By Scott Mckeen
Edmonton Journal
April 2, 2010
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Parishioners+work+shines+through+troubled+times+Catholics/2756512/story.html
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| Lucia Solinas cooks up pasta to be used in St. Alphonsus parish's Easter hampers for needy families in Edmonton. Photo by Rick Macwilliam |
Catholic Social Services, St. Vincent de Paul lead the way in charity
Good Friday?
For Catholics, you have to wonder.
No day of the week has been particularly good of late for the Catholic Church, mired as it is in another sad, sordid sex scandal. New allegations came to light recently of sexual abuse by priests in Europe and America. At the same time, accusations of coverups reach all the way to the Vatican and the Pope.
The impact in our neck of the woods? Many Catholics aren't happy, to be sure. But it's business as usual, as the parishes continue to quietly do what they do best.
At St. Alphonsus parish Thursday, volunteers prepared Easter hampers for needy families. St. Al's is only one of a number of Edmonton parishes involved in the St. Vincent de Paul Society, a global effort to help the poor.
The society's local efforts include provisions of food, household goods and even help with rent and damage deposits. This, for anyone in need. No questions asked. No need to be Catholic.
The Sisters of Providence continue to work at the Anawim Place inner-city food bank.
Priests continue to give comfort to the ill, the dying, the desperate and the incarcerated.
Catholic Social Services continues with its nearly 50-year-old mission to treat and counsel everyone from estranged spouses and stressed immigrants to those who abuse substances and those who suffered abuse.
Catholic Social Services' Marc Barylo said the agency first began in the mid-1960s with marriage counselling, as well as programs to aid new immigrants and refugees.
Today, it has more than 1,000 employees and 1,600 volunteers. Its counselling services are professional and varied, yet offered at below market rates.
Early on, the late Monsignor Bill Irwin pushed the agency outside society's comfort zone. With his efforts, Catholic Social Services was the first to offer residential treatment to victims of sexual abuse, in 1965.
No government funding was offered at first, so Father Bill, as he was then known, raised funds and borrowed others. Today, CSS runs 12 group homes to help abused children.
CSS also was the first in Alberta to help sexually exploited youth escape prostitution. That decision was controversial. CSS even received bomb threats.
Even more controversy greeted the agency's move to create the first hospice in the area for men dying of AIDS. Barylo said hate mail flooded into Catholic Social Services.
But the agency was and is adamant about offering compassion and aid to people, no matter where they come from or who they are. Young offenders are helped, as are parolees with drug and alcohol problems.
"We can see the dark side and depravity of humanity, as well as its sanctity and beauty," says Barylo.
Jesus, he says, taught people to see the good in everyone and to serve them with compassion.
I wonder: Can we offer that same compassion to Catholics during these dark days?
I am not a Christian, nor a religious man. In fact, I spent much of my life sneering at the hypocrisy of supposedly pious men who preached love and hate in the same breath.
My conversion experience came about 15 years ago in a warehouse on a cold December evening.
I didn't fall to my knees, or feel a flood of warm love. I didn't praise Jesus or make promises to God.
But I changed in ways both subtle and profound.
On that evening I witnessed volunteers working in a massive project to feed the poor at Christmas. These were volunteers from Edmonton's Catholic churches.
Later, I interviewed a priest about the trend in modern spirituality of a personal search for meaning. He said individual spirituality was well and good.
But churches and their congregations do some tough, spiritual slogging, he said. His parish hosted a weekly supper for street people.
These are not always easy people to deal with. They aren't always grateful. But it is God's work.
So I softened. I stopped bashing religion. Now, I even find myself defending it from the sidelines.
We can find fault in any person or organization. But should we judge them if their flaws are few and their virtues many?
I've come to believe that personal acts of love, kindness and sacrifice are the measure of our humanity, as well as our happiness.
I learned this from religion. But especially from Edmonton's Catholics.
Contact: smckeen@thejournal.canwest.com
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