When I was in the eighth grade at St. Mary’s School on the North Side in the late 1950s, a new Benedictine priest, Father Gabriel, was assigned to the parish.
Women just loved him because of his good looks, while girls in the seventh and eighth grades referred to him among themselves as Father What A Waste. We older lads at St. Mary’s thought he was a cool dude — for a priest.
Before afternoon classes, Father Gabriel would play basketball with some of us boys in a small Deutschtown playground near the school, across the street from the nuns’ green convent on Pressley Street. Sister Ottilia, the school principal, preferred all students to line up on Nash Street at 12:50 p.m. to say the Pledge of Allegiance. However, she didn’t dare speak to Father about our occasional tardiness resulting from the basketball he played with us.
Father Gabriel was usually easy to get along with, but he took a principled, hard stand on things he thought were right. One case in point: He felt that since St. Mary’s was one of the biggest churches in the city, no one should stand during Mass, since there were always enough seats for everyone except on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Easter Sunday.
He loathed seeing people slouch in the vestibule in the rear of the church. When he marched to the pulpit to read the Gospel and eyed people standing, he would say “There are plenty of seats — please take one.”
People always acceded to his wishes, except on one wintry Sunday morning when he spotted seven older teens or early 20-something punks standing in the vestibule.
“Gentlemen, before I commence today’s Gospel, would you please take a seat,” he said. “There are plenty of them to be had. Anywhere you prefer would be fine. There’s no need to loaf in the back so you can cut out early.”
Three of them found a seat. Four remaining “hard guys,” as people referred to troublemakers back then, stood steadfast in their spots.
“Congregation, please sit until I work this situation out,” the smiling priest said.
Stepping out of the pulpit, he walked to the center of the altar. “I will ask you fellas one last time: Please sit down in a pew anywhere you like,” he announced in a loud voice, sans microphone. The four laughed but didn’t budge. Father glared at them.
“If you guys don’t take a seat, I will come back there, and I’ll put you in one,” he commanded in a harsh tone.
The congregation was quiet, but very attentive to this extraordinary entertainment. They were obviously in the priest’s corner, rooting for the good guy in the green, silky vestment. The foursome snickered again without moving an inch.
Gabriel rolled up the big white sleeves beneath his green alb, opened the locked ivory center gate of the Communion rail and strode quickly down the right aisle. Two of the delinquents sped out the center doors of the church, presumably with their tails between their legs. The smirking duo left behind held their positions as the priest, face beet red, got about 10 feet from them.
“I said, sit down.” They didn’t move. He repeated, “If you don’t take a seat, I will put you in one. So boys, what will it be?”
“If we don’t want to sit, Father, you can’t make us,” one of them mumbled, still wearing that grin.
Gabriel got nose to nose with them. “Sit down!” he screamed.
“No!” the one wise guy loudly and arrogantly responded, while his buddy stood motionless, apparently intimidated. The congregation sat agape, shaking their heads at the total disrespect for their beloved priest.
Father Gabriel grabbed both by the scruff of their necks, dragged them halfway down the long aisle and literally threw them into separate empty pews. The crowd let out an enormous burst of applause, which was unheard of in those days.
“Please rise for the Holy Gospel,” Father Gabriel then said nonchalantly upon reaching the pulpit.
All did, including the jerks. The twosome remained in their pews for the duration of the service, standing and sitting in conjunction with the rest of the assembly, as per the service’s protocol.
Word of the stern priest’s bold action evidently got around to other parishioners. During Father Gabriel’s subsequent Sunday Masses, attendance increased — and everyone was in a pew.
Bill McKinley of West Deer, a retired pension fund administrator, can be reached at sanibill@consolidated.net.
First Published: March 11, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
