A Father's Legacy

A Father’s Legacy

It’s a warm evening in May, 1966, and I’m lying facedown on the floor of St. Eugene’s Cathedral. Next to me are Jim Pulskamp and Greg Klass. The choir is singing the Litany of the Saints over our prostrated bodies. Being ordained a deacon is supposed to be a joyful event, and for Jim and Greg it definitely is. But not for me. As I lie here feeling the rough carpet against my cheek, I realize I no longer believe any of this. It all seems like play-acting, a sham. I no longer trust any part of organized religion.

However, a Damocles sword is hanging over my head: In a few short months I have to decide if I really want to be a priest or not. The choice would be much easier if I could imagine myself as anything other than a priest, but for the last nine years priesthood has been my only identity. Everyone treats me as a priest. Who could I possibly be if not a priest? I can’t even imagine.

The short-term solution is to become a deacon, work in a parish, and see what it’s like. Then maybe clarity will come. Still, I feel like an imposter lying here on the floor.

There is one positive thing about becoming a deacon however - I can bring my Father Communion in the hospital tomorrow. He was so excited nine years ago about me deciding to enter the seminary, bringing him Communion will mean the world to him. Back then he was an active member of the Serra Club, a group whose sole mission was to foster vocations, and during my first year at St. Joe’s he and I communicated constantly about the magic and mystery of the priesthood. But then, at the end of that school year, during summer vacation, my Dad, my witty, wise father who was already 55 when I was born, my rock and confidante, had a massive stroke, which, in a single instant, wiped out his ability to speak and crippled his right side. For the next eight years his sweet smile was all that remained of his former charismatic presence.

The next morning I enter Ross General Hospital dressed in my black suit and Roman collar. A pyx containing a consecrated host is hanging from a cord around my neck. A small stole is rolled up in my pocket. I walk past the same nurses and orderlies I talked to yesterday. Today their eyes only get as high as my collar.

“G’morning, Father.”

“G‘morning, Father.”

I’m no longer here. Only the role.

My dad is tied into his wheelchair, slightly slumped over, when I enter his room. When he sees me, his eyes brighten and he raises his right eyebrow, as he used to whenever he was about to crack a joke. I tell him I’ve brought him Communion, and place the stole around my neck. When I hold up the host, he automatically sticks out his tongue.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m dressed like this,” I say to him when we’re done. “It’s because last night I was ordained a deacon.”

He nods vaguely.

“Becoming a deacon is the last step before becoming a priest,” I say. “But,” - and I’m trying to choose my words carefully here, not give him any false hopes - “but . . . I’m not totally sure I’m going to be a priest.”

He looks up at me and smiles. Then he speaks the first coherent sentence he’s uttered in eight years.

“You’ll never be a priest.”

Shocked and relieved, I blurt out, “Why? Am I so much like you?”

“Yep,” he says and lapses back into his fog.

That was the last and best gift my dad ever gave me. He died a couple years later, after I did indeed decide not to be a priest, and went on to fall in love with the sixteen-year old receptionist I’d met as a deacon in St. Rose’ rectory.

When I told my mother what my Dad had said in the hospital, at first she didn’t want to believe it. Later though she told me a story about what had happened to my Dad many years earlier, and it all started to make sense.

In 1951, St. Anselm’s parish was split and, much to my parents’ dismay, they ended up in the new parish, St. Sebastians. They had both been extremely active at St. Anselm’s and loved the pastor and the congregation there. Being assigned to the new parish was traumatic for them, especially the new pastor. Compared to the saintly Monsignor John McGarr, Father Harry Leonard seemed to be a shallow glad-hander. He had been a big-wig in San Francisco and was being rewarded with this new “plum” parish. The goal of course was to build a church, so from the start he catered mainly to the young upwardly-mobile residents of Greenbrae, the affluent new suburb adjacent to Marin Catholic. He seemed to have little time for the older, less wealthy residents of my parents’ working-class Kentfield neighborhood.

St. Sebastian’s used the Marin Catholic chapel as a temporary church for the first couple of years, and one Sunday an excited Father Leonard got up in the pulpit and announced the beginning of a long-awaited fundraising campaign to build a new church.

“I have compiled a list of the finest men of the parish, he said, “and they will be personally contacting each of you in the next few weeks to solicit your donations. I hope you will welcome these exemplary Catholic men into your homes and be as generous as possible.”

He went on read off the names of these finest men of the parish.

My dad’s name wasn’t on the list.

“I knew he was crushed,” my mother said. “And I made no bones about what I thought of Father Leonard. Your Dad told me it was no big deal, to forget about it. But I knew better. I knew he was really hurt.”

During the next week some of the younger guys from Greenbrae who had worked with my Dad at St. Anselm’s evidently approached Father Leonard and told him how active and indispensable Joe McAllister had been there. The next Sunday, as my folks were leaving the chapel after Mass, Fr. Leonard came running out of the sacristy still wearing his alb. He ran up to my Dad and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Joe! Joe! Listen! Oversight! I really want you to be a member of the team!

According to my mother, “Your Dad looked at Fr. Leonard with those slate blue eyes of his and said, ‘Father, you can go to Hell.’”

That may explain why he thought I’d never be a priest.

Postscript: Shortly after I was ordained a deacon, Father Leonard, dying of throat cancer, asked if he could give me his blessing. I accepted, despite my agnostic skepticism, and, to this day, feel it was a healing event for me, for him, and for my Dad.