My time spent working with the Catholic Church [View all]

[Tom Rinaldo]

Back in the 1980's I had a job working with Catholic Charities in San Francisco. They called it Catholic Social Services back then. It had two divisions, one was Direct Services and the other was Community Organizing. Yes, Community Organizing. Catholic Charities hired Community Organizers back then in San Francisco. I was hired by that division (Direct Services had things like Group Homes and Senior Services). One of my fellow organizers worked full time supporting the Sanctuary movement. Back then there was a Class War going on in El Salvador, the rich against the poor - complete with Army death squads. Catholic Churches across the U.S. sheltered "illegal" refugees from El Salvador - providing sanctuary from deportation by our government. Our staff helped organize that movement.

Remember Archbishop Oscar Romero? If not read up on him - he was assassinated by the Junta while giving Mass. He spoke up for the Poor, he defended them; he faced down the soldiers and called out the Rich. But once he was very close to the powerful elite - he personally ministered to core of members of the Ruling Class. When Romero was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador the government welcomed it, while many in the Church whose ministry was to the poor were upset due to the conservative reputation he had earned up till that point. Romero’s eyes were ultimately opened by some Catholic priests he met who had dedicated their life to the poor. When one of those radical priests who Romero was close to was assassinated, Romero started using the spotlight that his office gave him and the full power of the Church against the violence of the State, and for that he lost his life.

While working with Catholic Charities I met one of those Priests who Romero had become close to (whose name unfortunately I do not remember) He himself had once been detained by the El Salvador military and tortured. Ultimately that priest had to leave El Salvador due to continued VERY credible death threats against him. I had the honor of driving him to several speaking engagements organized by Catholic Social Services of San Francisco. He was a gentle and humble man with a spine of steel and complete dedication to a mission of serving those most in need that never wavered. If anyone can be called a true Man of God, he was one. I don’t know what became of him since I met him 30 years ago.

The man who was Archbishop of San Francisco when I worked at Catholic Social Services – which means that all of us there worked under him, was Archbishop John Quinn. He was present at the funeral of Oscar Romero in San Salvador when what is believed to have been government orchestrated violence erupted against the crowd of mourners leading to dozens of deaths. Archbishop John R. Quinn was president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United States Catholic Conference from 1977–1980. During that time the American Bishops supported a number of progressive social justice causes..

Many at the time saw Quinn as likely to rise further in the Church, on track to become a Cardinal. He was said to be well regarded at the Vatican. That did not happen. The Church in San Francisco back then, while never overtly breaking with Catholic theology, was notably compassionate toward Gays and Lesbians, and Quinn kept lines open with Gay Catholic leaders and organizations. In a few years he was replaced in San Francisco by a new Archbishop with more traditional conservative leanings. I believe it was said at the time that Archbishop Quinn was exhausted, and he was given time to pursue a personal prayerful retreat. I long since lost track of what became of him.

My work at Catholic Social Services started out as a needs assessment of un-served homeless populations in S.F., which started out as a temporary contract. It grew into full time work. We ultimately chose to focus on the homeless youth population in that City. Ultimately I helped develop new outreach, shelter, and counseling services for youth on the streets – targeted on teens 18 or below (but we fudged on the upper range some). We identified three distinct primary subsets of youth on the streets. They were gay and lesbian youth who either fled or were rejected by families that could not accept them, punk oriented kids who could not easily assimilate with the cultural expectations of their home communities and/or families and therefore also fled or were rejected by their families, and undocumented youth arriving in San Francisco from Mexico and Central America – mostly young male economic refugees.

The programs we developed hired gays, punks and Latinos. There was no overt or even covert religious agenda beyond the fact that the first shelter we opened used the basement of a Catholic Church for its location – not for any theological reason but simply because the parish council donated that space to us for free. We helped develop first a city wide and ultimately a state wide coalition to advocate on behalf of homeless youth which lobbied for essential funding and updated attitudes toward youth in need. Those coalitions included Gay and Lesbian organizations, other Churches in addition to the Catholic Church, youth advocates in general, and groups concerned with the needs of immigrants. Before we started operating our shelter we were warned that it couldn’t work – those groups could not work together, but they did. The youth in particular always found that they had more in common than the differences that divided them.

To say I that I was a lapsed Catholic at the time I worked for Catholic Charities way overstates any connection to Catholicism that I ever had. I had a Grandmother who wanted my company in Church on Sundays for a couple of years – my parents never went and they taught me no religion. I became confirmed as a Catholic rather late, as a teenager, only so the Church would let me have a role as an usher at my older Sister’s wedding inside a Catholic Church. That was all in the early to mid sixties and I had nothing to do with Catholicism after that until I worked for Catholic Charities in the 80's, and I haven’t since that time.

I can not begin to defend the Catholic Church on a wide range of issues, but I do know from personal experience that some wonderful people in this world are Catholics, and that the Church at times has worked for what I consider Good, as well as for what I consider Evil. Both for me come in and out of focus.