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NOW MORE THAN EVER:

AFFIRMATION TASK FORCE

By USAC President Bill Ramsey

In the short time I have been president of USAC, I have had more comments about the strong affirmation effort to support our bishops and priests. The Affirmation Task Force I suggested in Toronto has convinced me that our Task Force is all our USAC members, placing ads in diocesan newspapers, preparing buttons, decals, writing letters, taking a bishop or priest to lunch or dinner, sponsoring a billboard, and placing the new USAC poster in every church where Serra operates (call 888.777.6681 for a copy). This may be the largest task force ever assembled.

In your club, the Vocations Committee can spearhead this effort. We want the faithful to say: “No organization supports our bishops and priests as enthusiastically as Serra!”

 Thank you for being on the Task Force. As they say in the infantry: "Now let's saddle up and move out!"

The following article was originally published in The Catholic Voice, Omaha, Neb.

As a baptized Catholic of 72 years, I strongly support and affirm the holy priesthood of Christ. At the same time, I express sorrow to the victims of child abuse and their families. I also pray for the accused priests, their families and their fellow priests. It is certainly a time of heartache and emotional trauma for people on both sides of this tragic situation.

Immoral acts cry out for justice and those harmed need our prayers. The purpose behind my commentary is to plead with people of all religious beliefs to be compassionate and understanding in the face of these deplorable acts.

Although some young people compromise their lives for the instant gratification of drugs, this fact doesn’t suggest that the majority of our youth are drug addicts. Even though some bigoted people continue to abuse people of another race, color or belief, not everyone should be branded as a racist. The same axiom holds true for the tiny minority of priests who have been accused of or have admitted to child abuse; this should in no way diminish the goodness of the vast majority of priests.

Today, in our blessed land, priests of every social, ethnic and economic background are living models of Christ in our midst. Their daily lives are imbued with charity and love for God’s people.

Thousands of ordained men are faithfully ministering to millions of Catholics and people of other faiths. They are serving in large and small parishes in urban and rural areas. They are tending to the spiritual and corporal needs of their parishioners. They are chaplains to the police and fire departments. They are hospital chaplains who serve the sick and the bereaved.

In the Archdiocese of Omaha, our priests, under the guidance of Archbishop Elden Francis Curtiss, administer the sacraments, preach the word of God and live those words in their daily lives. They are there for the needy who cry out for help around the clock.

The late Archbishop Daniel E. Sheehan, longtime shepherd of the Church of Northeast Nebraska, served selflessly for over a half century. In his last year, he bravely and quietly endured the pain of an inoperable brain tumor, all the while offering encouragement and prayers for those around him.

Priests and religious have died through the centuries defending their faith and the faithful. Those martyrs have been succeeded by today’s martyrs who have died in the name of Christ and His Church and for God-fearing people everywhere.

In these times of terrorism and threats to the very survival of humankind, men and women in our armed forces need support more than ever before. One only has to look back over three wars to observe that priests serving as chaplains have demonstrated uncommon valor in the face of suffering and death.

During World War II, an example of that selfless courage is embodied in the heroic decision made by Father Maximilian Kolbe. Father Kolbe, a Polish priest imprisoned in a Nazi death camp, volunteered to take the place of a condemned man who had a family. The sentence was not by a firing squad nor by hanging but by starvation in a black dungeon. Today, that valiant priest is the revered St. Maximilian Kolbe. Before the war ended, the holocaust had claimed the lives of thousands of priests and other religious.

One of our deceased priests, Father Stefan Flisiak, survived the death camp at Dachau. A Polish priest, he moved to Omaha after the war at the invitation of Archbishop Gerald T. Bergan. He died in Genoa, Neb., last year after 62 years of dedicated service as a priest.

The Korean War found Father Emil Kapaun serving as a chaplain with the Eighth Army in North Korea in 1950. He was taken prisoner and died in a Chinese prison camp but not until he had given his last breath serving Americans who shared the brutal experience with him. He died ministering to prisoners while a blood clot in his leg went untreated by his captors. Today there is a high school in Wichita named in his memory and a chapel at the U.S. Army base at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas bears his name.

One war later in the steaming jungles of Vietnam, another priest was serving God and his fellow Marines. Father Vincent R. Capodanno, Navy lieutenant, gave his life to save a Navy corpsman aiding wounded Marines. Father Capodanno, the son of Italian immigrant parents, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. A book on his life, The Grunt Padre, recounts the gripping story.

In our archdiocese, chaplains have served, including: Father Robert Hupp, Navy, World War II, founding pastor of Christ the King Parish and former executive director of Boys Town; Msgr. Richard Wolbach, Marine Corps veteran, Battle of Iwo Jima, and now chaplain at Veterans Hospital in Omaha; and Father Aloyius McMahon, a Navy corpsman who served with the Marine Corps in several South Pacific campaigns.

The archdiocese also has two current Air Force chaplains – Father (and Colonel) Frank Lordemann and Father (and Major) David Reeson – as well as the former chief of chaplains, U.S. Air Force Major General William Dendinger.

We should all remember Pope John Paul II’s heroic example of forgiving the man who wounded him in an assassination attempt. The pope visited the man in jail to personally forgive him.

The thousands of priests around the globe who are serving their church and their people don’t claim to be perfect, but they are extraordinary individuals when it comes to giving and forgiving.

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