By Patty-Pat Kozlowski
Philly.com
March 21, 2011
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/118337844.html
 |
| The five women who knelt to pray on the Feast of Corpus Christi in 2005. Monsignor Feret is officiating. |
ITOOK the accompanying photo in June 2007 on a hot summer day on Allegheny Avenue. Five women kneeling in the street on the Feast of Corpus Christi ("Body of Christ").
Bare knees on pavement. Heads bowed; hands clutched in front in prayer, kneeling in front of church steps as three priests led more than 500 people in prayer.
Didn't care if their panty hose got a run. Didn't care if their skin was scraped.
When the priest held that golden monstrance containing the consecrated host high above his head, you went down on your knees. It was your faith. Monsignor Francis Feret, of St. Adalbert's Church, presided.
Although it's not so celebrated in America, Poland observes the feast as a national holiday, with huge processions and observances throughout the land - World Series-parade huge.
And that's where St. Adalbert's comes in, with Feret. It's the Polish church, one of the biggest, making up a third of the skyline of Port Richmond's Allegheny Avenue of churches.
From I-95 or the Market-Frankford El, you can see the double-spiral steeples of St. Adalbert's, the rotunda dome of Nativity BVM and the beaconlike clock tower of Our Lady Help of Christians. These are our lighthouses, our compasses.
You see these steeples from anywhere and everywhere in the neighborhood. They peek through the telephone wires with the dangling sneakers, they tower over basketball courts and treetops, they meet your eye when you look out your bathroom window, always looking over your shoulder. Being in the shadow of these church tops kept you honest, and good.
But then all hell broke loose. After a grand-jury report outlined the horrific child sex abuse and the mind-blowing coverup, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was forced to announce they were suspending 21 local priests (while making it clear the actions weren't guilty verdicts).
They wouldn't disclose the names of the priests, but on Ash Wednesday, every news outlet in town published the list.
And Monsignor Francis Feret, of St. Adalbert's Parish, in Port Richmond was on it.
We live in the land of innocent until proven guilty, and I don't know if Feret was a child molester or knew of it and did nothing and helped cover it up. Don't know because word around the 'hood was that he was given two hours to pack a bag and get out of Port Richmond.
To make matters worse, the Archdiocese then announced that another Port Richmond/Kensington parochial school was closing and that parents were instructed to send their children to Our Lady of Port Richmond Regional School next year. The same school where Feret is pastor, since it's housed in St. Adalbert's school buildings.
Horrible irony at its worst.
Everywhere I went last week, people were talking about Feret. Sure, he was always yelling, in a bad mood, unpleasant.
But that? Sure, he was a curmudgeon who'd never win the Mr. Congeniality contest, but his pews were packed on Sundays with the faithful - mostly Polish immigrants and Polish Americans who still went to church every Sunday. They dressed up, men in suits, women in dresses, children quiet and respectful. The Poles would come out of their rowhouses on Sunday mornings and walk to St. Adalbert's.
If Feret did abuse kids at St. Adalbert's, I have no doubt the people whose names end with "ski" and "wicz" would drag him out of the rectory and publicly quarter and disembowel him in the middle of Allegheny Avenue with the Polish American String Band oompah-pah-ing some catchy polka as background music.
So now what happens on the Sunday after Feret is "relieved of his duties" at St. Adalbert's? Do the faithful still pack the pews knowing - and second-guessing - everything they heard the past week?
What if the man who buried their dead, baptized their babies, married them and confirmed their kids was one of the monsters who hurt the same children they were suppose to bless and protect?
And that's why I sat my half-Polish dupa on the corner of Edgemont and Allegheny two Sunday mornings ago to see what would happen on what's usually one of the biggest and most well-attended worship services in Philadelphia, with two Masses in Polish, two in English.
Would the crowd show up - even if Feret wasn't at the altar?
And they came.
Family by family, one by one, Allegheny Avenue started to come alive. They were coming to church.
And then I started to think of something you only hear around Christmastime.
"Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small, was singing, they were singing, without any presents at all!
"He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming! It came! Somehow or other, it came just the same! It came without ribbons, it came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags! Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. Maybe . . . Christmas . . . perhaps, means a little bit more!"
It was the Aha! moment of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." The Grinch took everything he thought Christmas meant to people. The presents, the tree, the decorations, the food. But Christmas still came. They still had their faith.
Our faith isn't Francis Feret. Or Justin Rigali. It isn't the pope. What would these people do without their flock? They need us, not the other way around. Remember the picture of those women kneeling in the street? They weren't kneeling for Feret, they were kneeling for their faith.
Our faith is what we have inside. You don't need the Archdiocese to pray every day. You don't need to put $20 in an envelope every week to get to heaven. You say your prayers before you go to bed or when you're waiting for the bus in the morning. If you've sinned, tell God you're sorry, and you'll try to be a better person. You don't need to go to a Father Feret to confess. You have your faith. This whole sexual-abuse scandal rocked the church and the religion - and it's their own fault - but you have your faith.
EVEN THE Grinch can't steal your faith. It's yours. You can't buy it like a lottery ticket. Your faith is your spiritual fingerprint, the DNA of your heart and soul. And you control how you want to express it. Nobody tells you how to pray to God. There's no right way or wrong way to count your blessings and ask those who've passed on to watch over us and the ones we love. Whether you kneel in the street, or kneel by your bedside, that's what faith really is.
Patty-Pat Kozlowski lives, writes and has faith in Port Richmond.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.