This photo made it to the news back in the day. It's of Father George carrying a Vietnamese girl in 1975 during Operation New Life, when Guam hosted 100,000+ refugees at the Fall of Saigon to the communists. Many Capuchins spent time among the refugees, many of them Catholic. Fr George folded the pic, and thus that irritating crease. Ugh.
Unfortunately the actions of a perverted and corrupted few, is taring all priests' reputation. Never forget that despite all the egregious actions of these wolves, the great majority of our priests, is true to their vows.
ReplyDeleteThe perverse effect of the erosion of trust, that is the consequence of these abuses, which has been compounded by the ill advised coverup that followed, should not cast a shadow over the good work done by the great majority of our priests. Yet this is the unfortunate reality.
It is why, it is essential to separate the weeds from the good grains.
Thanks God when there is a Pius, we also have a mother Dawn, to give us hope and discerment.
The refreshing side of Archbishop Byrnes, is in many ways, that he is everything Apuron never was.
As we are laboring forward to cleanse and rebuild our Church, lets look up at the positive examples such as Fr George.
Lets recognize and support the good priests of our communities, they need us as much as we need them.
I love this photo. I remember those days. One of the initial steps of that operation (“Operation New Life”), as it involved Guam, was that the refugees were housed at the Asan annex complex. It was a gated area where the refugees where, in effect, housed to temporariry live while their resettlement to the U.S. was in process. Many lived in the complex’s Quonset type of buildings for months and, for some, even a couple of years while segregated from the rest of the island population by the tall wire fences of the complex. One of my fond memories is that they hung their laundry to dry on those fences so you saw a lot of drying clothes as you drove by the complex along Marine Drive. As the refugees were resettled to their final destinations, the population at the Asan annex decreased and so did the amount of clothes drying on the fences. Our Catholic faith teaches us that in our modern world the burden of emergencies cannot be placed solely on nations immediately adjacent to the crises. Justice dictates that the world community contribute resources toward shelter, food, medical services, and basic welfare. Guam stepped up to the plate for its part in “Operation New Life.” In that operation, our clergy and religious played a huge role in putting into action the Catholic social teaching of “welcoming the strangers among us.” This photo is one small evidence of that huge work. I agree with Frenchie, the local Church is blessed with a largely faithful and dedicated clergy and religious. The bad apples are in the minority, but it is essential to call them out and, as Frenchie said, to separate the weeds from the good grain in order to clean up the Church. When the faithful “call them out” we remain grateful to the clergy who remain steadfast in their vocation even after serving under a thirty-year dysfunctional and essentially non-supportive leadership while managing to continue with the 24/7, and even sometimes thankless job, that their vocation calls them to do. Kudos to the mostly “the good grain” in the local clergy.
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