Via Busted Halo

John Kerry’s Pastor-Part 2 A communion controversy, disruptive protesters outside his church and convention jitters are all part of the job for Paulist Father John Ardis.by Mike Hayes

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PART 1.

Busted Halo: Has all this attention changed the parish?John
Ardis: There’s never a dull day at the Paulist Center. After the
convention we went right into preparing for a mass…we have one of the largest chapters of Voice of the Faithful here at the Paulist Center…and we had a mass with them on Boston Common. So our music minister who just started here—actually it was his first day on the job when they asked if he would do the music for the mass and he graciously agreed to do it. So we launched right into that for VOTF, who I think are really calling for the church that I know and believe in—one that’s evangelized by the laity in the spirit of the 2nd
Vatican Council.

It’s funny though, you know being here because what’s viewed as very progressive here—in terms of liturgy anyway isn’t viewed that way throughout most of the rest of the country outside of the North East. Lay Ministry was normal in the Mid West but here it’s progressive. As far as the communion issue goes, the parish certainly was energized on that level. Nobody here has challenged the fact that it’s [Kerry’s] choice to receive communion. All the challenge has come from outside of the
community. I got a lot of nasty e-mails from people and lots of nasty phone calls. I had to take my staff’s email addresses off of our website. One woman called me up at 3AM on Easter morning to complain. I asked here where she was calling from and she said somewhere on the West Coast to which I replied. “Well it’s Midnight there and that’s not even an appropriate time to be calling someone, so let me just wish you a Happy Easter and Blessings.”

BH: Ay-yi-yi.

JA: Yeah. It’s also been uncomfortable to have the protesters here although I don’t begrudge their right to be here. Their permit is really for across the street from us but we’ve allowed them to be in front of our building as long as they don’t block the doors.

One Sunday was particularly sad for me. It was our First
Communion Sunday for our children and I went out to say to the protesters that they are certainly always welcome to be here but if they wouldn’t mind leaving us alone for just this one particular Sunday so our children wouldn’t have to remember their first communion as a day where people were chanting and holding up pictures of aborted fetuses at them. It simply fell on deaf ears. I mean it was just sad for our kids.

My perspective on the protesters is that we love them. We welcome them and they are welcome in our community as is
anyone who’d like to be here. For me the Catholic Church by its very nature is a church of compassion and understanding and that’s what we try to be at our best. There’s an opportunity for forgiveness in our church and that opportunity is not taken, unfortunately by many in the church. The kind of God who is unforgiving is not the kind of God I know. God recognizes that
we all have free will and that we all are sinners; I know very few people who aren’t. Reconciliation for me personally is something that I value and it’s always a time to start over; you can start fresh. That’s what I think some of the protesters don’t understand.

I mean if the Catholic Church could support one candidate it would be the person who has a consistent ethic of life. If President Bush were Catholic I wouldn’t deny him the eucharist
even though he’s not consistent on life issues like the death penalty and the war. But I just don’t think any Catholic should be denied communion. They should rather deny themselves communion if they feel unworthy. It’s been my experience though that there’s a great deal of people in our church who think that their sins are unforgivable and they stay away from the church because of that shame. Instead I hope that those
people would simply find a priest who could offer them some compassion and forgiveness. I mean the story of the prodigal son states it best that we only need to seek forgiveness. Yet when people most need grace they feel there’s no opportunity for reconciliation. There’s nothing that they could have done that can’t be forgiven. That’s the gift of the church. I know that when I go to confession I come out restored. It’s really one of
the greatest sacraments of the church and yet so few people use it. I mean there are so many people who seek out therapy and social workers and many of them call me saying that I think what this person needs is simply to be able to forgive themselves.

BH: How many drafts of the closing benediction at the Democratic National Convention did you go through?

JA: Now that’s a bit of a story. I was first asked to do the invocation –which is at the beginning and the benediction is at the end. So we spent all day Monday on an invocation. I asked my brother Paulists through our listserv if they had any thoughts as to what I should include or not include as well as other people I know from here and our staff here at the Center. We were going to merely tweak the invocation on Tuesday but then on Tuesday at 11AM the DNC called to confirm that I would be doing the benediction on Thursday night. I asked
them for a clarification because I was told I was doing the invocation and they said they would get back to me. So we waited for the next 4 hours and they finally called and confirmed that I was doing the benediction at the conclusion
not the invocation at the beginning.

So instead of starting from scratch because it really is such a different prayer and a different mood., we sat around and asked what pieces of the invocation could be carried over into
the benediction and we decided that we definitely wanted to keep (a full reading of the benediction can be found at http://www.paulist.org/media/news2_ardis.html)
the pieces on inclusion for all Americans and the pieces on respecting and cherishing life. Patty Simpson one of our many staff members was particularly moved by the “send me” phrase that President Clinton used and suggested we use some of his same style in our prayer. Susan Rutkowski, who is our RCIA director, was very valuable to me as someone who really helped me pull a lot of this together. Finally, Jim Carroll who’s a former Paulist and an author made the suggestion of weaving in a short piece about peace earlier in the prayer which definitely worked well. I’m so grateful for all their labors along with the suggestions of many of my brother Paulists.

BH: Describe your feelings on being on the floor of the
convention.

JA:The energy in that place was amazing. I was particularly
glad I went in early to practice a bit because they asked me if I wanted to use a teleprompter and I said sure but then when I got there they…well…I had highlighted certain words to give them more punch but when I saw my text on the prompter, the highlights were gone. So I decided to dump the prompter and
just use a binder with my copy of the prayer printed on both sides of the binder so I wouldn’t have to flip any pages. I practiced inside in a meeting room but went outside on stage to see where I was going to speak. Later on when I was out there to deliver the prayer it was like a completely different place
than the hall I was in just a few hours before. Just amazing, wild, energy. When I was practicing they told me that no matter what happens I should just keep going. I was glad they told me that because it might have sounded quiet to you at home watching on TV but let me tell you it was not quiet in that convention hall. People do not quiet down at all. So even
though this was prayer there were a few times that the crowd broke out in thunderous applause. TV filters most of that sound out so the only cheering you heard was the time that the crowd really burst into cheers when I mentioned an unjust war. But there was a problem with the balloons falling that night and a few times they started to fall right by my binder on the podium
so while I had my hands stretched upwards I had to bat a few of them away.

My nephew said that he was surprised the DNC didn’t have them turn into doves when I batted them skyward. [Laughs ] I didn’t realize it at the time but the secret service was right on my right shoulder the whole prayer. I had received a threat earlier in the week. Someone emailed me saying that if I
prayed at the convention I wouldn’t be able to speak again for a year. But I decided that I can’t let crazy people dictate my ministry and the secret service took everything very seriously and made sure I was well protected.

BH: What have your Paulist brothers said to you about your prayer?

JA: Well, look, I just happen to be here and this opportunity came up on my watch. But this was a first time thing not just for me but also for the Paulists. Somebody pointed out that since we are a community of priests whose mission it is to
serve in North America, this was a particularly important moment for us as a community. I mean serving those in America is what we’re all about as priests. So when one of my brothers brought that fact up it put even more pressure on my shoulders. [Laughs ]One of the things I noticed on the tape
later, because I certainly couldn’t look behind me during the prayer at the Senators, was how Sen. Kerry and Sen. Edwards were really deeply in prayer during that moment. I mean this was probably one of the most exciting moments of their lives, presumably and yet they were both firmly and devoutly in
prayer.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PART 1.

Mike Hayes is the Associate
Director of Paulist Young Adult Ministries.
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