Away from their desks and
into the real world
By DAVE MYERS
Southwest Kansas Catholic
Not that the seminary isn’t the real world, but being challenged by someone in need of guidance, help and hope is a bit different than being challenged by your theology professor.
The five seminarians for the Catholic Diocese of Dodge City recently completed another year of seminary studies and are back home in Southwest Kansas serving in various capacities.
They are: John Stang, Austin Habash, and Tyler Saucedo — each of whom attend St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver — and Eric Frieb and Esteban Hernandez, who attend Conception Seminary in Conception, Mo.
Stang will spend his summer serving on the Prayer & Action team.
Made up of young adults, the Prayer & Action teams go out into the peripheries each summer and work in two locations painting, landscaping, and otherwise lending aid to families in need.
Last year, while one group painted a home, another group a few blocks away found themselves helping a family to move. The family had recently lost their daughter, so the presence of the young adults — working, joking, playing with some of the families’ young children — were a welcome sight for the troubled family.
Habash will serve on the Totus Tuus team, which leads week-long retreat-like experiences for youth and children in the parish. The afternoon and evening classes (depending on age) include faith-filled lessons and a good dose of games and laughter.
When the Catholic covered a Totus Tuus gathering a few years ago, then-seminarian Jacob Schneider was having at least as much fun as the youngsters.
Saucedo will be spending much of his summer on a 30-day Spirituality Year retreat, then will be in residence at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe rectory, where he’ll continue to learn from the examples of Father Wesley Schawe, Father Aneesh Parappanattu, MSFS, and others in the parish.
Frieb, meanwhile, will continue with his ministerial work while living at home in Olmitz, serving his parish of St. Ann, and helping out in other capacities.
Hernandez has been assigned to serve St. John the Baptist Parish in Spearville, while continuing with his English studies. He will learn from Father John Forkuoh, pastor, and will benefit from the presence of Father Jack Maes, who is retired and living in Spearville.
The communities in which the seminarians will reside this summer are asked to be supportive of these young men, perhaps by inviting them into your home for a meal, or allowing them to help with a project.
You can continue to send letters of support to the seminarians this summer via the Catholic Chancery. Send letters to (name of seminarian), 910 Central, P.O. Box 137, Dodge City, KS 67801.
Hoisington Parish wishes DRE
Pam Willis a fond farewell
Parishioners of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Hoisington joined April 25 to wish one of their own a fond farewell, and to say thank-you for 20 years of heart-felt service.
Pam Willis, who has served the parish as Director of Religious Education for two decades, retired from her position as of May 31. At a celebration following the last night of their recent parish mission, Father Anselm Eke, MSP, pastor, presented her with a plaque noting her years of service.
Twenty years ago, when Pam first met with then-pastor Father Jack Maes about the job, she brought with her a list of all those people whom she thought might be qualified for the position.
“I didn’t realize until later that he was interviewing me!” she said, laughing.
“I’ve just loved attending all the diocesan events,” she said, “taking kids to the NCYC [National Catholic Youth Conference, of which she has attended all 10 since she was hired], rallies, summer camp, getting them together with other youth of the diocese, having them take part in activities together. Those are my favorite memories.”
Leaving a beloved position is always bittersweet. Each Wednesday night, Pam enjoyed what for her was a night out with friends.
“All the kids were there for CYO and CCD sessions. My friends are all there.
“That’s the saddest thing. All my friends will be there and not me.”
In retirement, kids will still be a part of her life, but in this case, it’s her grandchildren and her four adult children, spread out over Kansas and in Durango, Colorado.
“I have no plans in retirement except we want to travel and spend time with the kids.”
Pam’s husband, Greg, works for the Kansas Department of Agriculture.
At press time, as she edged toward her last day, she was in the midst of Vacation Bible School.
“I’m finishing off with a blast!” she said, smiling.
-- Dave Myers
I thought I could ‘save’ gang members.
I was wrong.
By Greg Boyle, S.J.
I don’t believe in mistakes. Everything belongs, and, as the homies say, “It’s all good.” I do believe in lessons learned. I have learned that you work with gang members and not with gangs, otherwise you enforce the cohesion of gangs and supply them oxygen. I know now that gang warfare is not the Middle East or Northern Ireland. There is violence in gang violence but there is no conflict. It is not “about something.” It is the language of the despondent and traumatized.
In my 30 years of ministry to gang members in Los Angeles, the most significant reversal of course for me happened somewhere during my sixth year. I had mistakenly tried to “save” young men and women trapped in gang life. But then, in an instant, I learned that saving lives is for the Coast Guard. Me wanting a gang member to have a different life would never be the same as that gang member wanting to have one. I discovered that you do not go to the margins to rescue anyone. But if we go there, everyone finds rescue.
Me wanting a gang member to have a different life would never be the same as that gang member wanting to have one.
Louie was 19 years old, a gang member making money hand over fist by running up to cars and selling crack cocaine. He quickly became his own best customer. After my many attempts to get him into rehab, he finally agreed to check himself in. He was there one month when his younger brother Erick did something gang members never do. He put a gun to his temple and killed himself. Gang members are much more inclined to walk into enemy turf and hope to die than to pull the trigger themselves.
I called Louie and told him what happened. He was crestfallen. “I will pick you up for the funeral,” I said, “but I’m driving you right back.”
“I want to come back,” he said through his tears. “I like how recovery feels.”
When I arrive at the rehab center, Louie greets me with un abrazo, and once in the car, he launches in. “I had a dream last night—and you were in it.” In the dream, he tells me, the two of us are in a darkened room. No lights whatsoever. No illuminated exit signs. No light creeping from under the door. Total darkness. We are not speaking, but he knows I am in the room with him. Then, silently, I pull a flashlight from my pocket and aim steadily on the light switch across the room. Louie tells me that he knows that only he can turn the light switch on. He expresses his gratitude that I happen to have a flashlight. Then with great trepidation, Louie moves slowly toward the light switch, following closely the guiding beam of light. He takes a deep breath, flips the switch on, and the room is flooded with light. As he tells me this, he begins sobbing. “And the light,” he says, “is better than the darkness.” As though he had not known this was the case.
We cannot turn the light switch on for anyone. But we all own flashlights. With any luck, on any given day, we know where to aim them for each other. We do not rescue anyone at the margins. But go figure, if we stand at the margins, we are all rescued. No mistake about it.
(Printed with permission from America, the Jesuit Review Magazine.)
Remembering El Salvador’s holy martyr:
Blessed Archbishop Romero
By Charlene Scott Myers
Special to the Catholic
An excellent film about the life and death of Blessed Archbishop Oscar Romero was shown recently on EWTN the evening of April 21.
Romero might have reached his 100th birthday last August 15, 2017 had he not been shot down at the altar while celebrating Mass at Divine Providence Church in San Salvador 38 years ago on March 24, 1980. Pope Francis declared him a martyr in May, 2015.
A faithful supporter of El Salvador’s people who were suffering under a brutal persecution by soldiers and government leaders, Romero was the gentle but brave and outspoken defender of the poor in San Salvador.
The fourth archbishop of El Salvador, he paid for his bravery with his life.
I visited El Salvador with 13 lay persons and clergymen after the murders of Romero and the three nuns and a lay woman who all worked with the indigenous poor in El Salvador. We drove down the lonely, rough road to the area where the four women had been raped and murdered, returning with tear-stained cheeks.
Following his murder, Archbishop Romero was not buried, but his body rested outside in a beautiful closed casket in the city of San Salvador for all to visit. I stood in tears twice at the casket to pray for the people and clergy of El Salvador who had suffered so much in recent years.
El Salvador’s poor had lived not only in terrible poverty, but also with constant fear of torture and death for themselves and their children. It is possible they suffered more from terror and sickness than any other country in Central or Latin America, including Guatemala.
Hundreds—perhaps thousands—of native inhabitants who dared to oppose the corrupt government in El Salvador were “disappeared” and never heard from again. The diabolic murderers of these missing persons had no fear of being brought to justice or held accountable for their dastardly deeds. They were protected by the corrupt government and military, as well as by some wealthy leaders of the country.
Archbishop Romero spoke out against those hideous killers of men, women, and children during his weekly radio broadcasts and from the pulpit of his church. His strong words brought hope to his stricken parishioners.
But there were many leaders among the wealthy and in the government and military of El Salvador who hated Romero and feared the power of the Catholic Church and the thousands of people he represented.
I have interviewed many persons of different races and backgrounds during my years as a journalist, but the saddest interview of my life was with the distraught “Mothers of the Disappeared” while I was in El Salvador.
The “disappeared” were mostly teenagers and college students, falsely accused by the government of being “dangerous and radical.” Some mothers wept as they told the heartbreaking stories of their kidnapped missing children, whom they would never see alive again. Other mothers had photos of their children—both boys and girls—who had been brutally beaten or shot to death.
I wrote an article about the pitiful children and their sorrowful mothers for the Oklahoma Observer newspaper when I returned to my job as director of the Canterbury Center’s Peace and Justice Office at the University of Tulsa. My office had sponsored the trip to El Salvador, and several of the 13 people with me on the trip to the torn country of brutal deaths were board members of the Peace and Justice office.
Our trip to El Salvador was long ago and far away. But I never will forget it, nor will I forget Archbishop Oscar Romero and his beautiful parishioners of San Salvador. Those of us on the trip were given a large poster of Romero before we left his country, and we drew lots for it. I had the winning (golden for me) ticket!
But a burly soldier stopped us at the airport check in and yanked the poster away from me. “You can’t take this out of the country!” he growled.
One of the ministers with me on the trip, an Episcopal priest, shouted at the soldier: “I will report your rudeness to us, and there will be an international incident if you keep that poster!”
The burly officer hesitated as he stared at us with obvious hatred. Finally he backed down, and with a scowl thrust the poster back into my hands. Every member of our tour group breathed a sigh of relief. What a blessing it was to travel to a dangerous foreign land with a brave and outspoken priest and friends of many different faiths!
I also believe that the Catholic Archbishop Romero in Heaven brought this prickly predicament to the notice of Our Good Lord. What a friend we have in Jesus, and what a friend I always will remember, although I never was blessed to meet him: the dearly beloved and brave Oscar Romero!
Fossil hunting reveals the creative artistry of God
Editor’s Note: The following is part of the special “Retirement and Senior Living” coverage in the May 6, 2018 SKC.
By Dave Myers
Southwest Kansas Catholic
I’ve always had a fascination with fossils, and my dad, being a retired geophysicist, has a keen interest in them as well — and far more knowledge. So, when my mom and dad came to visit my wife and me in Spearville several years ago, I decided to take Dad on a fossil hunt.
But where can we find them? I was still pretty new to Kansas.
We went to the Dodge City Visitor’s Center, where an attendant put in a call to Marshall Allen Bailey, whom she mistakenly told we were looking for “arrowheads”.
“No!” I whispered to her, imagining what Marshall Bailey’s response would be to us digging up indigenous artifacts. I was too late. She gave us a mischievous look and said into the phone, “I’m not going to tell them that.”
When we finally got it straight, my dad and I were directed to some land where the owner graciously allowed us to scour around. Within an hour or so, we found a rock the size of a beach ball covered in shell fossils. I lugged it back to the car, praying that I wouldn’t get a hernia, and for the next several years it sat near my parents’ front porch in Colorado, Dad often telling people about our discovery on the Kansas prairie.
For me, fossils are like God’s stocking-stuffers. They are little gifts God gives us to decipher the past. We thought we knew the mind of God — that the earth was the center of the universe — until the day that we discovered that the earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around.
And that mass of bone-shaped sediment? It actually forms into a behemoth creature that lived not thousands, but millions of years ago.
As noted scientist Jorge Mario Bergoglio (AKA Pope Francis) would attest, fossils don’t challenge the belief in a loving God, they enhance it! What a creative artist our God is!
Several months after my dad and I walked the Kansas countryside looking for fossils, I decided to do some yard work. (Normally, I don’t decide such things. It’s decided for me.) My job was to prepare a flower garden, and to line it with stones I found in the yard.
I turned over a narrow piece of stone and noticed a shell fossil! And then another! And later, we would go for walks and I would see fossils on stones on other yards! Having grown up in Colorado where fossil hunting meant a trip deep into the mountains, who could have guessed I’d find fossils right in my front yard!
As many of you already know, shell fossils are abundant due to the prevalence of sandstone in the area. This makes sense. Where do you find shells? On the beach! What are beaches made of? Sand!
Most of these fossils are around 330 million years old, which would be the late Paleozoic era. This was before the advent of the dinosaurs. It was the time that much of the carbon was created that became the coal deposits of today. (“Shell Oil”, anyone?)
It also indicates that if we were to suddenly go back 330 million years, we’d all better be wearing flippers and a snorkel. This area would have been a tropical marine environment, comparable to the Bahamas or the Great Barrier Reef.
All sorts of cool fossils are waiting to be discovered in Kansas, and not just shells, bugs, plants and things. Plesiosaurs have been discovered, as have mosasaurs, 50-foot long marine reptiles. Mastodon and Woolly Mammoth teeth have been found in Kansas.
Personally, I think God smiles when we find clues to His creative past! Whether they are found by a scientist out in the field, a son and his father walking the plains of Kansas, or a grandparent leading his or her grandchild through a front yard nature walk.
God’s pallet is filled with wonders waiting to be discovered.
Did the priest who would serve in Ellinwood, Liebenthal, and Great Bend, also act as a spiritual advisor to hoodlums? It’s apparent that Father Phillip Coughlan lent aid to notorious outlaws such as Baby Face Nelson and John Dillinger — and at least knew personally, if not helped, others such as Ma Barker and Legs Diamond. He even was asked by the lesser known, but highly successful bank robber Eddie Bentz to help him and his wife adopt a child. But whether or not the aid that Father Coughlan offered was outside his purview as a priest — and perhaps even outside the law at times — has not been determined.
Little did SW Kansas Catholics know that their pastor was known as a
‘Spiritual advisor to hoodlums’
The following is reprinted with permission from babyfacenelsonjournal.com.
The website from which the following came presents this story in chapters. The following chapter contains information on Father Phillip Coughlan, who served in SW Kansas. The story took place in November, 1934. The chapter begins just after a special agent and an investigator are killed in a chase. “Helen” is Baby Face Nelson’s wife, and “Chase” is his good friend:
NELSON MANAGED TO GET BACK TO THE AGENT’S CAR and drive it around to the rear of his disabled Ford. Chase, little more than a spectator in the final minutes of the battle, began gathering their weapons when he saw Nelson driving toward him and calling for Helen.
As Chase approached the Hudson, Nelson looked at him and said, “Drop everything and get me to the priest.” Chase said he’d get their personal belongings from the disabled car, but Nelson said “Forget that stuff. You’ll have to drive. I’ve been hit pretty bad.” He then called for Helen again.
Chase leaned in and helped Nelson move to the passenger side. He testified that Nelson’s left pant leg was soaked in blood from mid-thigh to his ankle. As Chase got behind the wheel, he asked, “Where is she?” referring to Helen. Nelson shook his head, “We’ll have to catch her later,” and then again asked to be taken to the priest.
Just as Chase began to pull away, however, he saw Helen in the rearview mirror running toward them. She jumped into the rear seat, and Chase headed west toward Fox River Grove. As Helen cradled her husband’s head, he looked at her and said, “I’m done for.”
As the early evening wind whistled through the Hudson’s bullet-pierced windshield, fear and confusion reigned inside the vehicle. Chase testified he was speeding along unfamiliar roads, at times hitting 85 mph, trying to figure out where he was. A weeping Helen continued to hold Nelson’s head as he took long, deep breaths and attempted to direct Chase down one road after another, through one small town after another.
They finally entered Wilmette and made their way to 1155 Mohawk Road, the home of Father Phillip Coughlan’s sister. Both Nelson and his wife were raised Catholic, and Father Coughlan was an old family friend. It would eventually come out that Father Coughlan had met with Nelson, bankrobber Tommy Carroll and others many times over the years, but he always denied any knowledge of their actions.
It was just before 5 p.m. when the family maid notified Father Coughlan, who was in the house, that a woman was at the back door and needed to see him immediately. The priest went to the door said saw Helen.
“Jimmie’s been shot. You have to help us. He’s in the car,” she said.
Meanwhile, Chase had pulled the car. When Helen and the priest went into the garage, Chase was holding Nelson up, and they were at the back of the vehicle. When Nelson saw the priest, he muttered “Hello” and then slumped back against Chase.
Helen pleaded with the priest to give her husband refuge, but the priest refused, noting it was his sister’s house; her 8-year-old son was inside, and she was expecting several guests that evening. Chase later testified Helen began to cry. “But he’s dying. He’s got to get someplace where he can lay down.”
The priest said he knew of a safe location he could bring them to, but later told police he didn’t know of any place. He just wanted to get them away from his sister’s house.
Helen suggested they all go in the priest’s car, but Father Coughlan said it would be better if they followed him since they couldn’t leave the agent’s bullet-ridden and blood-stained car there. “Follow me in your car,” he said. “We won’t go far.” When Chase became suspicious and questioned the priest, he was assured by Father Coughlan that he meant to help them.
The priest helped Chase put Nelson back into the front passenger seat and Helen into the back. They then followed Father Coughlan for several blocks until the priest saw Chase make a sudden U-turn and speed away. The priest said he attempted to follow them but soon lost them in traffic. He would later admit he was relieved, but also saddened because they might have feared “I was leading them into a trap.”
And that’s exactly what both Chase and Helen would later tell police that Nelson feared. He told Chase, “I don’t like the way he’s acting. He seems wrong. Lose him.”
Nelson, it seemed, knew of a safe place, and began directing Chase down one road after another, eventually leading them out of Wilmette and into Winnetka and finally down a back alley and into a red two-stall garage in the rear of a gray stucco cottage facing Walnut Street. Chase would later testify he had never been to the house and didn’t know where he was, but that Nelson assured him “friends” were inside.
Chase knocked on the front door and “a tall dark-complexioned man in his late 30s answered.” Chase said “There’s someone out here who needs you,” and led the man to the garage. Chase said once he looked into the car “he instantly recognized Jimmie.”
The two men and Helen then carried Nelson into the house. Chase said they entered by a side door and walked through a kitchen and down a hallway and turned left into a small bedroom where Nelson was placed on a large white iron bed. Chase said there was a young woman and an old man in his 60s in the house but neither said anything or tried to help. Once on the bed, the younger man left.
“All three of us knew Les [Baby Face Nelson’s real name was Lester Joseph Gillis] was dying, but there was nothing we could do,” Helen told officials several days later. Given scissors and other supplies, Helen cut off all of Nelson’s clothing, later telling authorizes that his white shirt was mostly crimson. She stuffed cotton into the bullet hole in his stomach and into the large exit wound in his back. She then covered both wounds by wrapping his waist with a long strip of cloth torn from the bed sheet. Finally, she cleaned the buckshot wounds on his legs and then wrapped him in a blanket when he complained of being cold.
“That’s better,” he said to her and then told them the pain was gone but there was a spreading numbness. Helen simply held his hand and waited for the end.
Cimarron couple seeks child to share home, family, unconditional love
By Dave Myers
Southwest Kansas Catholic
Editor’s Note: The following is part of a continuing series on local couples seeking to adopt through the Catholic Charities of SW Kansas Adoption Program. If you would like to see a video/slideshow about the Staats, go to http://catholiccharitiesswks.org/services/adoption/our-waiting-families.
Their eyes met from across the crowded room and suddenly time stood still. The boy and the girl approached each other slowly, perhaps a bit apprehensively, guided by divine providence toward what they couldn’t know then was a destiny designed by God.
Well, that’s not … entirely accurate. I mean, this was preschool after all, and it would be a few years before the youngsters even entered the Kootie stage, much less recognized any sort of future destiny.
Kallie and Rodney Staats of Cimarron are among those rare married couples who can say they’ve known each other since they could barely form sentences. And today, in their home just blocks from where they were reared, the couple are working through Catholic Charities of SW Kansas Adoption Program to begin a family.
“One private adoption company wanted $30,000,” said Kallie, who works for United Telecommunications. “Catholic Charities was better, more economical. I also like that it’s non-profit. Nobody should get rich off a child.”
The pair approached Catholic Charities two years ago, where adoption social worker Lori Titsworth guided them through the intensive process of preparation for becoming adoptive parents. It doesn’t cost $30,000, but it’s not cheap.
“It is cheap!” countered Rodney, a diesel mechanic. “That’s not the right word. I should say ‘economical’. It’s based on your income. If someone doesn’t make a lot of money, they can still adopt.”
By August of last year — after an extensive review and education process — the couple placed their video/slideshow onto the Catholic Charities website (http://catholiccharitiesswks.org/services/adoption/our-waiting-families), introducing themselves to birth parents who may be considering the adoption process.
There you learn that Kallie and Rodney were friends all through school; they didn’t fall in love until after each had graduated from college. Before then, they’d spent those freedom-filled days of childhood and youth hanging out together from time to time, cruising Main Street with mutual friends, never knowing that their futures were tied inexorably together.
On June 4, the couple will celebrate 13 years of marriage – among which have been times of great joy and great heartbreak.
A few years ago, the two became foster parents to two young children, a boy and a girl, belonging to a relative.
“We went from childless to parents of two in 24 hours,” Kallie said. “It was the hardest most difficult time of our lives, but it was also the best. It was a mental roller coaster.”
After two years, the birth parents petitioned to have their children returned, and the courts decided in their favor. It’s not difficult to imagine the sadness Kallie and Rodney endured.
“When they took them away, that was heartbreaking,” Rodney said softly. “It was God’s will. The good Lord was preparing us for something else.”
Last year, Rodney was offered the chance to spend a mission trip in Rwanda with a ministry started by his sister Kendra Willard and her husband, Ruben, called, “Lift Them Up.”
“We had prayer meetings; we talked with the children,” Rodney explained of his time in Rwanda. “They like to touch. The men there don’t have hair on their arms, and some of them have never seen a white person. So, there was me and Ruben, two hairy white guys.
“I can’t believe as poor as they are, how happy and content they are,” Rodney added. “They show love for everyone. And they’re forgiving. The people who killed their families are now getting out of jail – people who lived right next door – and they’re forgiving them.”
The wait for an adoptive child requires two things: 1) patience and 2) more patience. As the couple looks forward to the day when God leads a child to their door, Kallie looks back on those two years as a foster mom as a mirror for what is to come.
“It’s the unconditional love — those hugs and smiles and kisses for no reason at all, and the conversations with children — that I look forward to. You never know what they will say. You may have a bad day, and they can bring you right back up.”
“I’m going to enjoy teaching them things,” said Rodney, his grease-stained coveralls and the machine shop, wood shop and a large garden on their surrounding property paying testimony to a man who is expert at making things work.
“And spoiling them,” he added. “We look forward to loving whoever God brings to us.”
If you would like more information about the Staats, see their personal profile at http://catholiccharitiesswks.org/services/adoption/our-waiting-families. You can also contact Amy Falcon at 620-227-1590, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Lori Titsworth at 620-729-1393, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Father Murphy honored for 65 years of ministry
By TIM WENZL and DAVE MYERS
At the March 22 Chrism Mass, Father Ultan Murphy was celebrated for 65 years of service as a priest.
At the reception to follow, he told those gathered that prior to he and the other Irish transplants first making their way out to the newly formed Catholic Diocese of Dodge City, he was told how beautiful it was on the prairies of Southwest Kansas: expansive fields of grain wafting like waves in the wind; fields of cattle paying tribute to the economy of the region; and good farm folk eager for the Good Word.
“When we arrived in Dodge City there was this massive cloud of dust. I turned to the others and said, ‘What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?’”
The large crowd erupted into laughter.
In 2014, Father Murphy, then 87, retired after 33 years as pastor of St. Ann’s Parish in Olmitz. At the time of his retirement, he had the distinction of being the oldest active Catholic pastor in the state of Kansas.
Father Murphy was appointed pastor at Olmitz and Holy Trinity, Timken, in 1980. He served both parishes for 23 years until he announced his retirement earlier in 2003. He reconsidered, and his responsibilities were reduced to the Olmitz parish at that time. His official title also changed to “parochial administrator.”
“I’ll do what I do now,” Father Murphy said in 2014, “Say Mass every day, visit the sick, just fill in if I’m needed. They’re not going to miss me. No, I’ll be here; I’ll be around. I don’t go home to Ireland any more. My nieces and nephews come over here every few years. No need for me to go. With communication now, it’s just like being there — almost.
“After having served these people, I can say without any reservations, they’re just good people. All solid people, many from Eastern Europe, who brought the faith with them and kept the faith and are doing their best to pass that on to their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. I’ve seen it in all of my 33 years.”
When asked about his happiest memories, Father Murphy responded: “The happiest part of my ministry has been many converts – marriages – getting people back to the Church. I’ll probably miss visiting the kids in the classroom on Sunday morning. That was one of my better things to do.”
Father Murphy resigned the pastorate at Olmitz with this simple advice to the parishioners, “Stay the course and believe in God and say your prayers. Take your children to Mass and make sure your children go to religion class.”
Father Murphy was ordained June 7, 1953, by The Most Reverend John Staunton, bishop of Ferns, at St. Peter’s Seminary, Wexford, Ireland. He was recruited for the Diocese of Wichita, but was transferred to the Diocese of Dodge City by agreement of Bishop Mark K. Carroll and Bishop John B. Franz. He has served under all six of the bishops who have shepherded the Diocese of Dodge City.
Father Murphy’s assignments include: assistant pastor at St. John, Hoisington, (two terms); and St. Rose of Lima, Great Bend; and pastor at St. Mary’s Loretto; St. John’s, Kiowa; St. John, St. John, and St. Francis, Seward; Holy Rosary, Medicine Lodge, and St. John’s, Kiowa, all prior to his appointment at Olmitz and Timken.
Father Anselm Eke, MSP, resident pastor at St. John the Evangelist, Hoisington, was assigned to the additional pastorate at St. Ann’s, Olmitz.
When the diocese divided, priests’ parishes left to the luck of the draw
During a 2010 visit to the Priests Retirement Center, Irish priest Father Eugene Kenny, explained how the newly ordained were divided between the dioceses. “They did that at the dining hall of the rectory of the (Wichita) cathedral. I remember that room, all right. There were eight of us.
We met Bishop Carroll and picked cards out of a biretta. Some say it was the biretta of Archbishop Strecker, who was chancellor at the time. The cards said either Bishop of Wichita or Bishop of Dodge City. The four who drew Dodge City were Father (Ultan) Murphy, Father (Andrew) McGovern, myself, and Father Kieran Murray.
“(Msgr.) Pat Leahy, God love him, and (Msgr.) John Cody arrived and took us to Dodge City, and we met Bishop (John B.) Franz … and that’s the way it was. I still have the card I drew out of the hat.”
Father Kenny then opened a file, pulled out a card with well-worn corners. “It is very simple, just a postcard. It defined the destiny of a young man,” he said with a hearty laugh.
It takes a community
Colorado woman creates a place of refuge
Dave Myers
Southwest Kansas Catholic
LAKEWOOD, COLO. “Last night I had a bad dream about the Taliban attacking,” said an Afghani youth as he sat at a kitchen table in a large, white farmhouse.
Behind the house, a tract of farm land juts up against a long apartment complex. It’s an area where the urban landscape literally meets the rural countryside.
A couple of horses romp nearby. Roosters crow in the distance.
Sitting beside “Asghar” at the table, is his friend, Pamir, as well as Renata Heberton, founder of what dozens of child refugees and formerly homeless Americans know as Angelica Village.
While still in her 20s, the 33-year-old purchased a duplex where she began fostering children. Today, she oversees five living spaces — including houses and apartments — where formerly homeless families live and thrive in community.
“A friend and I bought this house for the ‘Unaccompanied Refugee Minors’,” Heberton said of the large, white house. The term indicates a status which the youth fall under as refugees.
“We hosted a ‘GoFundMe’ site [a free internet fundraising platform] for the down payment on the house,” said Heberton, who has a master’s degree in social work. “We raised $30,000 in 10 days. We had incredible support.
“We’re a licensed foster home.”
Asghar lives in Michigan where he is a high school senior. When the Catholic visited, he was in Colorado on Spring Break visiting his friend, Pamir. On April 27, he will have been in the United States two years.
Along with his two brothers and mother, Asghar escaped the grasp of the Taliban and made it to Pakistan. But peace was illusive. The Taliban made its presence known there, too.
Under the status, “Unaccompanied Refugee Minors,” Asghar was able to escape to the United States with the help of Bethany Christian Services and the support of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees — a UN refugee agency). It was in Pakistan where he met his friend sitting next to him in the Colorado kitchen.
“It’s a very different country than what I expected,” Asghar said of his new home in the United States. “The hardest part has been learning English,” and getting used to American cuisine, he added with a laugh.
With the bad dream from the previous night echoing in his head, he said, “Here it is safe. You can work. You can go anywhere you want. The people are nice. They are very kind.”
The soft-spoken Pamir, 17, who like many of the other youth in Angelica Village was sponsored by Lutheran Family Services, escaped Afghanistan with his family to Pakistan when he was “too young to remember.” The teen has only been in the United States four-and-a-half months, and is still getting used to a range of allergies he has suffered.
Abel, another youth — a teenager from Uganda by-way-of the Congo — yawned as he entered the kitchen and began fixing breakfast. The 10 youth living at the home are all on spring break, Heberton said, which is why they were lumbering sleepily into the kitchen at 10 a.m. instead of being off at school.
“When I came here, it was very exciting,” the tall, 19-year-old said. “I’m happy here. It’s better education, better work. In Africa it was hard to get an education. There was not enough money for education. I cannot go to school. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to come here. You can get everything you want with help, or on your own.”
As he spoke, a diminutive girl appeared in the kitchen doorway. She is Jeta, Abel’s older sister. The two, along with their brother, have lived in the home for approximately two years.
When asked, she said she misses her homeland. One can almost feel her heartache for the home she was forced to leave behind.
“I love Africa. Africa is my favorite dream, which I will never forget.”
Other youth living in the home (or who have lived there in the past) include kids from Guatemala, Honduras, and Columbia. She also has fostered youth from Denver, and Native Americans from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and from the Navajo Reservation in the Four Corners region.
Like a typical parent, Heberton helps the youth to discover their path in life, encourages them when it’s time to get a job, and urges them to think about college.
As the interview continued, a truck pulled up to the house with a delivery of fertilizer for a large garden the household maintains.
Heberton hopes to form a community garden one day for all of Angelica Village. In fact, it’s Heberton’s dream that Angelica Village will one day be as closely knit physically — a real village — as the members are spiritually and emotionally.
“We build relationships,” Heberton said. “One of the biggest injustices in the world is when people are not connected in their community. Community allows people to thrive and discover their potential.”
She has help in her amazing endeavor to serve the homeless and the young refugees. Though spread out across a large neighborhood, with members from several countries and cultures, residents of Angelica Village represent one community.
This is at the heart and soul of Heberton’s mission. In fact, she hopes to one day form a “creative art and music space,” a “therapeutic center” for the arts and physical therapies, such as massage, as well as a community corner store providing staples for families and youth in transition.
And she hopes to one day be able to open her doors to those with physical and intellectual disabilities.
As their mission statement reads, “Through love, care, and sustained mutual support, Angelica Village nurtures conscious community living spaces where people with special abilities, families seeking refuge from war and violence, individuals and families experiencing homelessness, and fellow community partners receive what they need and share what they can.”
For more information, including a list of needed items to donate, visit angelicavillage.org.
March 19, 2018
Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Dear Worthy Grand Knights:
This month we join you, our brother Knights and families, in observing the 135th anniversary of the founding of the Knights of Columbus on March 29. This Founder’s Day is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to rededicate ourselves to our Order’s principles of Charity, Unity, Fraternity and Patriotism, and to continue to seek to form our good works in the spirit of Knights of Columbus founder, the Venerable Servant of God Father Michael J. McGivney.
We are writing to you with a special appeal, one that we believe would be dear to Father McGivney’s priestly heart and thus to his Knights. We seek your support for a statewide effort called the Protect Adoption Choice campaign.
The Kansas Legislature is currently considering the “Adoption Protection Act,” legislation that would protect faith-based adoption providers like Catholic Charities from unjust litigation and government action (the House version is HB 2687 and the Senate version is SB 401). There have been situations in other states where government agencies have forced Catholic Charities to shut down their adoption ministry because they will only place children in homes with a married mother and father. The Adoption Protection Act would proactively ensure that this will not happen in Kansas. This legislation simply allows faith-based child placement agencies to continue to operate according to their religious principles. The bill does not infringe upon anyone’s legal right to adopt children; it simply affirms that faith-based agencies cannot be punished for adhering to their religious beliefs in their adoption ministries.
We are calling upon you, your spouses, the voting-age members of your family, and all brother Knights to get involved in the Protect Adoption Choice campaign now before the regular session of the Kansas Legislature ends on April 6. Failure to take action on this important issue could one day result in the closure of faith-based adoption agencies like Catholic Charities.
Please contact your state representative and senator as soon as possible. The following is a sample of what you might say:
“Hello, my name is ___________ and I am a registered voter from ___________ . I respectfully ask you to support the ‘Adoption Protection Act’ (HB 2687 in the House and SB 401 in the Senate). This legislation ensures that faith-based adoption providers like Catholic Charities will continue to be free to serve children and families. Catholic Charities’ adoption ministry has been forced to close in other states because of groups and government agencies hostile to our Catholic beliefs. Catholic Charities and other faith-based adoption providers should be free to serve the common good as they have for so long. This legislation does not affect anyone’ legal right to adopt, it just protects groups like Catholic Charities. Birthmothers and adoptive parents who want to use a faith-based provider should be free to do so. As your constituent, this legislation is very important to me. Thank you.”
To learn more, please visit www.ProtectAdoptionChoice.org where you can directly email your state senator and representative. To find the phone number of your state legislator, please visit http://www.kslegislature.org/ or https://openstates.org/. Those without internet access can call Legislative Administrative Services at 785-296-2391 to be connected to their legislators.
Let us join efforts as members of the largest Catholic family fraternal service organization to defend the religious freedoms we value so dearly. We place this effort under St. Joseph’s care and pray for its success through the intercession of Father McGivney.
Vivat Jesus!
Most Reverend Joseph F. Naumann
Archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas
Most Reverend John B. Brungardt
Bishop of Dodge City
Most Reverend Carl A. Kemme
Bishop of Wichita
Very Reverend Francis E. Coady
Diocesan Administrator – Diocese of Salina