By Michael Fitzgerald
Stockton Record
July 20, 2007
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070720/A_NEWS0803/707200319
Stockton (CA) — This week has not been a PR bonanza for the Roman Catholic Church. The disgraced Archdiocese of Los Angeles settled with abuse victims for $660 million.
I am sick of that story. Considering the church has 1.1 billion members, one-sixth of the word's population, there ought to be one or two positive stories out there.
OK, here's one: Father Lawrence McGovern, pastor of Presentation Church, has become a monsignor.
"Monsignor" is an honorific title bestowed on priests by the pope, usually after a recommendation from a bishop. It is a prestigious reward for a job well done.
"I am not one that puts a lot of weight on titles," demurred McGovern, 64.
Which led to a story. "I got in hot water with (1960s) Bishop Donohoe when I was first ordained. He got wind of the fact that people were calling me by my first name. So we arrived at a compromise. It was OK to introduce me as 'Father Larry.' "
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| Rev. Lewrence J. McGovern gets ready for Palm Sunday at the Church of the Presentation Stockton Sunday moming.
Photo by Michael McCollum |
That anecdote actually sums up McGovern's sometimes bumpy relationship with the old-school conservative hierarchy in the Diocese of Stockton.
They were traditionalists. McGovern, however, was schooled in Rome in the heady mid-1960s as the Second Vatican Council sought to modernize and democratize the church.
On the crest of the new wave, wholeheartedly in favor of it, he was ordained in the first Mass celebrated in English in St. Peter's Basilica after Vatican II.
"We were looking forward to this breath of fresh air," recalled McGovern. "The opening of the windows. Letting the Holy Spirit in. ... We got really energized. "
His hair sprouting in something close to an Afro, McGovern, 25, came to Stockton in 1968. He added guitar music and colorful banners to staid Annunciation Cathedral. He conducted some of the first Masses in English. He boosted the youth programs.
He embraced the Vatican II idea of a church in which laity need not merely submit - to pray, pay and obey, as the joke goes.
"I'm a strong believer (that) because we are all baptized in the person of Christ; in a sense, that puts us on an even playing field," said McGovern, who lets lay people help run the parish. "It's their parish," he explained.
His license plate, SPQR67, stands for Senatus Populus Que Romanus, Senate and People of Rome. "The idea of the Republic, that's what we're supposed to be as a church. We're in this thing together."
Conservatives, however, put the brakes on Vatican II in the years that followed. Then-Bishop Donald Montrose sent McGovern to a smaller parish in Manteca.
"Deep down in the gut, I wondered if I was rubbing management the wrong way," McGovern recalled of Montrose. "He and I were on totally different pages."
McGovern's successor at Annunciation, Father William Ryan, pleaded guilty to felony counts of grand theft and tax evasion in 1997 and left the priesthood. Montrose retired the next year.
The current pope, Benedict XVI, is a defender of traditional Catholic doctrine. But Stockton's current bishop, Stephen Blaire, enjoys a reputation as an enlightened centrist.
Presentation brims with 3,500 members. Its Teen Life Program has grown from 50 in 2002 to 850 a week. The parish's finances are healthy.
"I think the dreams of the Second Vatican Council are on the back burner," McGovern said. "So I kind of do my own thing here at Presentation."
He keeps the forward-looking spirit alive with the liturgy, his preaching and in formation (faith-enriching classes).
Monsignor McGovern has come into his own. But he is aware of the irony of his priesthood.
"I spent the first 25 years of my priesthood fighting the old guard. The interesting thing is I think I'm going to spend the last years of my priesthood in competition with the younger generation of priests who seem to be more comfortable with the older church that preceded the Second Vatican Council. I know this is a tension of my generation."
Contact columnist Michael Fitzgerald at (209) 546-8270 or michaelf@recordnet.com
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