Pell is telling the truth when he fl atly and forcefully denies the cur- rent accusations. There is a new twist to this dirty business, however. Since 2014, Car- dinal Pell has been responsible for draining the Vatican fi nancial swamp of corruptions that had become epidemic, ingrained and virtually institutionalized. Given the stakes and the sleaziness involved, it would not be surprising to learn that some who would be most adversely e¬ ected by Pell's success in Vatican fi nancial reform may have been generating false accusations now in play in the Australian judicial system. Australia, it seems, is not the only place where hardball is played, and in very unsa- vory forms. Cardinal George Pell is a big man in every sense of the word and his stamina under assault is entirely admirable. Its deepest root, however, is not his native combativeness but Pell's faith. Its solidity, and the cour- age to which that rock-solid faith gives rise, may be what aggravates his foes the most. It's also what inspires his legion of friends, among whom I am honored to number myself — for fi fty years and counting. The Catholic Di¤ erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL Guest Column Father Elder serves as the Vocations Director for the Capuchin Franciscans. FATHER JOSEPH MARY ELDER Read the full article on denvercatholic.org

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