Monday, February 10, 2025
D+95
1954 President Dwight Eisenhower warned against US intervention in Vietnam
2019 Sexual abuse investigation into US Southern Baptist churches revealed 400 church members implicated with over 700 victims
2023 A World War II-era bomb found in Great Yarmouth, England exploded in "unplanned" detonation as experts attempted to disarm it
In bed at 9, awake and up at 4:15, from a dream of attending a gathering of religious men somewhere and encountering my old friend, Matthew Gottschalk, 'God's fool', who was lying on the ground, weak and ill. I exited my bedroom pushing my rollator and tried not to make any bumping noises which might wake up Geri, but was saddened to hear her ask me, in a very wide-awake voice, to put the ice pack which she had left on the sofa back in the freezer. She was wide awake in the dark at 0420 with one ice pack on her aching leg. It has been 25 days since her surgery, 25 days of varying levels of pain, discomfort, nausea, intestinal problems, little activity, and being housebound except for visits to her doctors and her physical therapist. Today she sees the surgeon in the morning and the therapist this afternoon.
Prednisone, day 295, 5 mg., day 6, Kevzara, day 6/14. 2.5 mg. prednisone at 5:19 a.m. and at 4:30 p.m. Other meds at 4:30 p.m. also.
He was born in Milwaukee in 1927 and was in his mid-70s when I worked at the House of Peace where he lived in a small apartment on the second floor. He visited me in my office every day and we chatted. I also attended mass there every morning at 6:30 and Matthew and Father Al Veik, who also lived at the HOP, alternated as celebrants. After mass, the three of us and whoever else may have attended the mass had coffee and chatted. In those days, I was a member of St. Francis of Assisi parish at 4th and Brown Streets in the inner city, and a member of the parish council. I was in my late 50s and early 60s and Capuchin priests were a big presence in my life: Matthew and Al at the HOP, Fathers Neil, Paul, and Bob at St. Francis, I liked all of them and they liked me, at least until I made myself persona non grata after the clergy sex abuse scandal erupted. Matthew however was my favorite, the most personal of these friendships, because of our daily morning and afternoon visits. We were an "odd couple." I was at best a "hard believer," steeped in Catholicism from birth, 'born in the bosom of the Church,' 19 years of Catholic education, but a religious skeptic since childhood, always struggling with doubt and feelings of fraudulence at St. Francis and at the HOP. Matthew on the other hand was a believer. He 'walked the walk' and lived out his Christian faith. He was gentle, kind, and pious. He prayed the rosary every day at a time when most Catholics probably thought praying the rosary was 'dated,' old-fashioned, perhaps even superstitious. I don't suggest that he was without doubts of his own since they are natural to mankind and unavoidable, witness St. Francis and his 'struggle with the Devil' at La Verna and Jesus on the cross: ‘Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani.’ But Matthew chose to believe and acted on his chosen belief. He believed deep in his soul that all of us are children of God. He believed that every human being had an inherent, God-given dignity and was worthy of love and respect. He believed that racism and racial segregation were wrong, unChristian, and sinful. He attended Fisk University, a historically Black institution in Nashville TN. He was a crusader for civil rights and racial justice in Milwaukee. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 7, 2012:
Gottschalk is well-known and admired in Milwaukee's African-American community for his commitment to civil rights and social justice and advocacy for the poor and disenfranchised.
He spent his career in predominantly African-American parishes: St. Benedict the Moor, St. Francis and St. Elizabeth, now St. Martin de Porres, often taking his ministry to the streets in his brown friar's robes and - in earlier years - his flowing white beard.
Gottschalk marched with Father James Groppi in Milwaukee and Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala. He had worked at the House of Peace, the outreach ministry of St. Francis of Assisi Parish at N. 4th and W. Brown streets, since co-founding it with fellow Capuchin Brother Booker Ashe in 1968.
"He was the pre-eminent Catholic priest in the African-American community," said Father Carl Deiderich of All Saints Catholic Church, who has known Gottschalk since 1965.
"He was a humble person, a street priest in the best sense of the word," he said.
From the UWM website "March on Milwaukee:"
Catholic and Protestant clergy members played significant roles in the Southern and Northern Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In Milwaukee, several Catholic clergy members were active in the local movement. The first civil rights demonstration that Milwaukee clergy publicly participated in was a picketing demonstration against Alabama Governor George Wallace’s presidential campaign visit to Milwaukee. The demonstration was led by Father Matthew Gottschalk, pastor of St. Francis Church.
Carl Deiderich's comment about Matthew reminds me of two of my favorite stories about him. First, until the Second Vatican Council, Capuchins wore long beards and Matthew of course complied with his order's rule. When he was pastor of St. Francis parish, he regularly walked the streets and visited his neighbors, parishioners and non-parishioners. When children would see Matthew approaching with his long beard, brown Franciscan robe, and sandals, they would run home saying "Mama, Mama, Jesus comin'!" Second, on the night of July 30-31, 1967, when some young Blacks were raising hell on 3rd Street, Matthew went out onto the street and encouraged the young men to be peaceful and to go home. He was an old, soft-spoken White man in the thick of some angry young Blacks in that 'summer of discontent.' Some of the young men threatened Matthew and others protected him. He was respected and beloved in this community.
The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act III, scene 2.
On July 12, 2012, I was shocked to read in the local newspaper that Matthew had 'resigned' after accusations of sexual misconduct years ago surfaced in the archdiocese's bankruptcy proceeding. Three accusations were referred to the District Attorney's office. Two of the accusations, one from 1970 and the other from 1974 were found not to involve any criminal conduct. The third accusation from 1993 when Matthew was about 66 years old did allege unspecified criminal conduct but was barred by the statute of limitations. None of the particulars of the accusations was disclosed by the D.A.'s office, the archdiocese, or the Capuchins. I dismissed the first two complaints as attempts to score some money from the bankruptcy distributions. The third alleged some criminal behavior, behavior that Matthew admitted "was inappropriate." I can only speculate whether it was a solicitation, a kiss, a touch, or something more intimate. Reading about these allegations against my friend brought home to me what had before been only a national and international scandal Matthew was the first cleric whom I knew personally to be accused of sexual misconduct with a minor,¹
and then only as already an old man. Did I think of him as a sexual predator, a monster preying on young boys or girls? No. What could this gently, prayerful man have done or said to some kid 50 years younger than him that was "inappropriate"? I'll never know. I did think of him as a lonely old man, having spent his life as a celibate priest, with neither wife or other partner nor children to care for or about him in his old age. I thought of myself going home to Geri in the Knickerbocker at the end of each workday and Matthew going upstairs at the HOP, alone until the 6:30 mass the following morning. Did he in 1993 at age 66 reach out and say something or do something 'inappropriate' to some young man or woman at St. Francis? I guess he did, but I cannot believe that he 'preyed on' that youngster, or that he 'groomed' him or her. But it was what it was and at age 85, after a lifetime of service to a largely disfavored Black community that he voluntarily joined and led, we were left with the stories in the Journal Sentinel and the Catholic Herald about alleged sexual abuse. The evil men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. Matthew was moved by the Capuchins out of his hometown of Milwaukee where he was loved and respected by so many to the order's headquarters in Detroit where he died a few years later. A sad (tragic?) ending to a life of loving service.
In calling back these memories of Matthew and of still-continuing clerical abuse scandals, I don't mean to suggest that none of those accused of sexual abuse of minors were predators. Many of them clearly were criminal predators. Homo hominis lupus, even among 'men of the cloth', 'men of God.' But I have come to believe that at least some of the accused are men like Matthew Gottschalk, God's fool, or like the old priest in the confessional in James Joyce's first short story in Dubliners, "The Sisters."
. . . he had taught me a great deal. He had studied in the Irish college in Rome and he had taught me to pronounce Latin properly. He had told me stories about the catacombs and about Napoleon Bonaparte, and he had explained to me the meaning of the different ceremonies of the Mass and of the different vestments worn by the priest. Sometimes he had amused himself by putting difficult questions to me, asking me what one should do in certain circumstances or whether such and such sins were mortal or venial or only imperfections. His questions showed me how complex and mysterious were certain institutions of the Church which I had always regarded as the simplest acts. The duties of the priest towards the Eucharist and towards the secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake them; and I was not surprised when he told me that the fathers of the Church had written books as thick as the Post Office Directory and as closely printed as the law notices in the newspaper, elucidating all these intricate questions. . . .
[Eliza] stopped, as if she were communing with the past and then said shrewdly:
“Mind you, I noticed there was something queer coming over him latterly. Whenever I’d bring in his soup to him there I’d find him with his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair and his mouth open.”
She laid a finger against her nose and frowned: then she continued:
“But still and all he kept on saying that before the summer was over he’d go out for a drive one fine day just to see the old house again where we were all born down in Irishtown and take me and Nannie with him. If we could only get one of them new-fangled carriages that makes no noise that Father O’Rourke told him about, them with the rheumatic wheels, for the day cheap—he said, at Johnny Rush’s over the way there and drive out the three of us together of a Sunday evening. He had his mind set on that.... Poor James!”
“The Lord have mercy on his soul!” said my aunt.
Eliza took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes with it. Then she put it back again in her pocket and gazed into the empty grate for some time without speaking.
“He was too scrupulous always,” she said. “The duties of the priesthood was too much for him. And then his life was, you might say, crossed.”
“Yes,” said my aunt. “He was a disappointed man. You could see that.”
A silence took possession of the little room and, under cover of it, I approached the table and tasted my sherry and then returned quietly to my chair in the corner. Eliza seemed to have fallen into a deep revery. We waited respectfully for her to break the silence: and after a long pause she said slowly:
“It was that chalice he broke.... That was the beginning of it. Of course, they say it was all right, that it contained nothing, I mean. But still.... They say it was the boy’s fault. But poor James was so nervous, God be merciful to him!”
“And was t
Eliza nodded.
“That affected his mind,” she said. “After that he began to mope by himself, talking to no one and wandering about by himself. So one night he was wanted for to go on a call and they couldn’t find him anywhere. They looked high up and low down; and still they couldn’t see a sight of him anywhere. So then the clerk suggested to try the chapel. So then they got the keys and opened the chapel and the clerk and Father O’Rourke and another priest that was there brought in a light for to look for him.... And what do you think but there he was, sitting up by himself in the dark in his confession-box, wide-awake and laughing-like softly to himself?”
She stopped suddenly as if to listen. I too listened; but there was no sound in the house: and I knew that the old priest was lying still in his coffin as we had seen him, solemn and truculent in death, an idle chalice on his breast.
Eliza resumed:
“Wide-awake and laughing-like to himself.... So then, of course, when they saw that, that made them think that there was something gone wrong with him....”
¹ After I learned of the accusations against Matthew, I learned that my high school trigonometry teacher, Brother Charles Borromeo Irwin, of the Irish Christian Brothers, was credibly accused of sexual misconduct with a minor. He was a strange, mean guy and I can't imagine what led him to join the ICBs. I had two very good friends at Leo High School who joined the order after high school, Johnny Flynn and Jack O'Keefe. They were good men. I lost contact with each of them after high school and have no knowledge of how their choice of religious life worked out for each of them.
Last year on this date, I wrote a long rant on football, especially NFL football.
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