It seems I’ve been asked a million times why I decided to join the seminary—and why I decided to leave. As if there’s an easy answer. There’s not. In fact, I’m still not sure I know the answer to either question myself. Both decisions were complicated. And neither was as pure or high-minded as one might expect.
One thing for sure: My decision to study for the priesthood was not because God spoke to me and said, “I want you to become a priest.” Nor was it because I felt so religious or loyal to the Catholic Church. And it was certainly not because that’s what my mother wanted me to do. Indeed, knowing my mother was so eager for me to join the seminary almost made me change my mind.
But there’s no doubt about this: Of all other possibilities, the reason I joined the order of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales is because they were the only priests I knew, both from my home parish and from high school.
On the broader question, as near as I can figure it out, I decided to study for the priesthood because I wanted to do some kind of public service as lawyer, doctor, or priest. Of those three options, why a priest? One reason was because we didn’t have enough money for me to go to law school or medical school. Another was because the priests I knew seemed to have a pretty good life; they didn’t work that hard, they played a lot of golf, they had all their economic needs taken care of—and, most of all, they were admired, looked up to, even worshiped as minor celebrities. I decided to study for the priesthood, in other words, for a lot of the same reasons other people decide to go into politics. And for the same reasons a lot of former priests and nuns, such as the late congressman Robert Drinan, end up in politics.
When I tell people I spent ten years studying for the priesthood—indeed, when I think of it myself—it seems like an eternity. But those ten years actually flew by. Both because they were times of such personal growth and because they encapsulated such vastly different and colorful experiences: two years of religious training at the Oblate novitiate in Childs, Maryland; two years of teaching at Father Judge High School in Philadelphia; three years of college at Niagara University in upstate New York; summers as a camp counselor at Camp Brisson in North East, Maryland; two years of graduate school at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland; and one year of “sabbatical” while teaching at what was then Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco.
So, yes, the seminary took a big slice out of my life. But I have no regrets, because those ten years in themselves constituted an invaluable educational experience. I came out of them older, wiser, surer of what direction I wanted to take in my life, with far greater opportunities than I would ever have known otherwise, and better prepared to take advantage of them.
Not only that, which is itself a minor miracle, I left the seminary even more of a progressive than when I entered—despite the concerted efforts of some to make me a doctrinaire conservative Catholic.
The principal work of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales, the order I joined, is teaching high school. Founded in Troyes, France, in 1875 by Father Louis Brisson, recognized by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2012 as “Blessed” Louis Brisson and now a candidate for sainthood, Oblates today are active in Europe, Africa, and the United States, mainly in the northeastern and midwestern states.
My first stop on the Oblate train was a beautiful, idyllic, working farm on Soyhieres Hill in Childs, Maryland, outside of Elkton, which served as the order’s novitiate. When I arrived, the novitiate consisted of one big, old, white farmhouse, attached to which was a relatively new annex containing classrooms, a chapel, a dining room, and dormitories. Nearby were the barn, garage, and one smaller farm building, which served as the laundry and general utilities area.
New Oblate recruits like me were sent to Childs for two years. Our first year, where we were called postulants, was our freshman year of college. Childs was officially an annex of Catholic University in Washington, D.C. That was followed by one year of training in the religious life and the teachings of Saint Francis de Sales, during which time we were called novices.
Even though we got college credit for our first year at Childs, life at Childs was as different from life on any other campus as you can imagine. For starters, it was for men only. We also observed silence all day long, which means we weren’t allowed to talk at all, except for a half-hour recess after lunch and dinner. We took turns reading out loud during meals, usually from lives of the saints. We all followed the same rigid, fixed schedule: up at 5:00 a.m. and lights out at 9:00 p.m. And there was no alcohol, drugs, or sex.
As we were constantly reminded, this was a long-established regime, carefully designed to help us grow in wisdom and in grace. But even within those constraints, we hundred or so young Oblates had a good time under the direction of novice master Father John Conmy, as close to a saint as I’ve ever encountered. We studied hard, prayed hard, and played hard. Weather permitting, we’d squeeze in a quick softball game after lunch. On free Thursday afternoons, we took long hikes around the property or walked up the road to the nearby crossroad of Childs—one house, one post office, and one general store—for an ice cream treat. On feast days, we put on elaborate pageants and were even allowed to talk at mealtime.
Childs was also a working farm—and we were the farmhands. As novices, we had classes in the morning and work assignments every afternoon: housekeeping, weeding the garden, feeding the pigs, mowing the lawn, or killing chickens for dinner. We also had a herd of beef cattle, one of which would be selected to make the ultimate sacrifice whenever an American Oblate died and was brought to Childs for burial. I remember watching with shock from my classroom window the first time I saw Brother Tom lead a cow out of the pasture to a spot near the kitchen, just outside our classroom, tie it to a fence, pick up a shotgun, shoot it in the head, and dress it right on the spot. Even growing up in rural Delaware City, I’d never witnessed anything like that.
I admit it. One of the reasons I survived those two years so well was the pigs. For my work assignment as a novice, I was assigned the best job of all for a gregarious, nonmonastic person like me: the community shopper. Every afternoon, I’d jump in the Chevy station wagon and head to nearby Elkton to pick up supplies: produce from the supermarket for our cook, Sister Jane; materials from the hardware store; cough medicine from the pharmacy; or dressed pork chops, bacon, and scrapple from the slaughterhouse where Brother Tom had delivered one of our pigs. Once again, bacon makes everything better.
It was also at Childs that I met the most famous and colorful Oblate ever: J. Francis Tucker. Father Tucker’s claim to fame was as a matchmaker. While serving as chaplain to the royal family of Monaco, he introduced Prince Rainier to the glamorous American movie star Grace Kelly, daughter of Philadelphia tycoon John Kelly. The match took. Father Tucker officiated at their wedding, and his photo was splashed in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Frank Langella played Tucker in the 2014 movie Grace of Monaco.
Father Tucker came to Childs for a visit in 1960—sans prince and princess, unfortunately—but he made a great impression on all of us, especially after one sermon in which he lamented that we Americans sometimes took things too seriously. If only we were more like the French, Tucker sighed. Tant pis! To illustrate his point, he told the story of a visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, where he was asked to hear confessions in French and English.
First up, he said, was an American boy, who hung his head in shame and muttered, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I abused myself ten times.” Father Tucker told him to say five Our Fathers and his sins would be forgiven. Next up, a French boy about the same age, who looked Father Tucker right in the eye, big smile on his face, head held high, and exclaimed, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I amused myself ten times!” Vive la différence! We pious young seminarians were both shocked and embarrassed, but couldn’t stop laughing. Point made.
In the summer of 1965, before leaving to study in Europe, I also attended a retreat led by Father Tucker at De Sales Hall in Hyattsville, Maryland, where he returned to the same theme. In his homily on the sacrament of confession, Tucker advised, “Don’t say, ‘Father, I jerked off nine times. You know how it is!’” After the laughter subsided, he added, “He’s right, but he shouldn’t say it.”
At Childs, I was greatly influenced by our patron saint, Francis de Sales. We studied his writings and teachings assiduously, especially his masterwork, Introduction to the Devout Life, and I came to greatly admire his approach to life and the world we live in. Bishop of Geneva in the early seventeenth century, De Sales became known as the “gentleman saint” for his patience and gentleness, virtues we were expected to emulate as young Oblates. No religious extremist, he preached moderation in all things. His best-known words of advice may be: “Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing so gentle as real strength.”
While far, far from perfect, I do know that some of De Sales’s gentleness rubbed off on me during those seminary years and stuck with me after. Even in political debate, I’ve tried to live up to his admonition: “You can attract more bees with a spoonful of sugar than a cupful of vinegar.” And I find “moderation in all things” an eminently practical rule of life, even if I don’t always practice it.
Another big discovery for me at Childs was the great English philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist G. K. Chesterton. One of the greatest and most bombastic writers of the twentieth century, Chesterton wrote everything from plays to mystery novels, with a great deal of Christian apologetics in between. Called the “Prince of the Paradox,” he made brilliant use of contradictions and paradox to destroy commonly held falsehoods and set forth the truth as he saw it. As a seminarian, I was especially impressed by The Everlasting Man, his history of humanity leading up to the acceptance of Jesus Christ, as well as by Orthodoxy, the story of his own faith and conversion to Catholicism. Chesterton remains one of the most quoted writers of all time. One truism that sticks with me: “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it’s been found difficult and not tried.”
At the end of our novitiate, two big events loomed: the taking of religious vows and our first assignment as Oblates. Taking the vows of “poverty, chastity, and obedience” and promising to remain poor, celibate, and obedient for the rest of our years should have been a life-changing decision, but it wasn’t. At least, not for me. Still feeling good about my initial decision to join the Oblates and still looking forward to a life of public service as a priest, I didn’t give it a lot of thought. I walked up to the altar with my confreres at Saint Anthony’s Church in Wilmington, Delaware, prostrated myself before the altar, and took my vows—to which I would remain faithful, more or less, until I left the Oblates eight years later.
Believe it or not, the whole chastity thing was not a big deal. Especially in the beginning. Not because I didn’t have a raging set of hormones but because, as seminarians, we were kept so busy and focused on other things. And also because, as a merry band of aspiring priests, my classmates and I were all in the same boat: afraid of entertaining any impure thoughts, let alone acting out on them. For almost ten years, I lived surrounded by other smart, fun, vibrant, handsome young men. Yet, in all that time, I never heard of one case of inappropriate sexual activity, with a woman or another man, among our colleagues.
For me, chastity didn’t become a problem until I was struggling with my decision to leave the Oblates. Again, that decision was multidimensional. But as we will see, it wasn’t because I was so eager to jump over the wall and jump into bed with a secret girlfriend or boyfriend. I was still happy with the prospect of becoming a priest. I left the Oblates mainly because I wasn’t ready to commit to the idea of being a high school teacher for the rest of my life. As much as I loved teaching, I wanted to be able to choose from more options and not be limited to spending my life in a high school classroom—which, I was later told, was the only choice available to me as a member of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales.
ROOKIE TEACHER
After the novitiate at Childs, there were two paths forward: either continuing our college education or teaching two years in an Oblate high school. We didn’t get to choose. Like members of the military, we were told where to go. And, of course, having just taken a solemn vow of obedience, we followed orders. But I was lucky. Even though I had only one year of college under my belt, I was assigned to join the faculty of Father Judge High School in northeast Philadelphia.
Was I ready to teach high school? Hell, no! How much teacher training had I received? None. But did I hold my own? I think so, but it wasn’t easy. At least, not in the beginning. I was assigned to teach five classes a day: three classes of world history to freshmen and two classes of French to seniors. The challenge I faced as a new recruit hit me in the face early on, when one of the seniors started acting up. I told him to sit down and shut up and then asked how old he was. “Nineteen,” he said. I didn’t dare tell him I was only twenty. The difference was I was wearing a cassock and Roman collar—and he wasn’t.
There were four thousand students at Father Judge in 1960, all boys, and fifty-five students in every one of my classes. This was a big world for a kid who grew up in a town of twelve hundred and graduated from a high school with only eight hundred students. At first, it was tough finding my way. I felt like I had to pretend to be older, wiser, and tougher than I was, or else the students would run all over me. That lasted about a month, until Father Thomas Carlin, the debonair superior of the Oblate community at Father Judge, told me his secret of being a good teacher. It was just the opposite of what I had imagined. “Be yourself,” he advised. “Don’t try to fake it, or kids will see right through you. Just be yourself. You’ll enjoy it more, and so will they.”
He was right. I started to relax more in front of the students and ended up loving the two years I spent in the classroom at Father Judge. I also loved helping out with the school marching band and, especially, coaching the debate team, where we competed against some of the biggest and best high schools in Philadelphia and Wilmington. More practice for Crossfire!
My most memorable experience at Judge occurred when I flunked the star of Father Judge’s top-rated football team. His F in French meant he’d be on the bench for the next few weeks, which, I was warned, could end up costing Judge the city title. First, our principal, Father Edward O’Neill, called me into his office and asked if it was even a close call. I told him it wasn’t. He then asked me to meet with the football coach, who made an impassioned plea for me to show a little mercy (and loyalty to the football team). I lost a lot of sleep over it but in the end decided it was important to make the case that getting a passing grade counted more than scoring the winning touchdown. I didn’t win any friends among the school jocks, but the good Father O’Neill backed me up 100 percent.
Another window on the outside world from my time at Judge: With just about every priest and seminarian on the faculty, I rejoiced in the election of John F. Kennedy, the first American Catholic president, whom, as recounted in the last chapter, I had met and interviewed as a senior at Salesianum High School. Even though I was still too young to vote, I joined in the celebration.
Which raises an important question: What the hell happened? Catholics used to be a reliable bloc of Democratic votes. Indeed, sinner that he was, John F. Kennedy was the overwhelming political favorite of priests, bishops, nuns, and Catholic laypersons nationwide. Yet, today, the institutional Catholic Church is a conservative, Republican institution, whose leaders actually denounced Catholic candidates Geraldine Ferraro, Tim Kaine, Nancy Pelosi, Rosa DeLauro, John Kerry, and many others.
Part of the answer, of course, lay in the Kennedy magic. He was so young, so attractive, and the first Catholic, with apologies to Al Smith, to have a serious shot at the presidency. Plus, this was a time before tabloid journalism, when a candidate’s private life was not public fodder. And also a time before abortion was a much-talked-about issue.
Things changed with the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade. They also changed with a host of conservative bishops appointed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI who turned away from the message of the social gospel and instead made opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage the two defining issues of the Catholic faith, demanding that lifelong Catholics who were Democratic politicians make loyalty to the Catholic Church, not loyalty to the United States Constitution, their guiding star. They turned the status of the Catholic Church upside down, from a force of liberalism to a citadel of conservatism.
Thankfully, that appears to be changing back under Pope Francis, who has told American bishops to stop being so narrow-minded, stop focusing so much on abortion and homosexuality, and get back to the church’s central mission of helping the poor and dispossessed as taught and lived by Jesus in the Gospels. Francis has also appointed many progressive bishops, like Chicago’s Archbishop Blase Cupich, to deliver that message.
The Catholic Church has always encouraged its faithful to be supportive members of their community, active in civic affairs, schools, sports, and yes, even politics. In everything they do, they carry their Catholic faith with them. But that doesn’t mean the church should tell Catholics how they must vote. Faithful Catholics can vote for Democratic or Republican candidates, depending on which candidate they believe will best serve the needs of their community or nation, not the Vatican. I accept that fully, although I also believe that the Democratic Party, with its core mission of helping the underprivileged and middle class, is much more in keeping with the essence of Catholicism than a party that pampers the wealthy.
After two years of practice teaching, it was time to complete my college education. Again, there were two options, and again, it was all decided by our superiors: We would be assigned either to Catholic University in Washington, D.C., or Niagara University in Niagara Falls, New York. And again, I got the lucky break: on to Niagara!
Among Oblate scholastics, Niagara was the preferred choice. Catholic University was known as a big, impersonal, highly rated institution of higher education, attended by many priests, seminarians, and nuns, which inspired little loyalty or love. And nearby De Sales House, where student Oblates resided, was considered one step up from federal prison, presided over by the notoriously tightly strung Father Ed Carney, who demanded that every scholastic engage in strenuous physical exercise every day, lest he be tempted to seek release in some other less salutary way. The scourge of masturbation raises its ugly head again.
By contrast, De Chantal Hall, where Niagara University Oblates lived, was as close to a country club as seminaries could get. It was located in nearby Lewiston, about ten miles downhill from the famous falls, high up on the banks of the wild Niagara River. And it was presided over by the fun, colorful Father Joseph Woods. Woodsie, a true character and a leader in both prayer and play, ran a tight ship and insisted on strict observance of the rules, but he also enjoyed treating us to unplanned celebrations, group excursions, evenings watching television, or ice cream parties. There was lots of time for serious study but also for sports and recreation. Field trips to Niagara Falls, nearby Buffalo, or even Toronto were part of the program.
Five mornings a week, robed in cassock and collar, we Oblates climbed into our big, blue bus and headed to campus, where we attended classes with Niagara’s undergraduate men and women. Classes were demanding. I continued to major in French but took enough required philosophy courses to declare a joint major. English literature, Spanish, history, and biology rounded out the curriculum. Although we seminarians made up only a small percentage of the student body, we were welcomed as fellow Purple Eagles and treated with equal disrespect by professors, two of whom I remember best.
Marvin La Hood taught Modern Poetry. To my utter confusion, he began the year with the great English poet—and Jesuit priest!—Gerard Manley Hopkins and one of his most famous poems, “The Windhover”: “I caught this morning morning’s minion.” At first reading, I couldn’t understand a word of what Hopkins was saying, but an Oblate colleague who’d taken the same course the year before urged me to persevere. “Keep reading it,” he said. “Eventually you’ll understand it.”
I’m glad I did. To this day, Hopkins remains my favorite poet, and, if you catch me at a particularly romantic or reflective moment, I may even recite one of his poems by heart. In dark times, I still receive comfort from Hopkins’s lament based on the book of Jerome, chapter 12, first verse:
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? And why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
.….….….….….….…..
birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
Which, I guess, could simply be translated: “Hey, Lord. What did I do wrong? Why are you picking on me? Give me a break!”
Professor La Hood had an especially wry sense of humor, which I was one of the few students to appreciate. Locals, of course, were proud of Niagara Falls, the international tourist attraction and preferred honeymoon destination. So it was almost scandalous, one day, when La Hood cynically dismissed the falls as “a young bride’s second big disappointment.” Roman collar and all, I was the only one in class who got it—and laughed out loud. “Thank God for Bill Press,” said La Hood.
Same thing happened in Biology 101, taught by Richard Keiley. For the mostly Catholic students at a liberal arts Catholic college, this was the first time any of us had been told the full facts of life. Keiley described the male and female sex organs and all you could do with them in the most explicit language, illustrated with big color charts, and always with his irreverent sense of humor. “Ninety-five percent of men masturbate,” he declared one day, to the shock of his coed class. And then, after a pregnant pause: “The other five percent are liars!” Again, I was the only one who laughed out loud.
One other major impact on my days at Niagara came from a book that became required reading at De Chantal Hall: The Intellectual Life, by French philosopher and Dominican priest A. D. Sertillanges. I’m still kind of embarrassed by embracing a book with such a snooty title, but its basic premise is very down to earth. God has blessed us with strong bodies and strong minds, and we have an obligation to take care of both. It’s important to live well, eat well, and exercise to keep our bodies in good shape. Most people recognize that. But it’s equally important, says Sertillanges, especially after leaving a structured academic setting like the university, to set time aside to exercise and grow the brain, through continued reading, studying, research, and writing. As I said, pretty basic, but also very wise advice that I’ve tried to take seriously.
This was also the time that Catholics, and indeed much of the academic universe, discovered the great French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. As seminarians, we all read The Phenomenon of Man and struggled to understand his complex theory of evolution in which the entire universe was evolving, through the noosphere, toward the Omega Point. I’m still not sure I understand, or buy, it all. Chardin’s theory has since fallen out of favor, but it was exciting stuff at the time and the subject of many late-night conversations at De Chantal Hall.
It was at De Chantal Hall that I learned another important lesson. Fellow Oblate Jim Shannon was the most studious, and probably the smartest, member of his class. But he was also a very good basketball and football player, a bridge addict, and first in line to take advantage of any fun extracurricular opportunity. When I expressed my worries about juggling all the school work and fun stuff at the same time, Jim told me his secret: “Don’t let your studies interfere with your education.” His sage advice not only got me through college, I’ve applied his wisdom to my professional and personal life.
Of course, college is as important for the friendships you make as the lessons you learn. Niagara was no exception, other than the reality that for me, after five years at an all-boys high school and four years in the seminary, it was my first opportunity to make friends with a girl! Her name was Ginny Howe, a very attractive, vivacious, wicked smart, and fun classmate who shared my passions for the French language and poetry. Given my limited availability, we never saw each other outside of class, but we did develop a close friendship that would someday develop into my very first serious relationship. But that’s getting ahead of the story.
Everyone alive in 1963 knows the answer to that horrible question: “Where were you when you learned that President John F. Kennedy was shot?” I remember where I was: in the pool at the University of Niagara, where I swam laps at lunchtime with fellow Oblate Jack Costigan. Suddenly, classmate Michael Moore rushed in with the horrific news: “Did you hear? The president’s been shot!”
At first, we thought he was talking about the president of the university. Then the full impact of the news hit us. We got dressed, ran out of the gym, and, like most other Americans, parked ourselves in front of a television set, where we remained for the next few days through that unforgettable sequence of events: the swearing in of President Johnson, the return of JFK’s body to Washington, the murder of Lee Oswald, JFK’s majestic state funeral, the burial Mass at Saint Matthew’s Cathedral, little John John saluting his father’s casket, the burial at Arlington, the eternal flame, the agony, the agony, the agony.
You had to have lived through it to know what a profound impact the assassination of the popular, young, handsome president had on his country, particularly for Catholics, who had seen one of their own ascend to the nation’s highest office for the very first time. And, of course, I remembered his own kindness to me, six years earlier, on the train platform in Wilmington, Delaware.
We Oblates watched coverage of the Kennedy funeral and opening days of the Johnson administration not as Democrats or Republicans but as Americans. Indeed, politics was almost as frowned on in the seminary as pornography. But if we couldn’t engage in political activity, at least we could vote. And I got my first chance to vote in 1964. A proud Democrat, there was no doubt I was going to vote for Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater. But the contest for U.S. senator from New York presented a more difficult choice.
Nine months after his brother’s assassination, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy left the Johnson administration, moved to New York, and announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate. As a Democrat and a big Kennedy fan, at first I leaned toward voting for him automatically. But I learned that the Republican candidate, incumbent Senator Kenneth Keating, was also a good man. A moderate Republican in the old Nelson Rockefeller mode and an effective voice for New York State, Keating had even refused to endorse Barry Goldwater, the nominee of his party for president, because the Arizonan was too conservative! The more I thought about it, the more I was also bothered by Kennedy’s sudden parachuting into New York just to snag a Senate seat, which made him a real carpetbagger.
So, in the end, I made a tough choice and voted for Keating over Kennedy. It’s the only time I can remember voting for a Republican. In many ways, I regret that vote today, because I admire so much what Bobby Kennedy did and stood for and became friends with at least three of his children: Joe, Kathleen, and Bobby Jr. And, of course, I voted against a fellow Catholic. God, forgive me!
Many years later, at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, I appeared on a panel of liberal Catholics with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who was asked about problems her father had with the conservative Catholic hierarchy. She related riding in the car with Bobby one day and asking why priests were so mean to him. “Always remember, Kathleen,” he told her. “The priests and bishops are Republicans. The nuns are Democrats.”
EUROPEAN EDUCATION
My graduation from Niagara University in June 1965—the first of our extended Press family ever to graduate from college—marked the end of the college phase of my seminary training. Since I had already put in two years of practice teaching, it was now on to the main course: four more years of theology, ending with ordination to the priesthood.
Again, there were two options. And again, the student gods were with me. For theology, most Oblate seminarians were automatically assigned to Catholic University in Washington, D.C.—back to the institutional prison known as De Sales House. A few scholastics—those whom the order had destined to return to the United States and teach theology at the university level—were chosen to study in Europe instead at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, or Angelicum, in Rome; at the University of Paderborn, in Paderborn, Germany; or at the University of Fribourg, in Fribourg, Switzerland.
According to reviews from Oblates who had previously studied in Europe, Germany was considered the least desirable assignment, because Paderborn was not a first-class university and the city of Paderborn itself was a remote outpost, far from the action. Rome, while the most prestigious and historically significant post, was also considered too stifling and too close to the Vatican to allow any real freedom of thought. Fribourg was everybody’s number-one choice because the university had a great reputation for scholarship; because the Oblate house in Fribourg was headed by Father Robert McNally, a popular American bon vivant; and because Fribourg was, well, in Switzerland!
Yet again, lucky me. I was not only assigned to study in Europe, I was sent to Fribourg! And so, after a summer of intensive French classes at Georgetown University in Washington, I found myself with two fellow Oblates in New York City one September 1965 afternoon, on board the SS United States, ready to sail to Europe. Classmate Jim Marks was headed to Paderborn; an older colleague, Brother John, had been assigned to Rome. The three of us shared a small, second-class cabin.
For such a joyous occasion, my parents and a dozen or so family members had come up to New York from Delaware City, together with our Oblate pastor, Father Lawrence Ward. Jim and John also had several family members present. We were all enjoying a glass of champagne in one of the ship’s lounges when I suddenly noticed, standing at the edge of the crowd, another person I’d invited but totally forgotten about: my friend and classmate from Niagara University Ginny Howe. I was glad to see her and, somewhat awkwardly, introduced her to my family. In all the crowd and confusion, Ginny and I never really had a chance to talk, but any doubt about why she was there—and why I had invited her—dissolved an hour or so later.
It was that exciting moment just before we pushed back from the dock, when only passengers remained on board, all lined up at the railing, while friends and family crowded the dock, glasses of champagne in hand, cheering and wildly waving their last goodbyes. That’s when I looked off to the side and spotted Ginny, standing by herself away from the crowd, openly sobbing. Oh my God, I thought. Something’s going on here! And it was. But that seed, thereupon planted, wouldn’t sprout until two years later.
Even though our crossing was uneventful—no “man overboard,” no shipboard romance, no norovirus—looking back on it today, I realize how hugely symbolic that voyage was in representing a dramatic change in my life. Five days at sea did more than take me from one shore to another. It took me from one world to another, and from one person to another. From a relatively sheltered small-town boy to a man of the world. From an orthodox disciple of tradition and authority to a radical challenger of authority. From believer to nonbeliever. From conformist to rebel. Upon returning to the United States in August 1967, after two action-packed, life-changing years in Europe, I was not the same person who’d boarded that ship in New York.
Our first stop was Paris, where, like millions of young Americans before and since, I fell in love with the City of Light and still return as often as I can. But we three Oblates got off to a rocky start. We checked into a Left Bank hostel for visiting priests and seminarians without realizing that it operated under quasi-monastic rules, which included an early curfew.
Returning from our first night on the town, sometime after midnight, we discovered that the gate to the property was locked tight, and nobody answered the bell. At which point—and, needless to add, somewhat drunk—we decided to scale the wall. As I was standing on Jim Marks’s shoulders, trying to scramble up to the top of the wall, a couple of tourists from Australia wandered by. After convincing us we would never make it over that wall, they invited us to join them in their nearby hotel room. Which we did—all three of us spending our first night in Paris sleeping on the floor in a room occupied by two total strangers. La vie parisienne!
After a brief stop in Troyes, mother house of the Oblates, I went to Fribourg, Switzerland, and the Oblate house at 37 chemin de Bellevue, launching pad for the exciting two years to follow.
Fribourg is a medieval university town. Of its population of thirty-four thousand, ten thousand are students at the University of Fribourg, created in 1580, and best known today for its schools of law and theology. The city itself, nestled on both sides of the Sarine River, is a beautiful, clean, bustling commercial center, with a quaint, old city core surrounding the beautiful Cathedral of Saint Nicholas. Located on the border of Swiss Romand and Swiss Allemand, Fribourg is bilingual, French and German. As are, by necessity, most of its residents—many of whom also speak the local dialect, Schweizerdeutsch. I was always amazed to hear the kids in our neighborhood playing outside and, without even thinking about it, switching back and forth from French to German to Schweizerdeutsch, fluent in all three languages.
The Oblate residence was located in the Schoenberg neighborhood of Fribourg, across the river from the city center. It actually belonged to the French province of the Oblates, so we were a French-speaking house in a German neighborhood of a bilingual city. There were five Americans in residence: myself, Tom Moore, Jerry Bartko, Adam Radomski, and Father Robert McNally, the superior. We were joined by seven French confreres: Jean-Paul, Jean-Mark, Denis, Maurice, Laurent, François, and Father Joseph Goumaz. Housekeeping chores were handled by two young Swiss German interns, Pius and Walter.
Switzerland, I soon discovered, lived up to its reputation: a country of breathtaking beauty, startling cleanliness, and unbelievable efficiency—their trains really do run on time! No graffiti, no litter, streets scrubbed. Even dirt paths looked like they’d been recently vacuumed. Stores of firewood outside of farms were neatly, if anal-retentively, separated and stacked from the smallest twigs up to the biggest logs. But for a so-called pacifist country, the Swiss are also strangely militaristic.
At that time, every Swiss man between the ages of nineteen and fifty belonged to the Swiss Army, kept an assault weapon in his home, and spent a couple of weeks a year in military training and one weekend a month practicing on the target range. Every day, we’d see caravans of heavily armed Swiss Army “volunteers” making their way through Fribourg on military maneuvers. The Swiss still brag that the strength of their army is what dissuaded the Nazis from invading Switzerland during World War II. But of course, we know now that Hitler didn’t have to invade Switzerland. He just bought it.
As wound tight as the Swiss were, the French were just the opposite, which made living in our French house so much fun. Our French colleagues mocked the Swiss, especially the Swiss Army, mercilessly. Indeed, the French didn’t take anything seriously, including their religion. A couple of years earlier, the Vatican had relaxed its rules, allowing Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular instead of Latin. The pope then reversed himself, demanding a return to Latin, which, of course, American Catholics readily obeyed.
Arriving in Fribourg, then, and surprised to discover Mass still being celebrated in French, I asked how they were able to get away with it. “Because the pope’s just wrong,” they said, shrugging. No guilt, no problem.
It was the first open defiance of religious authority I experienced and embraced.
We were a fun, stimulating community of young Oblates, all ostensibly destined for the priesthood, though most of us would never make it. And, as in the United States, we were all assigned tasks to help run the house. By some strange twist of fate, I was designated as the official house caviste, the man in charge of the wine cellar—even though I had only enjoyed my very first glass of wine a couple of weeks earlier, on board the SS United States.
My job was to stock the dinner table with the appropriate wine, with advice from my more wine-knowledgeable French confreres. What wine, for example, do you serve with horsemeat, which was often the only steak we could afford?
On weekdays, we would enjoy red or white table wine, usually diluted with water. On weekends, we stepped it up a notch. And on feast days, we went all out, as I learned the hard way only a couple of days after arriving in Fribourg. Dinner was preceded in the community room with an aperitif: wine, whiskey, port, martini, or cocktail. We then moved to the dining room and a selection of fine wines: white with the first course; red with the entrée; a second round of red with the cheese course; and, of course, a dessert wine with dessert. Followed by coffee, with a dash of liqueur—seulement deux doigts—in each cup. After which, it was back to the community room for an after-dinner drink, or digestif. By that time, I was barely able to crawl back to my room on the second floor, where I slept for the next four hours.
Of course, we’d been sent to Fribourg not to party but to study. Each morning, we’d walk down to the river, cross the bridge over the Sarine, and climb up the hill, through the old city and around the cathedral, to the university. Home for lunch, then back up the hill for afternoon classes. The University of Fribourg probably had more students of theology than any other university outside of Rome, all male, most of whom—like us Oblates—dressed in cassock and roman collar. Coming from the States, it was strange to see so many people in the streets, on public transit, in restaurants, or riding bicycles, dressed in clerical garb.
Almost every morning while walking to the university, rain or shine, we’d encounter an older priest in black cassock and cape, stooped over with age, slowly making his way up the hill to pray at a little shrine to the Virgin Mary. Months later, I learned that this unassuming priest was the famous Swiss theologian Cardinal Charles Journet, a major player in the Second Vatican Council of 1965, who had resigned from the Fribourg faculty but whose writings were must reading for theology students.
In keeping with its geographic location, the University of Fribourg was bilingual. All classes were offered in French or German, except for the basic theology classes, which were taught in Latin! Classes were held in an amphitheater, holding some two hundred students. The Dominican professors lectured, in Latin, for an hour; and we took notes, in Latin. There were no textbooks. No translation. No visual aids. No exams. And no opportunity to ask questions.
Unable to express themselves verbally, students did so physically. Seats in the amphitheater were actually rows of attached wooden desks, arranged in a semicircle, with a front wooden wall separating them from the row of desks below. When the professor said something especially interesting or amusing, students would tap or bang on their desks in approval. When he said something they didn’t like or agree with, they would kick the front wall of their desks in a deafening clamor. It was like being back in the sixteenth century.
We had a good life in Fribourg. Classes were challenging. It was exciting, living in an international, bilingual city. My French improved, and I made enough progress in German to get by around town. One added benefit: The countryside around Fribourg was storybook, enchantingly beautiful Switzerland. We made frequent pilgrimages to nearby Gruyères to visit the castle and sample the world-famous cheese. On weekends, my friend Laurent Peltier and I often bicycled to nearby villages. A couple of times, a gang of us piled into the car for a long day trip through the Great Saint Bernard Tunnel into Italy. During winter break, we rented a chalet in Les Contamines, a low-budget ski resort in the French Alps, where I learned to ski—and where I learned to make cheese fondue. Our “chalet” was hardly fancy. There were cracks in the walls and roof. We’d wake up in the morning with snow covering our sleeping bags.
While most of our skiing was at Les Contamines, late in the spring of 1967, we went skiing on the Kaiseregg, a mountain just outside Fribourg—which didn’t turn out so well for this novice. On my very first run, near the top of the mountain, I fell and broke my left leg. The ski patrol took me on a harrowing toboggan ride down the mountain, put some kind of temporary cast on my leg, and hustled me into the backseat of our car, which confrere Maurice Riguet drove back to Fribourg—first stopping by our house so I could enjoy a of glass of wine and break the news to our community before continuing on to the hospital. I was operated on the next day and still, as a souvenir, walk around with three metal screws in my left tibia.
Switzerland was also my first exposure to Europe’s system of universal health care. I was operated on for my broken leg and spent almost a week in the hospital in Fribourg. It didn’t cost me a dime. I had a similar experience a few months later in France, when I lost control of a motorbike and crashed into a field, injuring the same leg. Other than being chewed out by the doctor for being so stupid as to ride a motorbike with a still-healing left leg, the hospital care in France was also free. Universal health care, or single-payer health care, has been a hugely successful program in every European country for decades. It’s embarrassing it took us Americans so long just to get to Obamacare—which is a far cry from universal health care, but which Trump-inspired Republicans are still so eager to repeal. It was a sign of Obama’s overcautious political nature—see my book Buyer’s Remorse on this!—that he rejected single payer, which works effectively and efficiently in so many countries, as a possible option to be considered, even before debate on Obamacare began.
If, instead of the complicated, half-ass, public/private system called Obamacare, President Obama had simply enacted “Medicare for All,” it would have proven so widely popular and successful, Trump and Republicans would never have dared try to replace it.
My skiing accident wasn’t the only memorable mountain event. In early October 1966, the day before classes resumed, four of us decided to climb Vanil Noir, the highest local peak around Fribourg. We set out early the next morning and started up the trail in total darkness—so dark, in fact, we did not see signs warning that the mountain was closed that day so the mighty Swiss Army could hold target practice.
Having reached the summit just about dawn, we sat down to enjoy the breakfast snack we’d brought along when suddenly, off to our right, we heard a strange whistling sound, followed by a loud explosion. Then another, even closer. And another, closer still. And suddenly we realized they were real, live mortar shells lobbed at the mountain—by the Swiss Army. The pacifists were at it again!
We started frantically shouting and waving our arms until the shelling stopped, and then we began making our way down the face of the mountain, rather than down the trail, so we could easily be spotted. Sure enough, about halfway down, a couple of angry army officers roared up in a jeep, chewed us out for making them lose a couple of hours of valuable bombing time, and drove us back to our car. At the same time, they were probably relieved to avoid the headline: SWISS ARMY BOMBS THREE FRENCH AND ONE AMERICAN. We came close to becoming the Swiss Army’s first and only casualties of war!
The best part about Fribourg was that the university was in session only six months a year. That left a lot of time for new adventures and activities, and I took full advantage of it. My first summer in Europe, I packed as much in as possible: three weeks studying German in Salzburg, Austria; three weeks as camp counselor for a group of teenagers from Marseille touring Germany; and a month working at the Oblate parish in the vibrant city of Marseille. With what little money I’d earned, I then set off hitchhiking across France: across the Massif Central; back to Paris; out to the hamlet of Ploudalmézeau at the tip of Brittany; and then on to Normandy’s Saint-Michel and Saint-Malo before ending up in Reims, where I looked forward to visiting the famous cathedral and catching up with a couple of student friends I’d met along the way.
Little did I realize the evening I spent with them turned out to be one of the most meaningful of my life.
Over dinner, someone raised the subject of America’s ongoing war in Vietnam. And, like any loyal American, I took the bait. As a student at Niagara, I’d actually written a letter to President Lyndon Johnson supporting the Vietnam War. So I seized the opportunity to staunchly defend the war, using all the establishment talking points about Communist threat, dominoes falling, superiority of airpower, certainty of success as long as we held the course, and so on.
My French friends listened politely, then asked, “Have you ever heard of Dien Bien Phu?” Sadly, like most Americans, I hadn’t. So they proceeded to educate me about the French Army’s five-year war in Vietnam: the precursor to and mirror image of America’s war in Vietnam, conducted with the same hubris, the same belief in superior firepower, the same underestimation of the potency of Vietnamese nationalism, and the same level of denial—all leading up to their ignominious defeat at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 and the end of French colonial influence in Indochina.
Why didn’t we Americans learn from history, they wanted to know. We were repeating all the same mistakes and heading for the same results. Proving once again Santayana’s old adage that “those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it”—and its sad corollary: “Those who do know their history are doomed to watch others repeat it.”
We talked all night. The power of their arguments and the weight of history finally convinced me I was wrong. I left Reims not only having changed my mind about the Vietnam War but shaken about my initial naïveté and with a new understanding of what it meant to be an American—and, from then on, forever skeptical, as citizens everywhere should be, about their government’s stated reasons for declaring war on another country.
On that night in Reims, at least on the important issue of war and peace, a new progressive was born.
I am a true American. I love my country as much as anybody else. I’m proud, and feel blessed, to have been born in the United States. But here’s a lesson I first learned in France and have seen reinforced many times since. You can love your country and still disagree with the policies of your president and other elected officials—and say so openly. You can love your country and still oppose certain actions your country takes today or has taken in the past. You can love your country and still admit that, in some areas, other countries do better than we do, that we could actually learn from them. They don’t always have to take lessons from us. That’s what’s wrong with the silly philosophy called American Exceptionalism, which some conservatives consider a saliva test. Yes, America is an exceptional country. But that doesn’t make us right about everything. Far from it. On universal health care, for example, Canada puts us to shame. On gun safety, Australia’s number one. On universal preschool, Norway and Sweden are far out in front. As loyal Americans, we would do well to stop bragging about America’s superiority in all things and start examining how we could become an even greater country by learning from others.
Returning to Fribourg, I couldn’t wait to meet our new neighbors. Earlier that year, I’d been translating correspondence between Madame Dietrich, who owned the big house next door, and Seth and Margery Warner from Malibu, California, who were looking for an apartment in Switzerland to spend Seth’s sabbatical from Santa Monica City College.
After dinner my first day back, I walked next door and banged on Seth and Margery’s door—without giving any thought about what I was wearing. You can imagine their surprise, never having seen anyone in a cassock and roman collar up close before, discovering a fully dressed cleric on their doorstep. Recognizing their shock, I quickly identified myself as their go-between translator and apologized for my clerical garb. They invited me in for a glass of wine, became instant friends and, as we will soon see, were instrumental in easing my way out of the seminary and into a new life in California.
My second year of classes at Fribourg got off to a good start, but, at the same time, my personal life began falling apart: I started having serious doubts about my vocation. Again, the issue wasn’t chastity; it was what work I’d be doing after ordination. As much as I had enjoyed practice teaching at Father Judge, did I really want to spend the rest of my life teaching high school? Was there some more meaningful contribution I could make?
After consulting a psychiatrist, I decided to make a stand. And here’s where the newborn rebel surfaced. While in Paris the previous summer, I’d explored the “worker priest” movement founded by Father Jacques Loew, a radical departure from tradition where priests—instead of running a parish or teaching school—got a job in a factory or office building, lived in an apartment, and ministered to their coworkers and neighbors. Some even ran for political office. Why not me? Becoming a worker priest was one way to have my cake and eat it, too.
Fortuitously, right about that time, our Oblate superior general, Father William F. Buckley, visited Fribourg. I met with him and laid out my plans: I’d remain as an Oblate, but only if I could become a worker priest. Otherwise, I planned to leave.
Father Buckley would have no part of it. As an Oblate priest, he said, only one line of work was cut out for me. I would be a high school teacher or theology professor for the rest of my life. There was no other option. Take it or leave it. I left it—sort of.
Actually, following weeks of negotiations worthy of the Vatican, I agreed, rather than leave immediately, to take a year’s leave of absence before making a final, final decision. I also agreed to his demand that, rather than stay in France, my choice, I would return to the United States—at which point I immediately vowed to go anywhere but back to Delaware, where I would face pressure from my fellow Oblates and my family.
But where to go? Reenter Seth and Margery Warner, my new friends and neighbors from Malibu. For the very first time, they agreed to help someone relocate to California, instead of, like most Californians, trying to keep interlopers out. Not only that, they gave me a list of private schools in California that might be looking for a young French teacher right off the boat from France. Hugh Coughlin, an American Dominican priest I’d also become close friends with, provided a list of Catholic high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I sent off scores of letters, offering myself as a fluent French speaker available for the next school year, with no mention of my closeted seminarian status. And, to my utter surprise, I received two job offers: from Danville Academy, in the East Bay, near San Ramon, California; and Sacred Heart High School, in the heart of San Francisco. Danville was a more prestigious school but, due to its remote location, more difficult for a single man without a car. So I accepted a job with the Christian Brothers, teaching French and religion at Sacred Heart High School.
At this point, confessing to growing up a Catholic, attending four years of Catholic high school, and spending nine, soon to be ten years, in the seminary, it’s fair to ask: Are you still a Catholic? And, more fundamentally, what do you believe?
Am I still a Catholic? Well, I suppose so. At least, even though I’ve received many angry letters from Catholics in response to some of my columns, I’ve never received a letter from the pope or any bishop telling me I’m no longer a Catholic. So, on that level at least, I’m still a Catholic.
At the same time, if being a Catholic means attending Mass every Sunday and believing everything the church teaches and everything some priests spout from the pulpit, I’m definitely not a Catholic any longer. In fact, I find it harder and harder to justify belonging to any “organized religion”—which is, when you think of it, a real contradiction in terms.
As for what I believe, it’s easier to say what I don’t believe. I don’t believe in the Virgin Birth. I don’t believe in the Immaculate Conception. I don’t believe God created the world and all its creatures in six days so he could take a nap on the seventh. I don’t believe in heaven or hell, and I certainly don’t believe that God makes little babies sit in limbo forever just because, through no fault of their own, they were never baptized. I don’t believe the pope, even Pope Francis, is infallible. I do believe Jesus was a historical figure and a great role model who left a remarkable set of teachings we would all be wise to follow, most notably in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1–12).
In fact, the nicest thing anyone ever said about me was said by the great Tim Russert, longtime host of Meet the Press. Tim also hosted a weekend interview show on MSNBC, where Pat Buchanan and I, both former seminarians, appeared together in 2005 to promote our recently published books. Pat’s latest was Where the Right Went Wrong; mine was How the Republicans Stole Religion. Not surprisingly, we three Catholics, following Tim’s lead, ended up discussing Catholic doctrine and whether Catholics were ever allowed to question it. Pat took the strict, every-word-of-the-Bible-is-sacred approach. I argued for sticking to the core of Christ’s message, which was helping the poor and disadvantaged.
At which point, Tim Russert said to me, “In other words, you’re a ‘Sermon on the Mount’ Catholic.” I’d never heard that phrase before, so I paused for a moment before responding, “Yes, I’m a ‘Sermon on the Mount’ Catholic—and proud of it!”
Go back and read it again. As a person of any faith, it’s not a bad place to hang your hat.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.…
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.…
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.…
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
I would argue that you can appreciate and practice the wisdom of the beatitudes without having to buy the fact that Jesus was also the Son of God. In fact, I’m not sure I swallow the whole God thing anymore. Why do we have to? Isn’t the world a fabulous place, full of marvelous plants and animals? Isn’t the human body itself a wonderful, beautiful thing to hold and behold? And isn’t the human mind an unfathomable, inexhaustible treasure with unlimited potential? Why do we have to muck it up by dragging religion into it? Or by giving some remote, unforgiving, inaccessible deity all the credit?
I guess you could call me a Christian humanist, but only in the sense that Jesus is an exemplary historical personage, and not divine. Otherwise, like Thomas Jefferson, who compiled his own New Testament by leaving Jesus in, but taking all references to the divinity of Jesus out, I am a secular humanist. And I believe our mission during our brief sojourn on this planet is threefold: to achieve our full potential as man or woman; to do good works; and to practice the Golden Rule, treating others as we would want them to treat us.
For me, religion does not have to be so complicated. It doesn’t require a lot of ritual and ceremony, guilt or fear. Perhaps the revered Rabbi Hillel, a contemporary of Jesus, summed it up best in a quote I put on the first page of How the Republicans Stole Religion: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. All the rest is commentary.”
In that sense, I do believe in the afterlife. I do believe we live on after death, but not in some eternal picnic in the sky or flames beneath the earth. We live in on in the good works we have performed. We live on in the memories of friends we have made, fellow citizens we have helped, and those very special people we have loved.
That is what I took most from my decade with the Oblates—not the religious teachings, definitely not the proscriptions, but the values I learned, the appreciation of life I adopted, and the many friends I made.
Meanwhile, briefly, back to Fribourg. Liberated by my decision to leave the Oblates, at least temporarily, I finished my classes and passed my oral exams—the only exams we faced in two years of studies—to obtain a bachelor’s degree in theology from the University of Fribourg.
I was ready to travel back to the United States, except for one small problem. I was still recovering from my broken leg and walking with crutches. My best friend in the seminary, Laurent Peltier, came up with the perfect solution: arranging for me to spend a month recuperating at his home in the fabled French Alps ski resort of Megève, where his father was a prominent architect.
The widower Pierre Peltier, a handsome, debonair, popular bon vivant, adopted me as his American son. During the day, I walked the streets and surrounding hills of Megève until I got my strength back. In the evening, I accompanied Pierre to all the dinner parties and soirées he was invited to. We made a great team. It was a glorious way to wrap up two years of studies in Europe.
Early one July morning, I took the bus from Megève to Annecy and hopped on a train from there to Brussels, where I caught an Icelandic Airlines flight, known as “The Hippie Airline,” back to the United States. After spending a couple of weeks with my family in Delaware City and Fenwick, I made a beeline to San Francisco in late August 1967 to begin yet another exciting chapter of my life.
Little did I imagine that California would be my home for the next thirty years. Nor did I have any idea what I was getting into by arriving in San Francisco at the height of the Summer of Love. There was no better place to come out of my shell as a true progressive.