Article by Rev Mary Foley in the National Catholic Reporter
CAPITOL INSURRECTIONISTS: I HAVE MET THEM BEFORE / NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER
February 9, 2021 by Rev. Dr. Mary Foley
Tear gas is released into a crowd of demonstrators protesting the 2020 election results at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 in Washington. (CNS/Shannon Stapleton, Reuters)
I was deeply affected by our democracy coming under attack one month ago, with the storming of the Capitol by people wielding flags that proclaimed Trump, civil war and Jesus. I was traumatized by hearing people gleeful about the destruction, who were happy that members of Congress were terrorized. Listening to some people in those moments, I felt like I was face to face with evil.
Then, I realized, I have met them before.
I grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, one of eight children of white parents were who involved in the civil rights movement. My parents moved from the South Side of Chicago to this suburb because it was nationally known for its integration policies. However, the Catholic school we attended was not integrated. When riots burned through Chicago after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, my family took in a Black single Mom and her kids who lost their home, until they could get back on their feet again. When my parents enrolled the kids in our school, parishioners boycotted the church collection and sent threatening messages to my mother. The pastor asked my father to take the kids out of the school. I have met them before.
When a series of circumstances put me back on the Southwest Side of Chicago as a young adult, I was horrified to see the American Nazi Party headquarters across the street from our Catholic parish. When I walked a baby stroller through Marquette Park, I tore down signs on lamp posts and light poles that said, “N—– Keep Out,” and “No Afros Allowed.” I learned that it had not been long since the Ku Klux Klan marched through the park. I heard the priest at our parish supporting those who wanted to keep the Western Avenue color line from being crossed. I have met them before.
When living in the Marquette Park neighborhood and my children were small, I was mugged returning from the grocery store one night. The mugger tried to pull me down my front stairs as I was carrying groceries into my house. No one heard my yelling and it was not until the groceries fell and glass broke that the mugger yanked my purse from my arm and took off. Being locked in a bear hug by a mugger was very scary and I called the police. When the officer who came to take the report found out that the mugger was Black, the street was suddenly filled with police cars and the officer asked me, “When we catch him, do you want us to string him up in the tree in front of your house?” The mugger scared me. The police officer terrified me. I have met them before.
When I worked as a young mother to try and change things in my neighborhood and in the church, I did a lot of research about the local area. I read books that recorded stories of Catholics demonstrating against Dr. King when he marched and was attacked in the park. I found a document written by church leaders of different denominations in the Marquette Park neighborhood who were trying to keep the area white. The list of names in this document included the name of the priest who would baptize me as an infant some years later. The people I have met before have been here long before me.
During recent weeks, there has been action taken to hold President Donald Trump accountable, and calls to also hold accountable other politicians who participated in inflaming the people I have met before. Those in law enforcement who proclaim the need for law and order for some people but not for others, and those in Catholic and evangelical churches who proclaim respect for life but only for the unborn, should also be held accountable. All of us need to take stock of how we participated in what happened at the Capitol, through our action or inaction. Otherwise, we are like the people I have met before.
The Rev. Dr. Mary M. Foley is a board certified chaplain, ACPE certified educator, and Roman Catholic Woman Priest who is currently serving the Catholic Apostolic Church in North America, or CACINA.
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Sunday Mass 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mother Monica Kennedy is the Pastor of Saint Charles of Brazil which is a CACINA parish located at 116 Marydell Road in Linthicum, Maryland (Anne Arundel County). The church shares space with St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church.
Website: https://www.stcharlesofbrazil.org Facebook.com/St. Charles of Brazil Independent Catholic Church
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A reflection from CACINA Seminarian Mike Ellis
If you would like to have a reflection considered for publication, please send your writing to Bp. Tony Green at revtonygreen@gmail.com
Reflection written by Mike Ellis – CACINA Seminarian
“Love is patient, love is kind. . . Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13: 4, 8 (NIV)
When I first entered Helen and Tom’s lives some time ago, it was during a time of crisis. As a chaplain for a local hospice organization, I had received a referral to make a call on them. In keeping with accepted practice, I had familiarized myself with their situation, or “case”, by reading the notes of various medical, social work, and related professionals involved in Helen’s care. I knew, for instance, that Helen had been ill for some time with multiple debilitating diagnoses, and that even with the various services she was receiving, she was still largely dependent for all her daily needs on the constant care and attention of her husband Tom, who was determined to keep her at home. And I knew that Tom was no spring chicken.
And so, as I prepared myself to meet them, driving up to their house, parking in their steep driveway, making sure the emergency brake was on before I got out, and slowly making my way up the steps to their front door, I said a prayer, asking God to help me help this couple who, according to everything I had read, was surely in crisis.
But the notes did not, and could not, prepare me for what I encountered when I entered their home. For within fifteen minutes of meeting them, I realized that what I had actually entered was a love story.
I saw it all around me: in the comfortable, cozy, welcoming informality of their home; in the simple furnishings that reflected a shared lifetime together; and, yes, in the many beautiful and thoughtfully crafted handmade quilts displayed with care on their walls.
But most especially, and unmistakably, in their interactions with each other. For although by the time I met her Helen was largely immobile and nonverbal, she was not relegated to a bedroom, a “sickroom”, in the back of the house. Oh no. Instead, she was established in her recliner in the living room, where she and Tom could share each other’s company. And the really interesting thing about it was, in all the many hours I would subsequently spend with them over the next few months, I don’t think she ever took her eyes off of him. And he, for his part, still clearly delighted in her company.
And sometimes Tom, in telling me about their past exploits on quilting trips, motorcycle rides, and snowmobile adventures, would look at Helen, make a lovingly funny comment about the two of them, and then turn to me and say, “Look, she’s laughing.”
I confess I never quite saw what Tom did. And that’s the whole point.
You see, those were private moments between two people who, despite the intrusiveness of illness and well-intentioned strangers, could still recognize, claim, and celebrate space they reserved for themselves alone. Space only they could see and enter. Intimate space. Holy space.
Where do people learn to love like that? Where did they?
To no one’s surprise, in time, Helen died. Which means I don’t make as many trips as I once did to that house with the steep driveway, taking care that the parking brake is on before I amble up those stairs to the front door.
But that’s ok.
They’re not in crisis anymore.
They never were.
“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthinas 13:3 (NIV)
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Reflection on the Body and Blood of Christ as important today as it always is
A reflection overlooked and missed for submitting, but more prevalent in our times today. Sorry, Fr. Michael.
“The Eucharistic calls us to be in relationship is a challenge over and over again for us as believers and perhaps more importantly to us as a Church. At this time when we find ourselves so distant on this Bread of Life Sunday, how do we think about what it means to participate? To love those who seem unlovable. To go beyond the boundaries of our own understanding of who fits and who doesn’t.
I want to leave you with one final story. Years ago I spent Easter Sunday in Kingston, Jamaica at a place where children who had essentially been abandoned to die in a dump were able to live out their lives with dignity. In the middle of the mass, a developmentally disabled child who had been making noises throughout the majority of the mass stood up at the very moment of epiclesis. As the priest raised the host above his head, the child stood up pointed and shouted “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” Then he pointed to himself and said, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” And finally he pointed at the entire crowd and said, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” In that moment I knew that I had been fed far more than I could have ever imagined. So friends, as Christ reminds us that he’s the living bread come down from heaven, how can we participate in that reality here and now?”
Catholic Women Preach
SOLEMNITY OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST
SUSAN HAARMAN
CACINA 
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