Bishop Blaire, by Sue Nowicki, Modesto Bee, October 21, 2006

Bishop Blaire

By Sue Nowicki
Modesto Bee
October 21, 2006

http://www.modbee.com/life/faithvalues/story/12921266p-13578511c.html

Stockton — The Most Rev. Stephen E. Blaire, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Stockton for more than five years, recently sat down with The Bee. In a wide-ranging interview, the 64-year-old discussed everything from his childhood to Santa Claus to pedophile priests to Pope Benedict XVI.

Here, edited for space, are his comments:

Q: Describe your childhood.

A: My father had been married twice before he married my mother. The first family — he had one child, and that whole family died out. Then he married the second Mrs. Blaire. They had 10 children and then she died. Then he married my mother. He was 59 years old at the time. I think she was 39. It was her first marriage.

It's hard to assess parish needs, Blaire says. Ask about needs and you often hear about wants. 'And nobody can measure up -- Jesus himself probably couldn't measure up.'
Photo by Joan Barnett Lee / The Bee

My mother was not able to conceive. We had a Chinese doctor, and he said, "I've got to give you some herbal treatments." By golly, she did conceive.

I was the oldest of this last family of three children.

Photo by Joan Barnett Lee / The Bee

We played a lot of games. In those days, your lives were not regulated as children. We were very creative — one day, we'd create a store, and the next, we'd create a little travel agency. We played school. I'd have a magic show and used to have a little neighborhood newspaper. We were very imaginative as kids.

Q: What kind of trouble did you get into as a child?

A: I suppose one of the worst things I did is that I had a paper route, and one day I didn't feel like delivering them, so I took them down to the L.A. River and dumped all my papers in the river. I remember it caused so much trouble, I would never do it again.

Q: What is one of your favorite family memories?

A: The excitement of Christmas Eve, when I had to stay out of the kitchen as my parents were wrapping gifts. In those days, they didn't have midnight Mass, so we'd always go to the first Mass on Christmas morning. There was the excitement of the Mass and then getting home to open the gifts; we'd have to wait until we had breakfast!(laughs)

Q: Did you believe in Santa Claus?

A: Oh, yeah. I remember the day I said to my mother, "Is there really a Santa Claus?" And she hemmed-hawed around. I think she didn't want my younger brother and sister to hear the answer.

Q: Do you think it's a bad thing today for Catholic parents to let their children believe in Santa Claus?

A: I don't think so. Probably it's a good thing growing up to realize that the magical things of childhood are just exactly that. I wonder if that isn't the first point in life when you begin dealing with reality and that all dreams don't come true.

Q: Before becoming bishop, you lived all your life in Southern California. What do you like and dislike about living in the Central Valley?

A: I do like living up here. I like the friendliness. When I lived in Los Angeles, I never knew my neighbors. I wasn't here a day and I met all my neighbors. So I like the atmosphere much better.

There's nothing I don't like, but what I miss is that from where I lived in Los Angeles, I could be anywhere in 20 minutes — to downtown L.A., west L.A., Hollywood, all the theaters, the wide variety of options that you don't have in a smaller town. And I miss my friends, of course.

Q: You said at one point that you'd like to double the number of priests in the diocese. How are you doing with that goal?

A: Not very well. I think what I actually said was that we need to double the priests to staff new parishes and meet all the needs that exist. We have about 70 priests working in the parishes. We're going to ordain four more this next year. We have 11 seminarians that are associated with our diocese.

Q: How will you address the priest shortage?

A: There are two things we'll be paying more attention to. I think we'll be taking a new look at how we distribute priests. We're going to look more holistically — are the priests fairly distributed around the diocese?

Bishop Blaire says he has no such thing as a typical day, though most days have one thing in common -- a lot of meetings.
Photo by Joan Barnett Lee / The Bee

The second thing we're going to spend some time looking at is developing more lay leadership. We'll be looking at maybe even lay pastoral associates.

It's like at a doctor's office. Often now, you may or may not see the doctor. Even if you see the doctor, someone else will take your temperature and so forth beforehand. It's the same thing in the parish — maybe someone will come in with a need and it may be that a trained lay person will be able to take care of that need. But if people want to see a priest, I think we have to make that option available.

Q: How do you decide which priest to send to a parish?

A: Our policy now is you apply to be pastor of the parish and a personnel board reviews the application. Then they generally send two representatives out to see what the needs of the parish are. It's not working well because the people of the parish don't tell you their needs; they tell you what they want. And nobody can measure up — Jesus himself probably couldn't measure up. So we need a better system of identifying the needs of the parish.

And we're talking about a new form of training for priests who want to be pastors, so when an opening occurs, only priests who have been through the program could apply. Not every priest wants to be a pastor or is capable of being a pastor.

Q: Describe your typical day:

A: I get up at 5 o'clock every morning. The first hour, I do my exercises. Then I clean up and have my breakfast. I read four papers every day — The New York Times, The Modesto Bee, The Stockton Record and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Then I spend an hour in prayer, and by then, it's9 o'clock and I consider my workday beginning. I try not to interrupt that early-morning routine, except that I may have a Mass somewhere.

There is no such thing as a standard day. Every day is very different. A lot of meetings. Today, I came in at 9 and got caught up on some paperwork. Then our administrative team met from 10 to 12. I went home for a bite to eat for lunch and put my laundry in the washer. Came back about a quarter to 1. Tried to catch up on phone calls and other things hanging fire. Then there was this appointment. At 2:30, I will meet with the vicar for the priests to go over all the personnel issues. I will try then to make some phone calls and leave about 5 to drive to Danville, where the deacons are having their retreat. I'll have dinner with the deacons and give them an hour update on what's going on in the diocese.

Photo by Joan Barnett Lee / The Bee

Then in the morning (Saturday), I'll have Mass for them at 9:15 and will drive back here, come into the office and try to catch up on my work. I have a Mass at 4 o'clock with the charismatic youth. On Sunday, I have Mass at the cathedral at 9 o'clock. Then I have a Mass at noon at St. Linus, where we're dedicating a new rectory. Then we have awards for all the Scouts at4 o'clock.

But the following weekend would be very different. You never get caught up on work.

Q: Where do you live?

A: I have a home in Stockton that belongs to the diocese.

Q: Do you have someone who cooks for you?

A: No. The cathedral is across the street, and I like eating dinner there. There are other priests there, and there are people. I like breakfast alone because I read four newspapers. But I like company at dinner.

Q: What's your favorite meal?

A: I will never tell you because if it appeared in the paper, every time I went to eat at someone's home, it would be served. I love food. I love Mexican food; I love Italian food.

Q: When you get a day off, what do you do?

A: Yesterday, I went to the doctor first. Then I had to stop at a parish for something that had to be done. Then I went home and wrote my homily for this weekend. But about 3 o'clock, I had a friend who came from Los Angeles who I haven't seen for quite a while, and we had a nice dinner and a nice visit. Every time, it's different. Sometimes I work in the yard, and sometimes I play golf.

Q: What do you do when you get a week off?

A: I have a priest friend in Los Angeles. We usually go away for two or three days to play a little golf. Then I spend another three days catching up with other people there. I still have friends from my first assignment.

Q: Besides the Bible, do you have one or two other books that you enjoy, fiction or nonfiction? Have you read "The Da Vinci Code"?

A: I have read it. I didn't care for it. I like to read theology. I'm studying a commentary on the relationship between Scripture and tradition. Interestingly enough, this is a commentary on the Vatican Council document on divine revelation, and it was written by a man named Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) (laughs).

I like to read theology, and I like to study the Scriptures. I try to work my way through a couple of books of the Bible every year, where I study it in depth. I'm currently studying Acts of the Apostles.

Q: You've spoken about meeting the new pope a few times and called him a gentle and very organized man who has a solid theology. Now that he's been pope for a few months, what do you think of him?

A: I met him in Rome a few weeks ago. He's very, very cordial, and he takes a few moments to chat with you, and he asked about the diocese. He had been to San Francisco several years ago, so I explained where we were located.

When he was Cardinal Ratzinger, I always found that when we visited Rome — you visit every five years on an official visit and you visit the congregations there — I always found his was the best organized, and he would always have important points to go over. Then he always wanted to hear from you, and he would listen carefully. I was always impressed by that.

Q: Is there anything you would like to see him do or address?

A: I think there are issues the church has to address, but for him, personally, I think his talks and homilies are very profound. It's said that people used to go to Rome to see Pope John Paul II, but they go to listen to Ratzinger. I like reading his little addresses to people because they're usually very well thought out and based on scholarship.

I'd like to see him create some better structures for the universal church to dialogue.

Q: How do you feel the diocese is doing regarding the priest sex abuse issue?

A: I think our diocese has done well in addressing the issue.

I'm part of a national committee to see what kind of education we should provide for children. We don't want to put any burden on children as if it's their fault to protect themselves against abuse. So how much information do you give children? What kind of training do you give parents?

There are some dioceses that have not settled their cases, like Los Angeles. But we've settled our cases here. We've just got a couple that we have to work out the technicalities. Of course, you don't know who will come forward tomorrow.

Q: Are there other steps you think need to be taken?

A: I think the most important thing is to protect children. That's the No. 1 responsibility we have. I think we've taken the right steps. Do we need to improve the quality of what we're doing? Oh, yes. We still have to keep working at it, supervising it, training teachers, training parents. We'll never stop training.

Q: What's your greatest challenge as bishop?

A: I think it's to meet the pastoral needs of the people. You have this ever-growing Catholic population and fewer number of priests available, so how do we meet the pastoral needs of the people?

Q: What's your greatest joy?

A: I like going out to the parishes, celebrating Mass in the community and meeting the people.

Q: Pastors are appointed for six-year renewable terms. Do bishops have terms, or is it for life?

A: We're appointed forever (laughs). Actually, now bishops are asked to submit their resignations at the age of 75. That's not to say you can't submit it sooner. (laughs again)

Q: Do you have something else that you'd like to do before you retire?

A: No. I like being bishop. I like what we're involved in. But does it have headaches? Indeed it does. Does it have frustrating days? Indeed it does. But on the other hand, it gives you an opportunity to do some wonderful things.

Q: What's your greatest passion? What would you like to see done or do yourself if you could?

A: I enjoy preaching and teaching. What I'd like to see are parishes that are functioning well and alive — where the liturgy is well-celebrated, where people are involved, where people feel at home in their parishes, where they can go to get their needs met. To me, the infallible sign of a good parish is that if someone is hurting, the first place they think of going is to their parish. If that's happening, I am happy.

E-mail: snowicki@modbee.com