The Town of Chicago and the Beauty of Waiting

Father John P. Smyth
"No person stands so tall, as one who stoops to help a child."

My job requires a great deal of waiting - waiting for that magic moment in fund-raising, when the mission and operation of Leo High School matches a prospective donor's history of giving to a school like Leo with that person's capacity to make a gift; waiting to pull together current achievements and activities at the school to make a compelling presentation to that person; waiting to get an opportunity or appointment and waiting for the magic moment when that person asks, "How can I help."

Waiting is beautiful. In that gap between need identification and the gift, I get to again get knocked over by the capacity of people to look beyond themselves. Here in Chicago, the wait is never all that long.

Yesterday, before I went home to clean up for the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame Induction Dinner at Hawthorne Race Course, I had the opportunity to teach a few seniors about the job interview process. The teacher is a wonderful young lady who won her teaching spurs and the universal respect of the often times challenging 17 and 18 year olds in her many Math classes. As part of a business math unit, this innovative and thoughtful young lady has called a number of Leo Alumni professionals to serve as a mock interview panel next week. I was the stalking horse.

I am a teacher and a teacher, or a coach is a salesman. This morning when I get into work, I will sit down with one of our senior athletes in this class for a lesson on preparing for the up-coming interview and to go over his practice resume. From those lines on the paper, I will attempt to articulate the core worth of this splendid, thoughtful, tough, and centered young man in a letter of recommendation for this fictional job. I will also use this opportunity to begin drafting a letter from me that will be used in his college application. This is fund-raising.

This teacher's impact on her students is the core of what I do. This lesson in the steps necessary for securing employment is what it is all about. The young man has learned that many people are in his corner - his teacher, volunteers who went to Leo years ago, and a splendid old chap who works in the Development Office. I'll be waiting for this senior.

I always arrive early. I had a ticket for a guest of the Leo Advisory Board's table, a beautiful woman who has helped the kids at Leo for a number of years. I waited outside the entrance for her.

Haythorne Race Course was packed with giants.

Father John Smyth the legendary priest/athlete who dedicated his life to Christ's children, no matter what religion, race, or circumsatnce they walk in the world. Father Smyth walks along side them.

Gale Sayers, the Kansas Comet and arguably the gold standard for NFL running backs, who uses his modest fortune to help inner city kids learn to speak in public, develop computer skills and more importantly learn that they do not walk alone.

Rocky Bleier of Notre Dame and NFL fame, whose career was interrupted by service in Vietnam where he was horribly wounded, but fought back his wounds to not only play professional football, but pace the great Franco Harris of Pittsburg Steelers.

Three Time National College Basketball Championship coach Jim Calhoun of University of Connecticut.

Mr. Calhoun reminded all of us of the quality that makes Chicago great - "Chicago is a Town," he told us, " You all know each other and care for one another."

Chicago is a town. I waited outside for a woman of great fortune. While waiting, I met one of Honorees for the evening Barry Sanders. He was followed by Heisman Trophy winner and Fenwick legend Johnny Lattner and a gentleman by the name of Pat Kelly. We talked while they waited for elevator operated by beautiful girl with a new set braces from Hubbard High School. Barry Sanders, Pat Kelly and Johnny Lattner turned all of their attentions to the little girl tasked with taking them up to the second floor.

The dinner began at 7 P.M. and Leo's guest was fighting traffic on the Stevenson Expresway, no matter I waited. Retired Cook County Sherrif Mike Sheahan, Hall of Fame Father and Daughter Jerry and Katie Schumacher with Katie's gorgeous Mom Kathy, Chicago Firefighting hero Jim Corbett and others treated the elevator operator like she was the most important person on earth as well. It is good to wait.

At 7:35 P.M. our table mate arrived and immediately was swarmed by the parking lot attendants. This wealthy and prminent lady greated the older attendent,"Hey, how's your wife Albert?" I waited while she caught up with her friends. When our elevator doors opened the Hubbard Greyhound in braces was on break, but when we arrived on the second floor Gold Cup Room, Leo's beautiful philanthropist chatted with each and every waiter, waitress, bartender and manager after hailing them by name. The wait was worth it.

Later in the evening, Jim Calhoun reminded all of us that what makes Chicago great is not, plants, Silver Beans, or World Class tinsel.Chicago was, is and should remain a Town of Wait-ers. Waiting is beautiful. Chicagoans are neighbors and they are patient, generous, friendly, helpful and present. They wait in the long lines at Wakes. The greatest people are never disdainful of people and treat every person Oprah or a janitor like a neighbor.

Pikers are pushy and never wait.

We joined the throng of Leo Men waiting for this gracious woman's arrival. Presidnet Dan McGrath held out her chair and the brawny stalwarts stood in welcome: Jack Fitzgerald, Bob Sheehy, John Linehan, Bill Holland and Rich Finn - Mike Joyce a Hall of Fame Director and his expectantly radiant wife greeted us from the directors table. We were waiting for Leo football coach and Board Member Mike Holmes, who arrived before Grace was said. Our table included Tamara Holder, attorney, journalist and Fox Television News legal analyst, who joined the Advisory Board in January. The brawny stalwarts now include a stunning young lady. Father John Smyth led us all in prayer and he noted while many in crowd had not waited for Grace to said, somethings should not wait. Our guest handed President Dan McGrath a gift for the boys at Leo. Waiting is exquisite in this great town.

I better launch off my ass, I do not want to keep a young man waiting.

Before PC Killed History, There Was Fighting Bishop Bernard Sheil

"You should know, that I wasn't ordained a Catholic priest in order to become an archbishop." Bernard Sheil to a banker who tried to threaten Sheil for speaking out on American Labor

Bishop Sheil was instrumental in the development of Leo High School in 1921. He was Cardinal Mundelein's eyes on the street. The Cardinal's tough guy athlete got things done by doing. He brought people into the ring with him to mix it up for a better world and the school dedicated to the Pope of the Working Man -Pope Leo XIII was his baby.

Yesterday, three college football coaches visited Leo - Yale, North Dakota and Eastern Michigan - in order to recruit some of our guys. The coach from Eastern Michigan was a huge young guy who played for the Phoenix Cardinals and now coached. Three fourths of his time is spent finding the righ student athletes for his program. All three coaches visited Mount Carmel, St. Rita, Loyola and Fenwick because young men from Catholic schools bring more to the table - they belong.

Athletes and Scholars are very similar in their drive and commitment. Catholic grammar schools and high schools, more than any other visible aspect of the Roman Catholic Church in America, reflect what is most enduring - that sense of belonging. It is wonderful to watch thirty fifth graders parade from Kennedy Park in their St. Cajetan Warrior jerseys. You do not join a team; you belong to it. You do not attend a school; you belong to the Lions, The Mustangs, the Caravan and the Meteors.

I had an interesting talk with the coach from Eastern Michigan* - no longer the Hurons - the Eagles. PC killed the sense of belonging to a school situated on the Huron River in Michigan. So, since 1991, history has been buried. Catholics bury important links to history as well. We had better quit doing that. Bishop Sheil would want us to keep our memories sharp - keep the guard up.

Bishop Sheil was an athlete who pitched a no-hitter for St. Viator College, a Roman Catholic Seminary in Bourbonnais, Illinois ( alma mater of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen), which is now Olivet Nazarene University. Shiel pitched a no-hitter against the University of Illinois and later sparred with capitalists and Communists to achieve a just wage and human working conditions.

The Catholic Church gave up St. Viator's to a small Protestant dnomination from Texas. The Nazarene Church flourished and their college in Bourbonnais is that denomination's Notre Dame. Bernard Shiel became a Catholic priest, when being a Catholic meant putting own's money where one's mouth was. I grew up at the end of that era - post Vatican II. The Mass went from universal Latin to English and lost the beauty, majesty and mystery that should be fundamental to the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Liturgy was now vernacular - conducted in English, Spanish, Polish, Croatian and even Tagalog. Priests faced the congregation and Consecration of the Eucharist took a backseat to Father's lecture on Social Justice.

Social Justice had been taught in Catholic Schools and it was hands-on - CISCA -Catholic Intra Student Catholic Action. Catholic Action meant getting involved in the Faith. Helping the poor, the orphaned, the widowed, the imprisoned, the sick, the disabled and the disenfranchised.

Officially founded in 1930, the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) built upon previously initiated Holy Name Societies in parishes throughout the Chicago Archdiocese. Centralized in a downtown office and led by the legendary and controversial Bishop Bernard J. Sheil, the CYO sought to combat delinquency, Americanize ethnic Catholics, and bridge social divisions during the Great Depression. Whereas previous Americanization efforts of Cardinal George Mundelein had met with meager success, the CYO fostered widespread Catholic unity even as it furthered the Church's inclusion in the mainstream culture. The CYO offered a wide-ranging system of social services, community centers, and vacation schools; but its greatest publicity resulted from an extensive and comprehensive sports program that claimed the world's largest basketball league (430 teams) and an international boxing team. Such CYO ventures included American Indians, African Americans, Asians, and Jews, which catapulted Bishop Sheil to national prominence as a social activist and labor leader.

Gerald R. Gems

From grammar school through parenthood, Catholics belonged to the Church - they did not only attend Mass on Sunday. Whether it was a sport, a fine arts initiative, a novena, or a dance, Chicago Catholics belonged in and to every aspect of community life. Little guys and girls who played on CYO teams also joined devotional sodalities and later brought that commitment to their studies and careers.

Like St. Viator College, that sense of belonging seems to have been the price of new relevancies of Vatican II. Words not Deeds trumped everything.

The CYO became irrelevant to universal social change. CYO like too much of the Catholic Church in America was co-opted.

Social Justice was youth oriented and found outlets in athletics that brought blacks and white, better-off and destitute kids together for boxing, football, basketball, swimming and track and field. This was the CYO the Catholic Youth Organization developed by Father and later Bishop Bernard Sheil, who pitched a no-hitter against University of Illinois for St. Viator College.

Bernard James Sheil is almost forgotten today. History has burned in the Orwellian memory-hole over the last thirty years. America is seriously dumbed down. Bishop Sheil's Wikipedia passage is such thin gruel it is not worth a glance. Bishop Sheil's life is in the dusty covers of old books and the files of the Archdiocese of Chicago Archieves.

Sheil was ecumenical and catholic long before Pope John XXIII called all of the red hats and mitres to Rome. He was a priest in tradition of stockyard pastors like Monsignor Dorney who walked up and down Halsted and physically threatened pimps and saloon keepers, as well as read them off from the pulpit. Sheil, like Father Dorney who was called the King of the Stockyards, respected and obeyed by labor leaders, packing house owners and parishioners of St. Gabriel Parish, took the Gospel outdoors. Not only that, Sheil made things happen. He worked both sides of the ideological street, while working with Saul Alinskey he balanced things with Joe Meegan of the Back of the Yards Council. While fighting for social justice, Bishop Sheil confounded Communism for the snake oil that its is. The Lefties hated Sheil and they helped bury his deeds during the triumph of political correctness.

For a Progressive there is no forgive and forget. There is only forget and damned such that everyone forgets what happened ten minutes ago.

Sheil was so effective that Franklin Delano Roosevelt kept in touch with Bishop Sheil all through his Presidencies.

Most of all, unlike later day priest-prophets, Sheil used the media and did not become its tool. Sheil dug into his cassock pockets and showed up early to set-up chairs.

With his (Sheil's) own inheritance from his father and $10,000 from Utility Man Budd, Sheil set out to lure off the streets young potential gangsters—white and Negro, Protestant, Catholic and Jew—with a social and athletic program that kept moralizing to a minimum. Boxing was the major attraction. When some high-minded people clucked at the stress on boxing, Bishop Sheil's reply was: "Show me how you can inspire boys away from the brothels and saloons with a checker tournament and I'll put on the biggest checker tournament you ever saw."

Today the bishop has a staff of 500 to help him run the C.Y.O.. which spent $1,500,000 last year in Chicago alone on such projects as two large community centers in Italian and Negro neighborhoods, medical, psychiatric, child-guidance and remedial-reading clinics, a radio station, and an orientation program for Puerto Ricans. There are hundreds of other C.Y.O. centers throughout the U.S. and abroad. . . .
Bishop Sheil made himself just as unpopular with fringers on the right as with those on the left. At one forum on Christian-Jewish relations he was viciously heckled by a delegation of Christian Fronters, and a virago pushed her way towards him as he was leaving. "I'm a Catholic!" she screamed. "You're not a Catholic—you're a nigger-lover and a Jew-lover. You call yourself a bishop. You're not a bishop, you're a rabbi." And she spat in his face.

Bishop Sheil did not move a muscle. "I thank you. madam, for the compliment of your action and your words." he said calmly. "Rabbi? That is what they called our Lord."

Time Magazine 1953.

Words matter to ninnies. Action and Deeds mark a human being's impact.

Bishop Sheil took action. He was an athlete who understood balance - the Gospel must be accepted and put into action in the same way that a boxer mixes the doctrine of assault and defemse in its proper prroportion. There are no Bishop Sheil's in the ring these days. However, there are three Catholic priests who act like Bishop Sheil - Father Dan Mallette, Father George Clements and Father John Smyth - like Sheil they are too real to get promoted.


*The controversy over the nickname continues to this day, as many former students and faculty were angered that a unique name like Hurons was replaced by a common name like Eagles, especially for reasons of political correctness. Some alumni have even refused to donate money to the school until the name Hurons is restored. An official chapter of the EMU Alumni Association, the Huron Restoration Chapter, seeks to bring back the name and claims to have the support of Chief Leaford Bearskin of the Wyandot Tribe of Oklahoma and former Grand Chief Max Gros-Louis of the Huron-Wendat Nation of Quebec.[6]


http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/220.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=xdV_JV1fbZMC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=bishop+sheil+and+the+cyo&source=bl&ots=fhBqBZbpLG&sig=mGcbd8ww4X4LE83tWMa3OaN8NUo&hl=en&ei=61nSTefRMobk0QHowIzECw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=bishop%20sheil%20and%20the%20cyo&f=false

Punish Faith - Gay Agenda

Children are not, in the words of the US Supreme Court in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), “mere creatures of the State".

Civil unions in Illinois had one very short honeymoon. Wildly ecstatic though that be -gay folks are mad again. To rev-up the bile of breeder folks, Faith needs a tune-up and Manya Brachear of the Tribune is more than compliant especially if Catholic Doctrine, Leadership or Catholics can be on the receiving end of some nonsense. Front page, GLBTQ agenda is gunning down Catholic and Lutheran social service agencies that handle adoption and Manya is pulling the trigger this morning with her breathless announcement that the State of Illinois is "investigating" Faith.

Not really, even ABC's Chuck Goudie could handle this investigation - Gay couples, joined in civil unions, cannot adopt a child. No news flash. Desire meets Doctrine -no contest.

Children who have lost or were abandoned by their biological parents have been the focus of Catholics and the Catholic Church in Chicago ever since it seemed that sidewalks might be better paths to a destination than wading through mud and maybe cholera might not get tramped on the carpets along with Chicago goo.

The first Chicago orphanages, the Chicago Orphan Asylum and the Catholic Orphan Asylum, opened their doors in 1849 in the aftermath of a cholera epidemic. By 1890, there were 12 orphanages in the city. They split along Roman Catholic and Protestant lines. Chicago had no Jewish orphanages until the 1890s. Until then, Jews tried to send orphans to institutions in Cincinnati, but some Jewish orphans lived in Protestant orphanages in Chicago. Almost all “orphans” in nineteenth-century Chicago orphanages had one parent living. They were places that single-parent families in financial crisis could safely keep their children. A few of them, like the Home for the Friendless, were gigantic, housing hundreds of children at a time.

Children were cared for by people of Faith. There were no doubt active and fulfilled homosexuals among Chicago's pioneers. However, due to the historical milieu and contemporary mores they no doubt celebrated their their difference with much less gusto and public displays of affection, than do Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning citizens today.

An active lesbian, Jane Addams, co opted the work of faith-based charity, by attacking the largest of these homes like the Home for the Friendless and secularized child care on a very small scale.

The largest orphan institutions were run by Catholics and the by the 20th Century became the standard for care of children without families - by the 1940's Angel Guardian alone cared for 1,200 children. In the 1970's the work of Jane Addams found fulfillment in the establishment of a State run agency the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) and forced the closing of Illinois orphanages, including Angel Guardian in 1974.In 1975, Sister Rosemary Connolly kept up the fight and reconfigured Angel Guardian to become Misericordia Home - for special needs children. In the city of Chicago, Father James Close energized Mercy Home for Boys and Girls that had been established in the Loop by Fathers Campbell and Mahoney as a home for Working Boys - this expanded through the depression. Children were cared for by people of faith. Faith and Deeds bring 'capacity building' = not coalitions or news ink.

Father John Smyth a giant of a man with more heart than a continent and more balls than a bowling alley, expanded the 1880 Bishop Feehan established Maryville Academy, in Bridgeport and later in Des Plaines. Father Smyth received almost no money from Archdiocese, but used his political genius for pulling dollars from charitable donations raised by himself with dollars matched by the State.

The State, DCFS pumped their charges - children- into Maryville Academy. DCFS paid politically clouted Directors triple figures and larded the staff with more bureaucrats. Maryville was directed by Father Smyth a big good-hearted . . .patsy for the power players. Agenda jumps at opportunity - Jane Addams was all about opportunities take credit for what others had built. That is Progressive thought.

Power is what it is all about. Charity is trumped by a bureaucracy in the moused out rhetoric of do-gooder tax pirates. DCFS worked tirelessly with the media in the early 1990's to undermine the work of Father John Smyth who personally took on the work of caring for troubled children - the ones left in the bureaucratic cracks, alone, friendless, unloved - like the old hippie mantra -Somebody Else's Troubles. DCFS flooded Mercy Home for Boys and Girls

"Familiaris Consortio" (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World) by the late Servant of God John Paul II. In it he wrote: "The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others...”

The Gay Agenda demands that everyone cower before its lifestyle -any disagreement, or even mere 'live and let live' is intolerable. Gay agenda politics does not seek acceptance or tolerance.

Gay Marriage is the goal. In the way of that goal is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not recognize same sex . . .sex - let alone marriage. That will not change. Some silly priests might nuzzle up to the Gay Agenda, but the Church will not cave in on this issue. Allen and Albert are not going to go halves on a baby and neither will Tina and Toni. If every one were homosexual, it would be a Gay old world and we would finally achieve Zero Population growth - now that's Progressive!

In today's Chicago Tribune, the always hilarious Manya Brachear - The Seeker - roots out a self-fulfilling investigation on Gay Adoption. Catholic Charities is among the faith-based adoption agencies that denies Allen and Albert, or Tina and Toni from adopting a child. The Church holds that a mother and a father should adopt a child.

Manya slants the heartbreak to the bosom of the homosexual couple who might be denied the joy of parenting with the stamp of approval from Catholic or Lutheran adoption agencies and turns to always Progressively dependable ACLU and DCFS -

"Social intervention such as adoption laws and practices inevitably reflect their communities," said Kendall Marlowe, a spokesman for DCFS. "Illinois as a state has grown on this (gay rights) issue as evidenced by (civil union legislation). Adoption law and practice should reflect the values of the people of Illinois."

Therefore, Catholics and Lutherans have not 'grown' and the agencies that care for children controlled by their unevolved dicta are hurtful and uncaring and must be punished - no State funding! Strip!

The kids be damned! Get on the right side of history! If we can not agree that sex between gents, or gals is human evolution, punish the tree dwelling louts!

They did it Boston!

Religious agencies in Illinois are the not the first to grapple with how to balance discrimination laws and doctrine. In Washington and Boston, Catholic Charities ended a combined two centuries of foster care and adoption services when it could not comply with state anti-discrimination laws after the approval of same-sex marriage.

Ecce Homo! -the Progressive Field Marshal for all agenda politics on this hot issue in Manya's Seek piece and make war offering:

Benjamin Wolf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, an attorney who represents juvenile state wards as part of a court-monitored consent decree with DCFS, said limiting the pool of prospective foster care parents because certain religious traditions believe same-sex relationships are sinful is irresponsible when children are in need.

"We don't know for sure if a loving lesbian or gay family turned away from a discriminatory agency is necessarily going to go to another agency because of the disruption and harm caused to them," he said.

The religious institutions' policies might send a hurtful message to the large number of children in the foster care system who landed there after suffering neglect, abuse or rejection because they were gay, some experts say. Marlowe said 240 children out of more than 15,000 in the foster care system currently identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning.

Anytime someone uses 'hurtful' my neck hair shoots to the skies! Rock-solid hypocrisy is kicking down your door, Hickey!

Old Ben really means, "Screw the kids; Gays demand and must have!" Whatever they want.

Good luck.