Showing posts with label Chicago Jewish Community.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicago Jewish Community.. Show all posts

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Bishop Bernard James Sheil the Victim of Co-Opting Clowns and Cardinal Cody


There ain't no clout, when your clout is dead. That is a Chicago Commandment. Shakman Decree killed clout in Chicago - "hey, can you help me? - " Not a chance;Tell me about it, walking. Shakman, Dude! No Bosses. Hit the door."

There is no Shakman anywhere else, but Chicago, Cook County and the dumber parts of Illinois. Shakman helped Michael Shakman amass millions of dollars and soulless people get elected, prevents any possible human contact in government and is destroying public service. Shakman like abortion is what passes for progressive thought.

Clout means assistance from someone at a personal level. Clout is a good thing. Goo-goos hate Clout. I have yet to experience a Progressive who ever took an active empirical interest in another carbon life-form. I have been told that they are out there, but, Dog My Cats, I have yet to meet, learn by word-of-mouth, read-about, or tripped over a Progressive (a devout disciple of John Dewey/Hegel/Jane Addams/Roger Baldwin/Margaret Sanger)who would ever dig-in past the pocket lint and fugitive Breath-Savers and claw up a nickel for another human being. I get out a lot too.

Good Works are not Programs. Programs are bureaucracies run by managers with staffs and salaries. Programs are tax-generated by cash. Cash can not do good works; metaphysical impossibility.

Progressives rail against good works, especially good works by public persons. Public Persons who do good works are called Bosses. Bosses are targets of Federal, State and local investigations by Blue Ribbon Goo-goo panels comprised of academics and political outsiders. Political outsiders are people who never do anything for anyone but themselves and call that civic virtue. Rather, Goo-goos badger their enthralled editorial boards, community activists and political suits into legislating programs that cost tax-payers but create armies of dependants. No saloon-keeper alderman can match a loudmouth with a microphone, TV time and politicians who already rented out their souls and principles.

Today, I am reacting to a reaction to my post on Bishop Sheil. Bishop Sheil is out of the general public collective memory. Shiel was co-opted to death, by the Church and the Progressives. As I noted in my previous post, Bishop Sheil was ecumenical long before Vatican II.

Born in a mixed black-white, Catholic-Jewish, Irish-Polish neighborhood on Chicago's West Side, Sheil was lace-curtain Irish. His grandfather had been an alderman, his father was Democratic leader of the 14th Ward. Entering St. Viator's College in Bourbonnais (a later pupil: Fulton J. Sheen), Sheil was ordained in 1910 and assigned to a middle-class parish. He caught Cardinal Mundelein's eye, however, and began to receive promising assignments. He served as chaplain at the Cook County jail, as an assistant at Holy Name Cathedral and was named chancellor of the archdiocese in 1923. A year later, on his first visit to Rome, he was received by Pius XI, and in 1928 he was consecrated bishop.


I got an interesting e-mail from of pal, Elias Crim, who forwarded me a note from a gent who reacted to my recent offering of Bishop Bernard James Sheil. This person noted that a Jewish branch of B'Nai B'rith had established programs similar the CYO ten years before Bishop Shiel put his ideas into action.

This was the Old Testament preceding the New Testament.

The B'nai B'rith Youth Organization began in Omaha in 1924 and spread rapidly, reaching Chicago within a year. Very quickly BBYO became organized in Jewish neighborhoods throughout Chicago, with prominent basketball and boxing programs, in particular.

There were (and are) a boys' arm, called Aleph Zadik Aleph (a/k/a "AZA", using Hebrew letters in Greek fraternity style), and a girls' arm, B'nai B'rith Girls (BBG). Heavy on sports, after-school programs, service projects, and dances, with a typical American emphasis on self-government (teens conducting business meetings with parliamentary procedure, electing officers, publishing newspapers, sending delegates to regional, national, and, by the 1940s, international conventions, etc.)

Bishop Sheil liked that model a lot.


Sheil knew what he was doing, it seems because he had some great roots dug out of the Nebraska soil and brought to Chicago, where Catholics and Jews crowded together around Halsted Street. The athletic/social activity element founded in Faith must have had an impact upon Sheil to be sure.

Catholic Social programs were well established before the arrival of George Cardinal Mundelein, but it was by Mundeleins fiat that talented underlings like Bernard Sheil and Msgr. Hoban were directed to actively improve direct Catholic Action.

The origin of the CYO in 1930 was certainly the most impressive and most dangerous to Progressives. Action was a reflection of Faith and not taxes - bureaucratic programs would sanitize Action of Faith.

The Catholic Church, no stranger to politics, had ambitious clergy who were willing to advance themselves over the bones of good people.

I offer two pieces taken from Time Magazine that are the post mortems of the CYO and Bishop Shiel.

One is from 1954:

Christmas in Chicago used to include one famed celebration. Among as many as 800 children, ecstatic before a mountain of toys and candy-crammed paper bags, workers of the Catholic Youth Organization would labor happily to distribute presents and keep order. And in the middle of the maelstrom would move the founder and father of C.Y.O., The Most Rev. Bernard J. Sheil—a firm-faced Friar Tuck kneeling nimbly beside the toddlers, leading other children by the hand, talking to twelve-year-olds with the dignity becoming their years. To Bishop Sheil, the C.Y.O. Christmas Party was a symbol of his life and work—cheerful, practical action among the big-city poor.

But this Christmas there will be no party. The toys people have offered so far have been rejected or sent to some other charity. The second-hand paper bags C.Y.O. staffers saved all year to fill with candy were thrown away unused. The staff itself was decimated and depressed; Bishop Sheil of Chicago never goes to the C.Y.O. offices any more.

"The Thing You Desire." The Christmas party is only one of many good things that began to vanish from the archdiocese after Shell's dramatic resignation as C.Y.O. director-general last fall (TIME, Sept. 13). He never told why he resigned, nor did his superior, Samuel Cardinal Stritch, but the reason is becoming as plain as the old Water Works on Michigan Avenue. Bishop Sheil, a generous and sometimes over-generous man, had undertaken a great number of ambitious projects and had spread his resources thin. His long-standing liberalism and impatience with reverse-collar bureaucracy had brought him enemies. By the time Bishop Sheil made his well-aimed attack on Joe McCarthy (TIME, April 19), which earned him considerable dislike in some places among the Roman Catholic clergy and laity, the reaction of a few big financial contributors was enough to cause serious trouble. When money sources on which he relied to meet the bulk of the C.Y.O.'s million-dollar budget began to dry up, the cardinal's office began to move in on the C.Y.O., and Sheil quit.

"The C.Y.O. will continue to benefit from your counsel," said Cardinal Stritch to Bishop Sheil publicly, "and will become the thing you desire." But today the C.Y.O. and much of the "empire" of do-good organizations he created are being whittled away.

The Casualties. Of 27 major activities related to C.Y.O., twelve are dead or have been served with a death warrant, four have been transferred to other agencies, two have been cut down and turned over to Catholic Charities, four have their fate in doubt. Among the casualties: If Sheil Institute, a commercial college. Attended mostly by young adults with daytime jobs, it required all students (15% Negro, 30% non-Catholic) to take a course in business ethics along with their other work. It will close in January. ¶ The Sheil School of Social Studies, set up to provide adult education in the liberal arts and philosophy. It has been attended by some 20,000 in its eleven years, was at its record enrollment of 700 when it closed last fortnight. ¶ The Sheil Social Service, which collected food and clothing for poor children, closed in September. ¶FM station WFJL, which promoted religion along with its boxing matches, closing December 31.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,821045,00.html#ixzz1MnOCx96M


The political clout of Bishop Sheil died along with the mortal husk of George Cardinal Mundelein in 1939. Cardinal Stritch began to undo many of the direct actions for social justice established by Bishop Sheil. Following WWII, the boys who had boxed at CYO came home, established the greatest standard of living the world has ever seen and no longer needed a leg up in life. They had the G.I.Bill, the Taft Hartley Act and the most robust labor movement on earth. The CYO?

Well, another Prince of the Church followed Cardinal Stritchs successor Albert Cardinal Meyer - the ecclesiastical mirror of the political Governor Pat Quinn or Senator Dick Durbin. John Cardinal Cody was akin to Mayor Rahm Emanuel -change came hard, fast and impersonally.

When he moved to Chicago last year from New Orleans, the Most Rev. John Patrick Cody brought along a well-founded reputation as a tough clerical administrator who likes to cut out deadwood. Last week Roman Catholic Cody lived up to his no-nonsense fame by firing one of the patron saints of Chicago-style liberalism: Auxiliary Archbishop Bernard J. Sheil, pastor of St. Andrew's parish and founder of the vast Catholic Youth Organization.

A fire-eater who publicly denounced the "phony antiCommunism" of Joe McCarthy in 1954, Sheil is now 78 and subject to ailments (most recently a broken ankle) that have kept him from performing pastoral duties. Cody visited Sheil with the suggestion that he let a younger man take over financial administration of the parish. Sheil at first consented, but then told a newsman: "I didn't retire. This is a removal." Cody expressed his regret that the matter had been made public—and coolly named a new pastor of the parish.

Since Cody had already replaced 35 other overage pastors, many Catholics agreed that he could hardly fail to seek Sheil's retirement as well. Nonetheless, there were plenty of complaints about the abrupt manner of the dismissal from priests and laymen who felt more comfortable under the free-and-easy regime of the late Albert Cardinal Meyer.

Chicago's Catholics freely credit Cody with a number of notable reforms: he has modernized the archdiocesan seminary, raised the salaries of lay teachers in parochial schools, let assistant pastors elect two representatives to Chicago's influential board of priest consultors (previously all members had been appointed by the archbishop). By the same token, Cody is something of an authoritarian; both his priests and his parishioners complain that his communications, far from being two-way, consist of his sending the word on down. Last month an ad hoc committee organized three meetings attended by 400 Chicago clerics, recommended that priests have a greater share in formation of archdiocesan policy and that assignment procedures be revised. In effect, the committee formed the closest thing yet to a union of priests.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,835601,00.html#ixzz1MnYkQLjt


Clout is direct action to do good. When your clout is dead, and nothing is deader than dead clout, the game is over.

The Church and Government chose programs over personal acts of good.

Clout is as dead as the CYO.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Chicago needs Jewish Heritage Day


I bought my first real three-piece suit from Al Koralchik at his tailor shop on O'Brien Court & Halsted with the dough I made from working at Gee Lumber ( Greek Family) on 79th Street. Al Koralchik was the brother-in-law of Izzy Kagan, a great Austin High School football star who served in the Marines with my Dad's buddy the legendary Leo Coach Jimmy Arnenberg on Guam. They all kept in contact after the War and Mr. Kagan eulogized Coach Arnenberg at his funeral Mass.

I worked for Si Blitztein at the Evergreen Plaza. Si subsidized more Catholic educations than Catholic Charities.

Jews like Morris B. Sachs* and the Blackman Family Jewelers - now in Orland and Tinley Parks - once served the Catholic population along 79th Street, supported the south side Irish Parade, sponsored Leo High School Letterman Club, Yearbook and offered scholarships to poor kids.

Jews were our neighbors and co-laborers in the Trades Unions.

My grade school and high school buddy Danny Levi ran the Irish Temple on 111th Street.

Catholics and Jews seem to carry the philanthropic load in Chicago - read the names on every civic and cultural board of directors.

Today, Ms. Naomi Stewart argues:

Chicago needs a Jewish day. We need a Jewish parade. Chicago has all kinds of ethnic parades and days, and Jews are a huge part of Chicago. We contribute to the economy, culture and education. We like to wave flags and be seen marching down the streets having fun, too.
We could have a ''Jewlicious Fest,'' as they have in New York and San Francisco. Many cities have fests for Jews, except Chicago. Chicago is a big city. The day should be May 14, in celebration of the creation of Israel. Let's call it ''Jewish Heritage Day.''

Unless they give us a parade and our own day, I will never feel welcome in this town. I never did, and now I realize why. I hope I'm not the first or only Jew to suggest this idea.


Chicago's first synagogue, Kehilath Anshe Mayriv (KAM), was founded at the corner of Lake and Wells in 1847 by a group of Jewish immigrants from the same general region of Germany. By 1852, about 20 Polish Jews had become discontented enough to break off from KAM, and founded Chicago's second congregation, Kehilath B'nai Sholom, a more Orthodox congregation than the older KAM. In 1861, the second major secession from KAM occurred, and, led by Rabbi Bernhard Felsenthal, this splinter group formed the Sinai Reform Congregation, meeting in a church near the corner of Monroe and LaSalle Streets.

In 1859 the United Hebrew Relief Association (UHRA) was established by some 15 Jewish organizations, which included a number of B'nai B'rith lodges as well as several Jewish women's organizations. After the fire of 1871, Jews moved out of the downtown area, mainly southward, settling eventually in the fashionable lakefront communities of Kenwood, Hyde Park, and South Shore. Wherever they settled they established needed institutions, including Michael Reese Hospital, the Drexel Home (for aged Jews), and the social and civic Standard Club.


That would be some celebration!

*
One of the shows frequently asked about (when it wasn't a question on Bozo's Circus) was The Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour. Sad to say, many ended the phone call dismayed that one of their favorite shows is just a memory today. Since the show was aired live, chances of any kinescope films popping up sometime are rare.

From an era where local talent shows were the norm, the Sachs program was considered the "daddy" of all amateur hours. The program had already been heard on WENR Radio for fifteen years when it came to WENR-TV in 1950. Master of Ceremonies was jovial and easy-going Bob Murphy, who joined the show in 1949 doing the radio version for one year and then taking on double-duty when the program debuted on channel 7. Murphy's job was to make sure the contestants, many who probably had never seen a television studio before, were comfortable. The show's announcer was Bob Cunningham. Music was provided by two Amateur Hour alums- Adele Scott and Al Diern.

Musicians, jugglers, acrobats, singers, comedians and more took the stage. Some hoping to "hit the big time," others for the thrill of being on television, and some came for the prizes.

And we are not talking cheap door prize junk. Winners on The Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour went home with watches, jewelry, cash, and every thirteen weeks- a car if he or she won the semi-finals.

The Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour was produced by Norm Heyne and aired on WENR and WENR-TV Sunday afternoons from 12:30 to 1:30.