With the election and elevation of the Roman Catholic Church's new pontiff, I was impressed....well less impressed, more affected by the name he chose for himself: Francis, after Francis of Assisi. That particular saint has been very important to me for most of my life. My formative years were riddled with Franciscan influences in a sense. Now, a few weeks after the big show in Rome, I feel the need to indulge myself and ruminate on why I feel this pope, if he truly desires to model at least part of his leadership model after the holy man, the patron saint of animals, the environment and one of the two patron saints of Italy, will use this opportunity to humble himself before God and the world and try to breath life back into the church. I do not envy him the task before him, but if any patron saint would be able to bring a sick, dry, barren milking goat back from the brink, it would be Francis.
Francis was my grandfather's name, Francis Paul Moffenbier. He was one hell of a man and I miss him dearly. My grandpa Frank was a Marine, fought in WWII in Guadalcanal. He was big, broad shouldered and a little thick through the trunk when I knew him. I have a photo of him in uniform, with crisp corners, thin as a rail and straight as a ramrod, but the war took a toll on him, as it did many people. My mother was told by the doctor that his seizures or "spells" as some of the family referred to them were the result of a head injury sustained from the propeller of a plane he was working on. It could just as easily have been the war, the terror of walking point through the jungle with a browning automatic rifle, watching all of your friends die in front of you one by one and remembering the faces of those men on the opposite side that will never see their families again either. We have seen wounded warriors return home and struggle, to regain their humanity, to find peace. Frank was a peaceful man. He never spoke of the war, he loved sports and cards, Ol' Blue Eyes and telling my sister "Hey toots, gimme a smooch." My grandpa John had died before I was really old enough to get to know anything more than his smile and kindness. But Frank, we had many great get togethers, watching the grownups play Scrabble while the kids rolled around in the den, playing with plastic dinosaurs, cowboys, Indians, army men and farm animals, those little wax sketch pads with the red plastic stylus and the opaque plastic film that you can draw on and pull the film up and start all over again. Dan and Gabe and I were captivated. He taught them pinochle and all of us blackjack and poker. Sarah lived with my grandparents for a while, I never really knew why. My memories, so scattered and fragmented all hinge on a few basic scents, feelings, sounds. There was the smell of roast turkey and the light, sweet hint of tobacco smoke from the den where Frank was watching the Yankees beat...somebody. I remember watching the Mets in the living room and seeing a guy on the field that's last name was Strawberry and I thought that was cool. I of course found out later that Darryl has a coke head, but he forever meant something to me as an emotional tether to Frank.
Frank had a swagger, like the kind of sashay that made me always feel that he was a movie star that was just laying low or something. It didn't help that he looked like a more handsome version of Telly Savalas, minus the lollipop. He had those half tinted glasses, not the kind that the weirdos with a van have, but the kind that the guy whom you think just might be a cop wears. He had this presence, sort of a sweet, gentle giant with a mile long fuse, a sleeping volcano that everyone was glad to have resting. I know from personal experience what it must have taken him to put a tortured soul to rest, to find peace after such gut wrenching trauma. Granted I knew him 30+ years after the fact and he was an old hand at it. I never felt subtle rage, and bubbling anger below the surface like I feel or like my dad had sometimes. Perhaps it is a German thing, being the child of Immigrants, having a dad born in the last third of the 19th century, being the baby of the family? I don't know, but Frank was a prince.
He couldn't find the steadiest of work after the war. He worked as a security guard and the night shift at several places, but inevitably his condition caught up with him and the ADA was long way down the pike. He stopped driving after he had a seizure behind the wheel and my uncle Mark, then 13, flew through the front windshield. as if he wasn't buried in enough self-inflicted guilt. Frank was a mess. It was after much trial, failure and rebound that he started working at the VA. He was a case worker for vets, trying to find work, something he knew all too well. It came to pass that a certain "class" of vets were the hardest hit at finding work. There were vets that were disabled, some that were mentally ill and some that were just different and by 1960s standards un-hireable (i.e. Transvestite/Transgender, abrasive personality, and I really don't know who else) He found them jobs. He did it. I have no clue how, but he found his niche, serving the poor, the indigent, the most vulnerable of his brothers in the uniform. Like I said, a prince.
Frank was diagnosed with prostate cancer in late 1987, early 1988. He went into the hospital and had a surgery. He was still strong. We visited him in the hospital and after a while, the nurse let us know it was time to go. We shuffled out and the nurse moved him to change his bandages. I wanted one last look before we left. I peeked in the corner of the shade from the entry of the room and I realized I was not supposed to be looking. My grandfather was nude from the waist down and the nurse was cleansing the incision area, changing his dressing. I uncovered his nakedness like Ham and his father, Noah and I felt shame. I immediately turned and hurried away to rejoin my family. A few days later Frank went home to recuperate. He woke up in the night and went out to the living room so as not to wake my Grandma Chris. He sat in his recliner and the pulmonary thrombosis that had broken free lodged itself in an artery and killed him.
Now I of course didn't know my last glimpse of my Grandfather would be one that was so (some might think humiliating) intimate. I never told anyone of it, mostly out of respect for the man that was private and reserved. Then again, he was a fucking Marine, slogging through hell and shit for years, bearing a cross ever since and finding love and compassion enough to raise his four kids right, provide for them and their mother and show me enough about love, strength and faith to know that he'd forgive me. I feel that the nakedness I uncovered was not the nakedness of his flesh, but the nakedness of his soul, his beautiful beautiful soul. I miss you Frank.
Frank Moffenbier was the most important Francis in my life of course, but not the only one. The Catholic Parish in which we lived when I was small was St. Francis of Assisi in SE Portland. The church itself, my experience as a faithful youth up until the age of six or so was molded by Francis. My parents, with several other families...you know who you are...well they begged, stole and borrowed...okay they did not steal, but really did beg and borrow to start a soup kitchen to feed the poor of Portland, the transient population that had nowhere to go. Our families lived in a community, the Portland Catholic Worker, a group of homes on a block in SE, near the church, where we shared pretty much everything. Communal yard, shared childcare, we ate together a lot, we were friends and close as blood. We still are. Anyway, at first the parish did not want to allow the soup kitchen in the school cafeteria. They had a lot of great excuses I am sure. So after much fruitless negotiation, my dad and (I'm thinking it was Jim Barnhard?) anyway the who is less important as the fact that they opened up a soup kitchen down the street at the little Prod church on Pine. How's that for a lesson in Christian charity. Well as far as I can recollect from the story my pappy told me like ten years ago, eventually, the priest and church council saw that the world was not going to end as a result of being more Christlike and they assented to allowing the kitchen to open up in the St Francis cafeteria...and there it remains as far as I know.
My older siblings and I attended the school at St Francis, until we made the move to Holy Redeemer in North Portland in 82-ish? I know I only went to school there for a year, but Sarah graduated from St Francis and Dan and Gabe were ripped from their friends and transplanted into a whole new world of crazy. St Francis was great. Our principal was a sweet woman, Sr. Susan (I'm pretty sure she was the principal - there was another nun, but I have no clue who she was) and we had great people all around us. there were Vaughns and Hornbeckers and Spens' and Suttons galore, not to mention our PCW family...you know who you are... The dissolution of our community, which led to the end of our affiliation with the parish was hard for all of us, but for the young ones that didn't understand why or how, it was confusing and frightening. St Francis had always been a place of great innocence. The priest, Don Durand, was blessing pets for the feast day of St Francis. It was a cool October morning and the mist was in the air. I had no pet, but a stuffed triceratops. I asked Fr. Durand if he would bless the dinosaur. Though I am sure in his heart he realized a blessing for the dinosaurs was about 230 million years too late, he did so peacefully and with a smile and true Franciscan humility. I heard years later that Fr. Durand had been accused in the priest abuse scandal. I have no pertinent information to this point other than the fact that in my time in that parish with him as our pastor, we were well served and he had a wicked awesome beard.
Francis of Assisi crept into my life in other small ways, throughout my life...small ways, less formative. The prayer of St Francis, wherein he asks God to "make me a channel of your peace" has always been inspirational and the hymnal version of the prayer was a mainstay at Holy Redeemer, my family parish until I left the church. I realize that this last admission will prompt the inevitable question, "so why do you care whether or not Pope Francis helps the Church or not?" Well, first of course, as most Catholics know, just because you ditch the church doesn't necessarily mean you're out for good. Like Michael Corleone put it, "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" Second of course, my family, friends, colleagues, 25% of the US population, I care about them. Third, the Church can be a great force for good and if karma (or divine justice) exists the Church is do for some major act of good. Today I went to Easter mass with my family. I refrained from communion because Francis (before he was Francis) had made a statement intimating that people that hold certain political views which I happen to hold should not partake in communion. That is to say that despite the happy-go-lucky watered down Catholicism that we in the US pass of as piety, there is a man in the Vatican, potentially the best single chance for change and healing in the last 30 years in the church and the very people that should be welcomed to the table for reconciliation have to this point (by this man's previous policy and viewpoint) been directed to abstain from communion with God, we are not worthy to receive the Lord. Now granted, he did not say this as Pope, but if his tune changes just because he has a funny new hat, what does that say for his humility and honesty? I am nothing if not a pragmatist and I realize that changing the course of the Catholic Church is analogous to changing the course of an aircraft carrier, it requires ages to redirect and will wipe out any nearby vessels in its wake without batting a lash. I am not looking for a seat at the table, but I think if the Church is going to promise the flock that with the Church's help, they will find salvation and resurrection of the body, the Church should at the very least be able to demonstrate upon themselves. As for Francis, I know he believes the poor should be a priority, that is true, but if you try to treat the cancer of poverty with a broken machine inside a broken hospital with broken doctors that have no ethics and no will to keep each other honest or the patients safe, what do you really think your outcome will be? The Church is broken and frail, the priesthood has been rotten from the inside out. When vows of obedience have trumped a priests duty to protect their flock, something is wrong with the church. When the image of the church trumps the safety of the church's children something is broken. When protecting tradition for the sake of tradition trumps making rational changes to the prerequisites for the priesthood, something is broken in the church. Sometimes, reading Augustine of Hippo is not helpful, and sometimes Thomas Aquinas has crappy advice. But Pope Francis, newly renamed and crowned, this I guarantee you, if you live the rest of your life, trying to emulate the faith, humility and compassion of Francis of Assisi, you just might make one hell of a pontiff my friend.
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