August 27, 2024 • 36 mins
How can a pilgrimage equip us for mission? Come along this week as we meet Father Dan Dorsey, president of the Glenmary Home Missioners. Glenmary establishes a Catholic presence in some of the most impoverished and racially diverse areas of the Southern United States.
In this episode, we talk to Father Dan about Glenmary's recent civil rights pilgrimage, inspired by Bryan Stevenson's book, "Just Mercy." The journey took participants to historically significant places like Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma, and Memphis. We talk about the power of firsthand accounts from those who lived through the civil rights movement and the importance of empathy and unity in building a compassionate society. As we reflect on this unique pilgrimage, we are reminded of the call of the United States Bishops: “We must create opportunities to hear, with open hearts, the tragic stories that are deeply imprinted on the lives of our brothers and sisters, if we are to be moved with empathy to promote justice.”
https://glenmary.org/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joan (00:01):
Welcome to In Via the podcast where we're navigating
the pilgrimage of life.
We are all in via on the wayand we are learning a lot as we
go.
I'm your host, joan Watson.
Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn
more about our Catholic faith.
Along the way, we'll see thatif God seeks to meet us in
(00:21):
Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, healso wants to encounter you
right there in your car, on yourrun or in the middle of your
workday.
On today's episode, I am joinedby Father Dan Dorsey, the
president of the Glenmary HomeMissioners.
We talk about the work of theGlenmary Home Missioners and a
(00:43):
recent pilgrimage that all themen in formation took to civil
rights sites in the South acivil rights pilgrimage.
Well, I am very excited to talkto you today, father Dan, and I
would love to start with youjust talking a little bit about
yourself and tell us a littlebit about who Father Dan Dorsey
is.
Father Dan (01:03):
Well, my name is Father Dan Dorsey.
I've been with the GlenmaryHome Missioners since 1972.
Actually, I graduated fromcollege, from Christian Brothers
University, in 1973 with anaccounting degree.
Thank goodness for myself andfor the whole accounting
industry that I never went into,but anyway, as I began to
(01:27):
really look into my life and towhat I wanted to, do I was in
Memphis and I really liked theSouth and I loved the people of
the South and I was looking forsomething challenging.
So that's why I ended updiscerning with the Glenmary
Home Missioners and it's likethe good old days of going into
a shoe store where you tried onshoes and you found a pair that
(01:48):
really fit.
And so over these years I'vehad a number of different
assignments.
The last five years I've beenin as the president.
Before that I was our novicedirector.
Before that I was eight yearsas president.
Before that I was a pastor inArkansas in southeast Arkansas,
which is really the poor area ofArkansas.
(02:08):
So every day is different.
There's lots of challenges, butI've just enjoyed it.
In fact, I just celebrated my50th anniversary of my first
oath in Glenmary Missionary.
So anyway, it's been quite aride.
I'm still originally from StLouis, missouri.
Most of my family still livesthere full time.
There was five of us growing up.
(02:31):
I was in the middle, as youknow, the forgotten child, and
so I have an older sister, anolder brother myself, a younger
brother and a younger sister, soI've been very blessed with
family and have a closerelationship with all of them.
So other than that, that'sabout all I can think of.
I have studied accounting, I'vestudied theology at Catholic
University, I've studiedspiritual theology at the
(02:54):
Gregorian in Rome, and so I'vehad a variety of experiences
over the years.
It's one of the great thingsabout being in religious life.
You really meet a lot ofdifferent people in a lot of
different circumstances from thewhole spectrum of who people
are.
Joan (03:09):
Yeah, I love it.
I don't think that you can beforgotten, Father.
I have to say you say you'rethe forgotten middle child.
I think anybody who's met you Idon't know whether you're ever
forgotten
Father Dan (03:21):
I'm trying to be more extroverted in my life.
Joan (03:24):
That's your goal.
That's your goal.
Well, could you actually talk alittle bit more about Glenmary
too, Because I think some peopleI have the honor of knowing the
Glenmary home missionersthrough living in Nashville,
Tennessee, but I think, for someof our listeners who maybe
aren't from an area whereGlenmary is active, could you
speak a little bit about themission there?
(03:47):
Yes, so we were started back in1939.
In fact this is our 85thanniversary and our whole
purpose back with our founder,father William Howard Bishop.
He was a diocesan priest fromthe Diocese of Baltimore, and
Washington and Baltimore were inthe same diocese at that point.
But his idea was, and he hadthis concept, he had a map of
the United States and he wassomebody whose idea of mission
(04:11):
just grew and grew and grew.
He was a Dossus of priests thatin the first 10 years he was in
a place called Clarksville,maryland, and it was a tiny.
Now it's one of the, if not thelargest, parish in the whole
Baltimore diocese, but at thattime it was kind of on the
outskirts and so he had thisidea of mission.
And the longer he was a priesthis idea of mission grew to the
(04:34):
point where he looked upon allthe United States and he saw
there was a great mission needthat he asked himself kind of a
simple question.
He said how is it that we saidhe was very mission-minded, so
it was not to be in competitionwith others, but it was simply
to acknowledge and recognizethat what Vatican II did is
we're all called to bemissionary by virtue of our
(04:55):
baptism.
So he thought you know, we sendmissionaries to China, to
Africa, to all over the world.
Yet we have a tremendousmission need right here in the
United States.
So in 1939, he started theGlenmary Home Missionaries.
And we have a singular purposeand that is to go to places
where there has never been anykind of Catholic presence.
(05:17):
We pick out places that arepoor, that are very racially
diverse, that have an economicneed and with few or no
Catholics, and then we go and weestablish the presence of the
church, starting small and thenhopefully one day, maybe 10 or
15 or 20 years later, having achurch large enough,
(05:37):
self-sustaining, that we canturn it back into a diocese and
go on to the next place, nextcounty.
We work by counties and one ofthe important things is we never
stay in a place forever.
You know, we don't go into aplace and just say we're going
to be here for the next 50, 100years.
We go into a place into a county, into a territory, with the
(05:58):
sole purpose of establishing avibrant, a vibrant and viable
community, and then one daygoing and starting another place
.
So that's pretty much our story.
Yeah, it's beautiful and I think for those Catholics who
maybe grew up in especiallymaybe, the Northeast, they can't
even fathom a county not havinga Catholic church.
(06:20):
But you find that in the Southand so often when you all are in
I know that the county that youwere in Tennessee there was no
other Catholic church and youwere going into this place to
establish this church Um, and Ijust love that idea of mission
territory right in our ownbackyard sometimes and to serve
the Catholics right here.
Father Dan (06:39):
One of the things I've always said to people is um
, let's just imagine I grew upin St Louis, missouri, very,
very.
Catholic area, so you know somedays we would usually go to the
same Mass as a family, but ifthere was something going on
we'd say, okay, what Mass are wegoing to go to?
And if we couldn't make it atour parish church, we'd go to
all kinds of churches all around.
(07:00):
You know, you could kind ofchoose exactly what you wanted.
So let's just say you had fouror five kids, like our family,
and you had to drive an hour toget to Mass and the only Mass
was at 8 am.
And what kind of commitmentwould it take to go to Mass
every Sunday?
I mean, it's a whole differentballgame and ballpark when you
(07:22):
have an establishment like that.
And so you know, it is reallyand it's refreshing to start
communities from the verybeginning and to watch them grow
and it's almost, as you see,all the different aspects of the
community taking, you know,kind of like we're taking
responsibility for who we areand what we are.
When I was in Arkansas I saidyou know, someday we're all
(07:44):
going to move on as far as thepriests and brothers that are
here.
If this church is going to beviable and exist, it's going to
be up to you, because we're atthe far end of the diocese, so
you need to make this a vibrant,very vibrant community.
Didn't mean to interrupt youthere.
Joan (08:00):
I love that.
No, no, this is this was.
It's beautiful and it leadsreally into um, our topic today,
where we're going to.
We talk about pilgrimage.
This is a podcast really aboutpilgrimage, and I am really
inspired that you all went on avery particular pilgrimage, a
very special pilgrimage, a veryunique pilgrimage, and to learn,
(08:21):
um, actually how to probably doyour mission better, and I
think sometimes we don't talkabout that aspect of pilgrimage.
The pilgrimage can really equipus for mission, and so you knew
(08:45):
your mission territory.
You know your mission territoryand you went on this pilgrimage
so that you could do yourmission better and learn more
about the people you serve, ifI'm not mistaken.
And so today we are going totalk about this beautiful
pilgrimage you all took as civilrights sites, a civil rights
pilgrimage through the South.
So could you tell us a littlebit about the reasoning behind
this pilgrimage or what led youto plan this incredible
pilgrimage to all these civilrights sites in the South?
Father Dan (09:05):
So I think it would be helpful, joan, just to give
you a little bit of a background.
So I went to school, as Imentioned, in Memphis, tennessee
.
I went to Christian BrothersCollege now it's Christian
Brothers University.
So I played one year ofbasketball and I say that not
because I was really and I'm notbeing humble I was no good, I
was just a walk-on.
And in those days, the firstyear, freshmen could not play
(09:26):
with the sophomores, juniors andseniors, so there were two
separate teams.
So I was a walk-on for thefreshman team.
So there were 10 of us on theteam.
Basically half of us were whiteand half of us were black.
So this is 1969.
And it was still very, veryrough.
Martin Luther King had justbeen assassinated the year
(09:47):
before.
So we as a basketball team andMemphis, if you know geography,
is right on the border ofMississippi.
So as a basketball team wewould take these trips down into
Mississippi to play these othersmall schools.
And I'm telling you, it was arude awakening.
I grew up in an all-whiteneighborhood, a neighborhood
(10:09):
that was basically all Catholicethnic but still all white, and
so you know, it was an awakeningfor me to go into these areas
and to have this with my friendson the basketball team, to some
of the things that we weresubjected to.
So you fast forward.
So I have a niece and my niecegives me books for Christmas.
I think she always wants toeducate me, so she gave me one
(10:31):
of the books she gave me twoyears ago.
It was a book called Just Mercy.
Now many people have probablyseen the movie.
I don't know if you've read thebook.
It's by Bryan Stevenson and hewas a Harvard lawyer that came
down to the South to work on thedeath penalty and those who
were unjustly in prison, ondeath row.
So I read this book and, as myniece, we would read it together
(10:56):
and we would talk about it.
But I read the book and then Ithought I was praying one night
and in my prayer I thought youknow, I, we really need to do a
pilgrimage.
I, we really need to do apilgrimage and I, I the whole
concept of pilgrimage, which isvery Catholic.
It's the idea that you walk thejourney and that it's not just
simply, um, like going on asightseeing tour.
It's, it's founded and it'sbased in faith and it's based on
(11:21):
spirituality and it's based, inour case, it was based on our
mission call but Jesus Christand who he is.
And then I came to kind of this, to this realization that you
know, we're all pilgrims and ifyou think about what we just
heard on Sunday about the man inthe desert, we're all in this
desert and we're walking aspilgrims toward the promised
(11:42):
land and our time here on earthwill end.
So I thought, as much as I thinkI know about civil rights, as
much as I think that we all knowwho are older about civil
rights, we can always learn,we're always going to be and I
am always going to be a pilgrim,and so I especially wanted to
get our guys in formation.
We have guys whose country oforigin is outside of the United
(12:05):
States.
But the more I thought about itand prayed about it.
I thought it's for a lot of us,all of us.
There's not a single personthat I know, myself included,
who cannot learn and growspiritually on something like
this.
So our head of justice, peaceand integrity of creation, polly
Duncan Collum, had very deeproots in the South.
(12:27):
Her husband is from Greenwood,mississippi, and so she and I I
I approached her with the idea.
I said let's do something,let's get a bus and let's get
let's about 31 of us and we'regoing to go to some significant
civil rights places.
And she knew a lot of thepeople and so it took two years
in the planning.
I would like to take a lot ofcredit, but I could take
(12:49):
probably about 25 credit creditfor planning, planning like
something like this.
I had no idea what we weregetting into in the sense of
just all the details.
I'm more of a big pictureperson and the details at times
were just very, very.
It takes a lot.
You would think somebody inaccounting would be really like
details.
Well, I never did like details,thank God, as I said, that I
(13:12):
didn't take those.
So anyway, it took two yearsand this past May we went and I
just will hold up this book.
So we went to these.
I sent Hugh Joe and a copy ofthe book and it really is just
reading through it it was.
We started basically at 8.30 inthe morning and went to about
8.30 or 9 o'clock at night.
I was exhausted by the end ofthe six days.
(13:36):
We went to some of the.
We started in Birmingham, thenwe went to Montgomery, then we
went to Selma, then we went toCanton, mississippi, we went to
Greenwood Mississippi, we wentto Jackson Mississippi and we
ended up in Memphis, Tennessee.
(13:59):
And it was emotionally justlike.
There's these interpretivemuseums in Montgomery.
One is just from enslavement toincarceration.
The second one is about all thelynchings, the thousands of
lynchings, and the third one isthe sculpture part and you're
just drawn into some of this andyou learn the history and you
(14:21):
relearn, but you're again from aprofoundly spiritual aspect,
you're drawn into and thequestion that really haunted me,
as I more as we went along, iswhy do I, why do all of us, why
do we hate so much?
What is it in our human beingthat we can take innocent people
?
So you visit the house ofMedgar Evers in Jackson
(14:42):
Mississippi, a very simple housewhere somebody waited all day
and then shot him, assassinatedhim in front of his family.
Then you take a guy like EmmettTill, who is a young man, 15
years old, who goes from Chicagoto visit his family in
Mississippi, apparently, wasaccused of looking at a white
woman, was brought out, wasbeaten, was tortured and then
(15:06):
was killed.
And then you take, obviously,dr King, who's murdered at the
Lorraine Hotel.
So it was haunting, it wasdeeply spiritual.
For me personally it was justengaging to see.
So during the day we usuallyvisited these interpretive
museums.
At night we met with differentcommunity organizations.
(15:28):
There was a Franciscan groupthat started a mission the
Franciscans sisters, brothersand priests in Greenwood,
mississippi, at the height ofthe Civil Rights Movement.
We met with a group there.
The Franciscans have sincemoved on, but there was a lay
group that still is there, thatstill continues and the poverty
(15:49):
and the issues are still veryprevalent.
We met with a communityorganizing group in Memphis
excuse me in Jackson Mississippi.
We met with a Catholiccommunity in Montgomery, the
Resurrection Catholic community,and we just learned in the
evenings about firsthand frompeople who were there, people
(16:11):
who experienced it, all of themAfrican Americans.
I just tried to listen and tryto just be open and I think
that's one of the biggest thingsto learn is you just listen,
listen, listen.
And you know you try not tomake any judgments that all of
us are prone to make, but, as Isaid for me personally, by the
(16:32):
end of the six days I wasemotionally drained.
It was just so powerful to do sofrom a spirituality of just the
love of Jesus Christ.
And how all of us, no matterwho we are.
We're made in the image andlikeness of our Father in heaven
.
So why is it that there's theseblocks, these blindness, that
(16:53):
we hate each other on some verybasic reasons that, at the end
of the day, really don't make awhole lot of difference?
So, anyway, that was the wholeidea behind, and the history
behind, the pilgrimage.
It was powerful.
It was powerful From across theboard, everybody.
I was kind of amazed because Iwas worried about some of the
(17:14):
details because I had to be oneof the organizers.
People were completelycooperative, they were engaged.
Some of the quotes we had alongthe way it was.
Just nobody is free until weare all free.
(17:34):
And it was funny because, withthe upcoming convention of the
Democrats, there was a groupfrom Jackson, that actually
tried.
Democrats who tried to get intothe convention in 1968 were
denied.
You know again it's all this howdo we see things through our
own lens and how do we try tosee things through the lens of
(17:58):
Jesus Christ and all our sistersand brothers?
And, as I said, I came away, Iwas deeply moved and, at the end
of the day, the one thing Ialways knew is I am a pilgrim
today and tomorrow.
I won't be no longer be apilgrim until the day I am in
the kingdom of God.
Joan (18:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful, father and just like
thinking about not looking atthese things just as something
that other people did or fromfar away or that I'm not capable
of, but like really enteringinto it spiritually, say how can
I love today, how can I likewho do I hate today, Like how,
what I have to look at my ownlife and say how can I be more
(18:39):
like Jesus Christ, rather thanjust looking at this as
something that happened once inhistory and we move on.
But what's the spiritual lessonfor me and how am I a pilgrim
and how am I a sinner and how doI continue to try to love?
I think, because I think it canbe tempting just to look at all
this as history and we knowit's not.
We know it's not.
We know that today we stillhave to learn and we have to
(18:59):
grow and that we're stillpilgrims.
I'm interested how often youwere able to.
Father Dan (19:07):
But I think you know , one of the significant reasons
for us is that where we work inthe South, in rural areas, is
and let's just for instance,where I worked in Arkansas, half
the population was white andhalf was African American.
So it was , its um, and theissues, One of the things that
sat with me most in my nineyears in Arkansas was just about
every conversation I had withsomebody, race came in as an
(19:34):
issue, every single conversation.
And you know I'm thinking howcan we continue to be these
people and how how do I?
How am I converted my coin onthe uh, how am I going to be
more of an example of an apostleand an ambassador of who Christ
is?
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
Joan (19:55):
Yeah, no, no.
I think one thing that reallystruck me about the pilgrimage
itinerary was how often you wereable to meet with people and
with relatives, that this isn'tjust something for museums, but
that you, as you mentioned, wereable to really listen.
And what was it like to meetwith relatives and people who
(20:18):
actually either experiencedthese things or knew people who
had experienced these things?
Father Dan (20:22):
Well, first of all, the husband, danny, of our
leader of JPEC, justice, peaceand Integrity of Creation.
Her husband grew up inGreenwood, mississippi, and so
at his age it's right around myage he's a little bit older, I
believe but so he grew up in themidst of all this chaos and all
this turmoil and was reallydeeply touched and so he knew a
(20:45):
lot of these people.
So he could, even as a whiteperson, as someone who grew up
in the South, as a Southerner,could kind of relate his
experience.
But we, most of the people, as Isaid, that we engaged in in the
evenings, almost all of themwere African Americans who were
older who had not onlyexperienced it but continued to
experience what it was, and so Ithink the key thing for us
(21:08):
always was just to sit and tolisten to them and to try to
understand not only where theywere, what happened, but what is
still in our own world, in ourown life.
How can we make it better?
How can we become betterapostles and ambassadors?
So that was an important partand even though by the end of
(21:29):
the day, by 830 or 9 o'clock atnight, you just wanted to go to
the hotel, go to bed, because itwas.
It was exhausting.
And again, not only physicallyexhausting but emotionally, just
because you saw the lynchingmuseum in montgomery, for
example.
I mean, there's thousands uponthousands of people who are
lynched and most people willnever know one of the things
(21:51):
that really struck me that I hadnever even you think again, you
know a person my age.
You would never think that halfwould.
I would think that I would havethought about this before, and
it's this.
It really struck me on on thispilgrimage and I really think
that a lot of these were justgraces within my life is.
The reality was that whenpeople were enslaved, let's
(22:17):
imagine there was a family likemy family that I grew up with
others, a mom and dad and fivechildren.
Well, oftentimes, if not allthe times, once somebody got to
be my age, as far as 15, 13, 12,families were split up.
They were sold off.
So you can imagine each of thebrothers and sisters, the
(22:37):
husbands and wives they were allsold off.
So you have now seven peopleall going to different places,
probably going to differentstates, never again to have any
contact with any of yoursiblings or your parents or your
grandparents or your uncles oryour aunts, to be kind of like
that thing that just floats outthere and what an identity.
What a loss of identity.
(22:58):
For some reason, that neverreally impacted me like it did
on this pilgrimage.
I thought, man, who would I beas a human being if I never knew
who my mom and dad was and are,I was separated from them and I
didn't know what happened tothem, or my brothers and sisters
, who are the best gifts in mylife right now?
It's a who would I be?
(23:19):
How would I have reacted, howwould I have turned out?
I'm?
You know that that's just oneof the many um things that
happened with regards to slavery, enslavement, it was, it was,
uh, things that you know, mostof us have never even thought
about.
You just think well, there'ssomebody in shackles.
Well, it's much more profound,and also the economic impact of
(23:40):
that.
So, anyway, it was for me, 73years old, and it was an
eye-opening experience,spiritually, profoundly, and
everything I'd ever hoped for ona pilgrimage happened to me
personally and I think ithappened to the participants.
Joan (24:01):
I was going to ask you about the other participants and
the fact that this really waspart of you know.
You saw it as part of theformation for those in formation
for Glenmary Home Missioners.
How do you think it impactedthat, like the formation going
forward, those in formation tohave these experiences?
If it impacted you, how do youthink it impacted others?
Father Dan (24:20):
Yeah, I think it impacted them also profoundly
and I'm going.
You know it's hard to speak forsomebody else, but one of our
people in communicationsinterviewed them and you know I
talked to the people.
That was another thing that wasa byproduct that I never
thought about.
We're on a bus for six daystogether.
We're eating our meals together, we're doing this together.
We're doing this together, so itreally created a deeper bond, a
(24:44):
deeper sense of community, andI think it had tremendous, as
one of the people said to me youknow, he's from Kenya.
We learned about this in schoolwhen we were growing up in
Kenya, but we never, ever hadwhat this?
really was like and that was oneof the things that on this
pilgrimage that you reallyexperienced, was as much as you
(25:05):
could, you really began tounderstand what this was like.
So I think it had to varyingdegrees, but I think it had a
tremendous and profound effect.
I would like to do this again,to open it up to a larger group
and also maybe to make it everytwo years for every member who
is in our formation program,because isn't that part of the
(25:28):
formation that we learn?
I remember when I was studyingin Italy, one of our professors
said it's not a matter oflearning another language, it's
a matter of learning thelanguage of an other.
So learning the language ofanother person, so going on
pilgrimage, you learn thelanguage of what it was like,
(25:50):
what it's still like and whothese people are and how they
can speak to us even today.
So I think it had a greatimpact.
Again, I, I I don't know howmuch you can measure that or
what way you can measure it, butI I really feel like, just with
the guys, they were allcompletely cooperative and it
was not only our men information, we had other people,
(26:11):
we had a number of our coworkers.
I liked the we were a bus ofwhites, blacks and browns, and
people from Mexico, people fromKenya, uganda and United States,
different countries of originand just seeing us as a group.
To me, that's a great image ofwhat we're called to be.
(26:33):
We're brothers and sisters,we're all one, and so it was
just a tremendous gift.
(27:16):
And we did so.
Again, I want to emphasize itwas a spiritual.
We began, we wereEucharist-centered, we began
each day with prayer, and so weprayed throughout the whole
thing, the whole days, and so itwas always calling us back to
(27:36):
in one sense, which is verysignificant it makes a
difference between that and justgoing on a tour, but this is
always go back to the root ofour faith.
Jesus christ is why we're here.
Jesus christ is what we'reabout.
Jesus christ is whom we are, weneed to learn about and to be
open our hearts to.
(27:57):
And so, to begin with eucharist, to begin with prayer was
always an important way oftrying to ask the Holy Spirit
really to come down upon us andall the hardness of heart, our
eyes, our ears to you know thesePsalms they have eyes but they
do not see.
They have ears but they do nothear to really ask the Holy
(28:19):
Spirit to change us personallythat we might have those eyes,
ears and have the hearts thatreally are open to the message
that Jesus has for us.
Joan (28:31):
Amen, yeah, it's only possible with him.
It's only possible.
Could you speak a little bitabout Sister Thea Bowman For
those who might not know herstory and that she's up for
canonization?
Could you just give us a littlesnippet about Sister and her
work and how you encountered herin this pilgrimage?
Father Dan (28:52):
So we went to a place called Canton, mississippi
, and we visited Sister Thea'shome there.
She was a convert to theCatholic faith and I believe I
can't off the top of my headremember I think it was that she
joined a Franciscan group thatwas out of Wisconsin and it was
all white so and she gave agreat talk to the, to the USCCB,
(29:18):
back before her death I thinkit was about a year before her
death and she was a powerful,powerful speaker and just again,
you know, calling people,recalling them about what we are
as followers of Jesus Christ,especially with the sense of the
race issues that oftentimes arepart of our lives.
(29:40):
So we, just we, we went there,we prayed and we saw her house.
Kent, mississippi, is just asmall little town and all those
towns are pretty small, you know, as far as, and a lot of
poverty and you know you wonderwhat's ever going to happen.
One of the things we know inGlenmary, the rural areas where
we are working pretty much, aredying and they're being emptied,
(30:05):
emptied out, so place I can't.
You just wonder what the futureof a city like that is.
But it wasn't.
It was a spiritual experiencejust to go to her house, just to
pray and just to to learn moreabout her.
But we, we watched, uh, her, uh, her address to the usccb,
which was very good.
She One of the funny things wasnot really funny, but it was.
(30:28):
She had the bishops allstanding and holding.
You know how they do.
We shall overcome and they wereall kind of going back and
forth in this video.
We shall overcome and we shallovercome sin, we shall overcome
racism, we shall overcome allthings that define us, so she's
an inspiration.
Joan (30:50):
Yeah.
Father Dan (30:51):
Yeah.
Joan (30:51):
And in the show notes I'll put links so people can find
out more about her as we wrap upthe episode.
Father, do you have any wordsfor us about what we can do,
what you would recommend usdoing?
I think sometimes, in the faceof racism, we can do what you
would recommend us doing.
I think sometimes, in the faceof racism, in the face of hate,
we can feel powerless, we canfeel like there's nothing I can
(31:12):
do and so, coming off thispilgrimage, what would you
recommend that we do, or whatwould you encourage us to do,
especially when we get overcomewith maybe just feeling
powerless in the face of hate?
Father Dan (31:30):
So so I actually, joan, I am humbled by your, your
question, because I reallydon't know.
In one sentence I would sayit's easy to preach the sermons.
It's much more difficult andchallenging to live the sermons.
And you know?
and again, the question thatburned inside of me and it grew
louder and louder is why do wehate?
(31:52):
Why is it?
And I think the first thing isto even examine our own lives of
how oftentimes I, making an Istatement, I judge people and
whether it's regard to no matterwhat it is and do.
I try to see each person as theimage and likeness of the
(32:14):
creator, of our God, our fatherin heaven.
So I think that, and also torealize that different people
are going to see thingsdifferently and I may not always
agree with them and I don'thave to agree with them, but you
know, just I'll give you anexample.
It really was so.
(32:34):
Obviously, as we wrap up here,I'm sorry if I'm going a little
bit longer, but one of thethings when I was a novice
director back between 2011 and2019, a couple of our guys were
from Kenya, so their skin isblack.
So that was one of the timeswhen all this racial stuff was
(32:55):
especially heightened and therewas stuff going on and I would
lie awake at night and think youknow what happens if I'm, let's
just say, eric get pulled over,and I don't know how to react
and you know, I get out of mycar.
The police officer doesn'tunderstand what I'm doing, I
don't understand what culturallyI'm supposed to do and
(33:16):
something happens bad.
So I, I, I just I wrestled withthat because I thought, you
know, just sometimes we've hadthis happen to our admissions.
You know, because of your skincolor that's who you are and of
course it happens everywhere.
So I went to the local police Isaid you know, here I am, can
you just sit down with our guysand just tell them?
(33:38):
if you ever get stopped by apolice officer.
Here's what you do.
Here's step one, step two, stepthree.
And they were really good andwe did that.
Step two, step three, and theywere really good and we did that
, and it was so positive.
You know it's so culturally, sohow do I interact with it and
how do I with people?
(33:59):
So I just think and praying toGod to open my heart, to my very
eyes and ears.
But also as I said at the veryend of the pilgrimage, to come
to the realization that I am apilgrim.
I don't care if you're nineyears old, if you're ninet years
old, if you're the mostenlightened, if you're the least
(34:21):
enlightened, we are pilgrims aspeople of faith.
We are pilgrims as people o.
We are pilgrims and ourpilgrimage is based on not what
we are, but on who Jesus Christis and how we're called to live
like that.
And each day when I get up, Ican learn, I can be open and I
can learn and walk more in theway of Jesus Christ and our
(34:44):
Father in heaven.
So that's the advice I wouldgive.
But I am humbled because afterthe end of the six days I knew
one thing for sure, and that wasI had a lot to learn and to go
and to change in my own life.
Joan (35:01):
Well, I think that's a great lesson of pilgrimage.
I think it's a mark of a greatpilgrimage if we come away from
it changed, but especially justwanting to change and wanting to
grow and wanting to be morelike Jesus.
I think that's a successfulpilgrimage.
Father Dan (35:18):
Yeah, yeah.
Joan (35:20):
Well, thank you, father, I'm going to put in the show
notes um a lot of the links tothe places that you visited so
that people can check theseplaces out for themselves.
And I'm really honored and Ithink I'm just really inspired.
I should say you're approachingthese places in the spiritual
way that it was a pilgrimage andyou began with prayer and you,
(35:40):
you know, centered it in Christ.
That we're approaching thesehistorical places, but in the
spirit of Christ, I think isreally important.
So I'm going to share some ofthose places with our listeners
too,
Father Dan (35:54):
thank you, very much Thank you for having me, Joan.
Joan (35:58):
Yeah, it was great.
Thank you, Father and listeners.
Please share this episode withsomebody who maybe just needs to
hear this and maybe this wouldbe food for thought for them, or
they maybe just be interestedin hearing this pilgrimage
approach to this important timein our country's history that we
can't ignore and that we needto always grow from and to
(36:19):
figure out how we can be morelike Jesus Christ.
So please share this episodeand continue to tune in to In Vi
a to find out more about thepilgrimage of life.
Thanks so much, Father.
Thanks, Joan, God bless.
Welcome to In Via the podcast where we're navigating
the pilgrimage of life.
We are all in via on the wayand we are learning a lot as we
go.
I'm your host, joan Watson.
Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn
more about our Catholic faith.
Along the way, we'll see thatif God seeks to meet us in
(00:21):
Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, healso wants to encounter you
right there in your car, on yourrun or in the middle of your
workday.
On today's episode, I am joinedby Father Dan Dorsey, the
president of the Glenmary HomeMissioners.
We talk about the work of theGlenmary Home Missioners and a
(00:43):
recent pilgrimage that all themen in formation took to civil
rights sites in the South acivil rights pilgrimage.
Well, I am very excited to talkto you today, father Dan, and I
would love to start with youjust talking a little bit about
yourself and tell us a littlebit about who Father Dan Dorsey
is.
Father Dan (01:03):
Well, my name is Father Dan Dorsey.
I've been with the GlenmaryHome Missioners since 1972.
Actually, I graduated fromcollege, from Christian Brothers
University, in 1973 with anaccounting degree.
Thank goodness for myself andfor the whole accounting
industry that I never went into,but anyway, as I began to
(01:27):
really look into my life and towhat I wanted to, do I was in
Memphis and I really liked theSouth and I loved the people of
the South and I was looking forsomething challenging.
So that's why I ended updiscerning with the Glenmary
Home Missioners and it's likethe good old days of going into
a shoe store where you tried onshoes and you found a pair that
(01:48):
really fit.
And so over these years I'vehad a number of different
assignments.
The last five years I've beenin as the president.
Before that I was our novicedirector.
Before that I was eight yearsas president.
Before that I was a pastor inArkansas in southeast Arkansas,
which is really the poor area ofArkansas.
(02:08):
So every day is different.
There's lots of challenges, butI've just enjoyed it.
In fact, I just celebrated my50th anniversary of my first
oath in Glenmary Missionary.
So anyway, it's been quite aride.
I'm still originally from StLouis, missouri.
Most of my family still livesthere full time.
There was five of us growing up.
(02:31):
I was in the middle, as youknow, the forgotten child, and
so I have an older sister, anolder brother myself, a younger
brother and a younger sister, soI've been very blessed with
family and have a closerelationship with all of them.
So other than that, that'sabout all I can think of.
I have studied accounting, I'vestudied theology at Catholic
University, I've studiedspiritual theology at the
(02:54):
Gregorian in Rome, and so I'vehad a variety of experiences
over the years.
It's one of the great thingsabout being in religious life.
You really meet a lot ofdifferent people in a lot of
different circumstances from thewhole spectrum of who people
are.
Joan (03:09):
Yeah, I love it.
I don't think that you can beforgotten, Father.
I have to say you say you'rethe forgotten middle child.
I think anybody who's met you Idon't know whether you're ever
forgotten
Father Dan (03:21):
I'm trying to be more extroverted in my life.
Joan (03:24):
That's your goal.
That's your goal.
Well, could you actually talk alittle bit more about Glenmary
too, Because I think some peopleI have the honor of knowing the
Glenmary home missionersthrough living in Nashville,
Tennessee, but I think, for someof our listeners who maybe
aren't from an area whereGlenmary is active, could you
speak a little bit about themission there?
(03:47):
Yes, so we were started back in1939.
In fact this is our 85thanniversary and our whole
purpose back with our founder,father William Howard Bishop.
He was a diocesan priest fromthe Diocese of Baltimore, and
Washington and Baltimore were inthe same diocese at that point.
But his idea was, and he hadthis concept, he had a map of
the United States and he wassomebody whose idea of mission
(04:11):
just grew and grew and grew.
He was a Dossus of priests thatin the first 10 years he was in
a place called Clarksville,maryland, and it was a tiny.
Now it's one of the, if not thelargest, parish in the whole
Baltimore diocese, but at thattime it was kind of on the
outskirts and so he had thisidea of mission.
And the longer he was a priesthis idea of mission grew to the
(04:34):
point where he looked upon allthe United States and he saw
there was a great mission needthat he asked himself kind of a
simple question.
He said how is it that we saidhe was very mission-minded, so
it was not to be in competitionwith others, but it was simply
to acknowledge and recognizethat what Vatican II did is
we're all called to bemissionary by virtue of our
(04:55):
baptism.
So he thought you know, we sendmissionaries to China, to
Africa, to all over the world.
Yet we have a tremendousmission need right here in the
United States.
So in 1939, he started theGlenmary Home Missionaries.
And we have a singular purposeand that is to go to places
where there has never been anykind of Catholic presence.
(05:17):
We pick out places that arepoor, that are very racially
diverse, that have an economicneed and with few or no
Catholics, and then we go and weestablish the presence of the
church, starting small and thenhopefully one day, maybe 10 or
15 or 20 years later, having achurch large enough,
(05:37):
self-sustaining, that we canturn it back into a diocese and
go on to the next place, nextcounty.
We work by counties and one ofthe important things is we never
stay in a place forever.
You know, we don't go into aplace and just say we're going
to be here for the next 50, 100years.
We go into a place into a county, into a territory, with the
(05:58):
sole purpose of establishing avibrant, a vibrant and viable
community, and then one daygoing and starting another place
.
So that's pretty much our story.
Yeah, it's beautiful and I think for those Catholics who
maybe grew up in especiallymaybe, the Northeast, they can't
even fathom a county not havinga Catholic church.
(06:20):
But you find that in the Southand so often when you all are in
I know that the county that youwere in Tennessee there was no
other Catholic church and youwere going into this place to
establish this church Um, and Ijust love that idea of mission
territory right in our ownbackyard sometimes and to serve
the Catholics right here.
Father Dan (06:39):
One of the things I've always said to people is um
, let's just imagine I grew upin St Louis, missouri, very,
very.
Catholic area, so you know somedays we would usually go to the
same Mass as a family, but ifthere was something going on
we'd say, okay, what Mass are wegoing to go to?
And if we couldn't make it atour parish church, we'd go to
all kinds of churches all around.
(07:00):
You know, you could kind ofchoose exactly what you wanted.
So let's just say you had fouror five kids, like our family,
and you had to drive an hour toget to Mass and the only Mass
was at 8 am.
And what kind of commitmentwould it take to go to Mass
every Sunday?
I mean, it's a whole differentballgame and ballpark when you
(07:22):
have an establishment like that.
And so you know, it is reallyand it's refreshing to start
communities from the verybeginning and to watch them grow
and it's almost, as you see,all the different aspects of the
community taking, you know,kind of like we're taking
responsibility for who we areand what we are.
When I was in Arkansas I saidyou know, someday we're all
(07:44):
going to move on as far as thepriests and brothers that are
here.
If this church is going to beviable and exist, it's going to
be up to you, because we're atthe far end of the diocese, so
you need to make this a vibrant,very vibrant community.
Didn't mean to interrupt youthere.
Joan (08:00):
I love that.
No, no, this is this was.
It's beautiful and it leadsreally into um, our topic today,
where we're going to.
We talk about pilgrimage.
This is a podcast really aboutpilgrimage, and I am really
inspired that you all went on avery particular pilgrimage, a
very special pilgrimage, a veryunique pilgrimage, and to learn,
(08:21):
um, actually how to probably doyour mission better, and I
think sometimes we don't talkabout that aspect of pilgrimage.
The pilgrimage can really equipus for mission, and so you knew
(08:45):
your mission territory.
You know your mission territoryand you went on this pilgrimage
so that you could do yourmission better and learn more
about the people you serve, ifI'm not mistaken.
And so today we are going totalk about this beautiful
pilgrimage you all took as civilrights sites, a civil rights
pilgrimage through the South.
So could you tell us a littlebit about the reasoning behind
this pilgrimage or what led youto plan this incredible
pilgrimage to all these civilrights sites in the South?
Father Dan (09:05):
So I think it would be helpful, joan, just to give
you a little bit of a background.
So I went to school, as Imentioned, in Memphis, tennessee
.
I went to Christian BrothersCollege now it's Christian
Brothers University.
So I played one year ofbasketball and I say that not
because I was really and I'm notbeing humble I was no good, I
was just a walk-on.
And in those days, the firstyear, freshmen could not play
(09:26):
with the sophomores, juniors andseniors, so there were two
separate teams.
So I was a walk-on for thefreshman team.
So there were 10 of us on theteam.
Basically half of us were whiteand half of us were black.
So this is 1969.
And it was still very, veryrough.
Martin Luther King had justbeen assassinated the year
(09:47):
before.
So we as a basketball team andMemphis, if you know geography,
is right on the border ofMississippi.
So as a basketball team wewould take these trips down into
Mississippi to play these othersmall schools.
And I'm telling you, it was arude awakening.
I grew up in an all-whiteneighborhood, a neighborhood
(10:09):
that was basically all Catholicethnic but still all white, and
so you know, it was an awakeningfor me to go into these areas
and to have this with my friendson the basketball team, to some
of the things that we weresubjected to.
So you fast forward.
So I have a niece and my niecegives me books for Christmas.
I think she always wants toeducate me, so she gave me one
(10:31):
of the books she gave me twoyears ago.
It was a book called Just Mercy.
Now many people have probablyseen the movie.
I don't know if you've read thebook.
It's by Bryan Stevenson and hewas a Harvard lawyer that came
down to the South to work on thedeath penalty and those who
were unjustly in prison, ondeath row.
So I read this book and, as myniece, we would read it together
(10:56):
and we would talk about it.
But I read the book and then Ithought I was praying one night
and in my prayer I thought youknow, I, we really need to do a
pilgrimage.
I, we really need to do apilgrimage and I, I the whole
concept of pilgrimage, which isvery Catholic.
It's the idea that you walk thejourney and that it's not just
simply, um, like going on asightseeing tour.
It's, it's founded and it'sbased in faith and it's based on
(11:21):
spirituality and it's based, inour case, it was based on our
mission call but Jesus Christand who he is.
And then I came to kind of this, to this realization that you
know, we're all pilgrims and ifyou think about what we just
heard on Sunday about the man inthe desert, we're all in this
desert and we're walking aspilgrims toward the promised
(11:42):
land and our time here on earthwill end.
So I thought, as much as I thinkI know about civil rights, as
much as I think that we all knowwho are older about civil
rights, we can always learn,we're always going to be and I
am always going to be a pilgrim,and so I especially wanted to
get our guys in formation.
We have guys whose country oforigin is outside of the United
(12:05):
States.
But the more I thought about itand prayed about it.
I thought it's for a lot of us,all of us.
There's not a single personthat I know, myself included,
who cannot learn and growspiritually on something like
this.
So our head of justice, peaceand integrity of creation, polly
Duncan Collum, had very deeproots in the South.
(12:27):
Her husband is from Greenwood,mississippi, and so she and I I
I approached her with the idea.
I said let's do something,let's get a bus and let's get
let's about 31 of us and we'regoing to go to some significant
civil rights places.
And she knew a lot of thepeople and so it took two years
in the planning.
I would like to take a lot ofcredit, but I could take
(12:49):
probably about 25 credit creditfor planning, planning like
something like this.
I had no idea what we weregetting into in the sense of
just all the details.
I'm more of a big pictureperson and the details at times
were just very, very.
It takes a lot.
You would think somebody inaccounting would be really like
details.
Well, I never did like details,thank God, as I said, that I
(13:12):
didn't take those.
So anyway, it took two yearsand this past May we went and I
just will hold up this book.
So we went to these.
I sent Hugh Joe and a copy ofthe book and it really is just
reading through it it was.
We started basically at 8.30 inthe morning and went to about
8.30 or 9 o'clock at night.
I was exhausted by the end ofthe six days.
(13:36):
We went to some of the.
We started in Birmingham, thenwe went to Montgomery, then we
went to Selma, then we went toCanton, mississippi, we went to
Greenwood Mississippi, we wentto Jackson Mississippi and we
ended up in Memphis, Tennessee.
(13:59):
And it was emotionally justlike.
There's these interpretivemuseums in Montgomery.
One is just from enslavement toincarceration.
The second one is about all thelynchings, the thousands of
lynchings, and the third one isthe sculpture part and you're
just drawn into some of this andyou learn the history and you
(14:21):
relearn, but you're again from aprofoundly spiritual aspect,
you're drawn into and thequestion that really haunted me,
as I more as we went along, iswhy do I, why do all of us, why
do we hate so much?
What is it in our human beingthat we can take innocent people
?
So you visit the house ofMedgar Evers in Jackson
(14:42):
Mississippi, a very simple housewhere somebody waited all day
and then shot him, assassinatedhim in front of his family.
Then you take a guy like EmmettTill, who is a young man, 15
years old, who goes from Chicagoto visit his family in
Mississippi, apparently, wasaccused of looking at a white
woman, was brought out, wasbeaten, was tortured and then
(15:06):
was killed.
And then you take, obviously,dr King, who's murdered at the
Lorraine Hotel.
So it was haunting, it wasdeeply spiritual.
For me personally it was justengaging to see.
So during the day we usuallyvisited these interpretive
museums.
At night we met with differentcommunity organizations.
(15:28):
There was a Franciscan groupthat started a mission the
Franciscans sisters, brothersand priests in Greenwood,
mississippi, at the height ofthe Civil Rights Movement.
We met with a group there.
The Franciscans have sincemoved on, but there was a lay
group that still is there, thatstill continues and the poverty
(15:49):
and the issues are still veryprevalent.
We met with a communityorganizing group in Memphis
excuse me in Jackson Mississippi.
We met with a Catholiccommunity in Montgomery, the
Resurrection Catholic community,and we just learned in the
evenings about firsthand frompeople who were there, people
(16:11):
who experienced it, all of themAfrican Americans.
I just tried to listen and tryto just be open and I think
that's one of the biggest thingsto learn is you just listen,
listen, listen.
And you know you try not tomake any judgments that all of
us are prone to make, but, as Isaid for me personally, by the
(16:32):
end of the six days I wasemotionally drained.
It was just so powerful to do sofrom a spirituality of just the
love of Jesus Christ.
And how all of us, no matterwho we are.
We're made in the image andlikeness of our Father in heaven
.
So why is it that there's theseblocks, these blindness, that
(16:53):
we hate each other on some verybasic reasons that, at the end
of the day, really don't make awhole lot of difference?
So, anyway, that was the wholeidea behind, and the history
behind, the pilgrimage.
It was powerful.
It was powerful From across theboard, everybody.
I was kind of amazed because Iwas worried about some of the
(17:14):
details because I had to be oneof the organizers.
People were completelycooperative, they were engaged.
Some of the quotes we had alongthe way it was.
Just nobody is free until weare all free.
(17:34):
And it was funny because, withthe upcoming convention of the
Democrats, there was a groupfrom Jackson, that actually
tried.
Democrats who tried to get intothe convention in 1968 were
denied.
You know again it's all this howdo we see things through our
own lens and how do we try tosee things through the lens of
(17:58):
Jesus Christ and all our sistersand brothers?
And, as I said, I came away, Iwas deeply moved and, at the end
of the day, the one thing Ialways knew is I am a pilgrim
today and tomorrow.
I won't be no longer be apilgrim until the day I am in
the kingdom of God.
Joan (18:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful, father and just like
thinking about not looking atthese things just as something
that other people did or fromfar away or that I'm not capable
of, but like really enteringinto it spiritually, say how can
I love today, how can I likewho do I hate today, Like how,
what I have to look at my ownlife and say how can I be more
(18:39):
like Jesus Christ, rather thanjust looking at this as
something that happened once inhistory and we move on.
But what's the spiritual lessonfor me and how am I a pilgrim
and how am I a sinner and how doI continue to try to love?
I think, because I think it canbe tempting just to look at all
this as history and we knowit's not.
We know it's not.
We know that today we stillhave to learn and we have to
(18:59):
grow and that we're stillpilgrims.
I'm interested how often youwere able to.
Father Dan (19:07):
But I think you know , one of the significant reasons
for us is that where we work inthe South, in rural areas, is
and let's just for instance,where I worked in Arkansas, half
the population was white andhalf was African American.
So it was , its um, and theissues, One of the things that
sat with me most in my nineyears in Arkansas was just about
every conversation I had withsomebody, race came in as an
(19:34):
issue, every single conversation.
And you know I'm thinking howcan we continue to be these
people and how how do I?
How am I converted my coin onthe uh, how am I going to be
more of an example of an apostleand an ambassador of who Christ
is?
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
Joan (19:55):
Yeah, no, no.
I think one thing that reallystruck me about the pilgrimage
itinerary was how often you wereable to meet with people and
with relatives, that this isn'tjust something for museums, but
that you, as you mentioned, wereable to really listen.
And what was it like to meetwith relatives and people who
(20:18):
actually either experiencedthese things or knew people who
had experienced these things?
Father Dan (20:22):
Well, first of all, the husband, danny, of our
leader of JPEC, justice, peaceand Integrity of Creation.
Her husband grew up inGreenwood, mississippi, and so
at his age it's right around myage he's a little bit older, I
believe but so he grew up in themidst of all this chaos and all
this turmoil and was reallydeeply touched and so he knew a
(20:45):
lot of these people.
So he could, even as a whiteperson, as someone who grew up
in the South, as a Southerner,could kind of relate his
experience.
But we, most of the people, as Isaid, that we engaged in in the
evenings, almost all of themwere African Americans who were
older who had not onlyexperienced it but continued to
experience what it was, and so Ithink the key thing for us
(21:08):
always was just to sit and tolisten to them and to try to
understand not only where theywere, what happened, but what is
still in our own world, in ourown life.
How can we make it better?
How can we become betterapostles and ambassadors?
So that was an important partand even though by the end of
(21:29):
the day, by 830 or 9 o'clock atnight, you just wanted to go to
the hotel, go to bed, because itwas.
It was exhausting.
And again, not only physicallyexhausting but emotionally, just
because you saw the lynchingmuseum in montgomery, for
example.
I mean, there's thousands uponthousands of people who are
lynched and most people willnever know one of the things
(21:51):
that really struck me that I hadnever even you think again, you
know a person my age.
You would never think that halfwould.
I would think that I would havethought about this before, and
it's this.
It really struck me on on thispilgrimage and I really think
that a lot of these were justgraces within my life is.
The reality was that whenpeople were enslaved, let's
(22:17):
imagine there was a family likemy family that I grew up with
others, a mom and dad and fivechildren.
Well, oftentimes, if not allthe times, once somebody got to
be my age, as far as 15, 13, 12,families were split up.
They were sold off.
So you can imagine each of thebrothers and sisters, the
(22:37):
husbands and wives they were allsold off.
So you have now seven peopleall going to different places,
probably going to differentstates, never again to have any
contact with any of yoursiblings or your parents or your
grandparents or your uncles oryour aunts, to be kind of like
that thing that just floats outthere and what an identity.
What a loss of identity.
(22:58):
For some reason, that neverreally impacted me like it did
on this pilgrimage.
I thought, man, who would I beas a human being if I never knew
who my mom and dad was and are,I was separated from them and I
didn't know what happened tothem, or my brothers and sisters
, who are the best gifts in mylife right now?
It's a who would I be?
(23:19):
How would I have reacted, howwould I have turned out?
I'm?
You know that that's just oneof the many um things that
happened with regards to slavery, enslavement, it was, it was,
uh, things that you know, mostof us have never even thought
about.
You just think well, there'ssomebody in shackles.
Well, it's much more profound,and also the economic impact of
(23:40):
that.
So, anyway, it was for me, 73years old, and it was an
eye-opening experience,spiritually, profoundly, and
everything I'd ever hoped for ona pilgrimage happened to me
personally and I think ithappened to the participants.
Joan (24:01):
I was going to ask you about the other participants and
the fact that this really waspart of you know.
You saw it as part of theformation for those in formation
for Glenmary Home Missioners.
How do you think it impactedthat, like the formation going
forward, those in formation tohave these experiences?
If it impacted you, how do youthink it impacted others?
Father Dan (24:20):
Yeah, I think it impacted them also profoundly
and I'm going.
You know it's hard to speak forsomebody else, but one of our
people in communicationsinterviewed them and you know I
talked to the people.
That was another thing that wasa byproduct that I never
thought about.
We're on a bus for six daystogether.
We're eating our meals together, we're doing this together.
We're doing this together, so itreally created a deeper bond, a
(24:44):
deeper sense of community, andI think it had tremendous, as
one of the people said to me youknow, he's from Kenya.
We learned about this in schoolwhen we were growing up in
Kenya, but we never, ever hadwhat this?
really was like and that was oneof the things that on this
pilgrimage that you reallyexperienced, was as much as you
(25:05):
could, you really began tounderstand what this was like.
So I think it had to varyingdegrees, but I think it had a
tremendous and profound effect.
I would like to do this again,to open it up to a larger group
and also maybe to make it everytwo years for every member who
is in our formation program,because isn't that part of the
(25:28):
formation that we learn?
I remember when I was studyingin Italy, one of our professors
said it's not a matter oflearning another language, it's
a matter of learning thelanguage of an other.
So learning the language ofanother person, so going on
pilgrimage, you learn thelanguage of what it was like,
(25:50):
what it's still like and whothese people are and how they
can speak to us even today.
So I think it had a greatimpact.
Again, I, I I don't know howmuch you can measure that or
what way you can measure it, butI I really feel like, just with
the guys, they were allcompletely cooperative and it
was not only our men information, we had other people,
(26:11):
we had a number of our coworkers.
I liked the we were a bus ofwhites, blacks and browns, and
people from Mexico, people fromKenya, uganda and United States,
different countries of originand just seeing us as a group.
To me, that's a great image ofwhat we're called to be.
(26:33):
We're brothers and sisters,we're all one, and so it was
just a tremendous gift.
(27:16):
And we did so.
Again, I want to emphasize itwas a spiritual.
We began, we wereEucharist-centered, we began
each day with prayer, and so weprayed throughout the whole
thing, the whole days, and so itwas always calling us back to
(27:36):
in one sense, which is verysignificant it makes a
difference between that and justgoing on a tour, but this is
always go back to the root ofour faith.
Jesus christ is why we're here.
Jesus christ is what we'reabout.
Jesus christ is whom we are, weneed to learn about and to be
open our hearts to.
(27:57):
And so, to begin with eucharist, to begin with prayer was
always an important way oftrying to ask the Holy Spirit
really to come down upon us andall the hardness of heart, our
eyes, our ears to you know thesePsalms they have eyes but they
do not see.
They have ears but they do nothear to really ask the Holy
(28:19):
Spirit to change us personallythat we might have those eyes,
ears and have the hearts thatreally are open to the message
that Jesus has for us.
Joan (28:31):
Amen, yeah, it's only possible with him.
It's only possible.
Could you speak a little bitabout Sister Thea Bowman For
those who might not know herstory and that she's up for
canonization?
Could you just give us a littlesnippet about Sister and her
work and how you encountered herin this pilgrimage?
Father Dan (28:52):
So we went to a place called Canton, mississippi
, and we visited Sister Thea'shome there.
She was a convert to theCatholic faith and I believe I
can't off the top of my headremember I think it was that she
joined a Franciscan group thatwas out of Wisconsin and it was
all white so and she gave agreat talk to the, to the USCCB,
(29:18):
back before her death I thinkit was about a year before her
death and she was a powerful,powerful speaker and just again,
you know, calling people,recalling them about what we are
as followers of Jesus Christ,especially with the sense of the
race issues that oftentimes arepart of our lives.
(29:40):
So we, just we, we went there,we prayed and we saw her house.
Kent, mississippi, is just asmall little town and all those
towns are pretty small, you know, as far as, and a lot of
poverty and you know you wonderwhat's ever going to happen.
One of the things we know inGlenmary, the rural areas where
we are working pretty much, aredying and they're being emptied,
(30:05):
emptied out, so place I can't.
You just wonder what the futureof a city like that is.
But it wasn't.
It was a spiritual experiencejust to go to her house, just to
pray and just to to learn moreabout her.
But we, we watched, uh, her, uh, her address to the usccb,
which was very good.
She One of the funny things wasnot really funny, but it was.
(30:28):
She had the bishops allstanding and holding.
You know how they do.
We shall overcome and they wereall kind of going back and
forth in this video.
We shall overcome and we shallovercome sin, we shall overcome
racism, we shall overcome allthings that define us, so she's
an inspiration.
Joan (30:50):
Yeah.
Father Dan (30:51):
Yeah.
Joan (30:51):
And in the show notes I'll put links so people can find
out more about her as we wrap upthe episode.
Father, do you have any wordsfor us about what we can do,
what you would recommend usdoing?
I think sometimes, in the faceof racism, we can do what you
would recommend us doing.
I think sometimes, in the faceof racism, in the face of hate,
we can feel powerless, we canfeel like there's nothing I can
(31:12):
do and so, coming off thispilgrimage, what would you
recommend that we do, or whatwould you encourage us to do,
especially when we get overcomewith maybe just feeling
powerless in the face of hate?
Father Dan (31:30):
So so I actually, joan, I am humbled by your, your
question, because I reallydon't know.
In one sentence I would sayit's easy to preach the sermons.
It's much more difficult andchallenging to live the sermons.
And you know?
and again, the question thatburned inside of me and it grew
louder and louder is why do wehate?
(31:52):
Why is it?
And I think the first thing isto even examine our own lives of
how oftentimes I, making an Istatement, I judge people and
whether it's regard to no matterwhat it is and do.
I try to see each person as theimage and likeness of the
(32:14):
creator, of our God, our fatherin heaven.
So I think that, and also torealize that different people
are going to see thingsdifferently and I may not always
agree with them and I don'thave to agree with them, but you
know, just I'll give you anexample.
It really was so.
(32:34):
Obviously, as we wrap up here,I'm sorry if I'm going a little
bit longer, but one of thethings when I was a novice
director back between 2011 and2019, a couple of our guys were
from Kenya, so their skin isblack.
So that was one of the timeswhen all this racial stuff was
(32:55):
especially heightened and therewas stuff going on and I would
lie awake at night and think youknow what happens if I'm, let's
just say, eric get pulled over,and I don't know how to react
and you know, I get out of mycar.
The police officer doesn'tunderstand what I'm doing, I
don't understand what culturallyI'm supposed to do and
(33:16):
something happens bad.
So I, I, I just I wrestled withthat because I thought, you
know, just sometimes we've hadthis happen to our admissions.
You know, because of your skincolor that's who you are and of
course it happens everywhere.
So I went to the local police Isaid you know, here I am, can
you just sit down with our guysand just tell them?
(33:38):
if you ever get stopped by apolice officer.
Here's what you do.
Here's step one, step two, stepthree.
And they were really good andwe did that.
Step two, step three, and theywere really good and we did that
, and it was so positive.
You know it's so culturally, sohow do I interact with it and
how do I with people?
(33:59):
So I just think and praying toGod to open my heart, to my very
eyes and ears.
But also as I said at the veryend of the pilgrimage, to come
to the realization that I am apilgrim.
I don't care if you're nineyears old, if you're ninet years
old, if you're the mostenlightened, if you're the least
(34:21):
enlightened, we are pilgrims aspeople of faith.
We are pilgrims as people o.
We are pilgrims and ourpilgrimage is based on not what
we are, but on who Jesus Christis and how we're called to live
like that.
And each day when I get up, Ican learn, I can be open and I
can learn and walk more in theway of Jesus Christ and our
(34:44):
Father in heaven.
So that's the advice I wouldgive.
But I am humbled because afterthe end of the six days I knew
one thing for sure, and that wasI had a lot to learn and to go
and to change in my own life.
Joan (35:01):
Well, I think that's a great lesson of pilgrimage.
I think it's a mark of a greatpilgrimage if we come away from
it changed, but especially justwanting to change and wanting to
grow and wanting to be morelike Jesus.
I think that's a successfulpilgrimage.
Father Dan (35:18):
Yeah, yeah.
Joan (35:20):
Well, thank you, father, I'm going to put in the show
notes um a lot of the links tothe places that you visited so
that people can check theseplaces out for themselves.
And I'm really honored and Ithink I'm just really inspired.
I should say you're approachingthese places in the spiritual
way that it was a pilgrimage andyou began with prayer and you,
(35:40):
you know, centered it in Christ.
That we're approaching thesehistorical places, but in the
spirit of Christ, I think isreally important.
So I'm going to share some ofthose places with our listeners
too,
Father Dan (35:54):
thank you, very much Thank you for having me, Joan.
Joan (35:58):
Yeah, it was great.
Thank you, Father and listeners.
Please share this episode withsomebody who maybe just needs to
hear this and maybe this wouldbe food for thought for them, or
they maybe just be interestedin hearing this pilgrimage
approach to this important timein our country's history that we
can't ignore and that we needto always grow from and to
(36:19):
figure out how we can be morelike Jesus Christ.
So please share this episodeand continue to tune in to In Vi
a to find out more about thepilgrimage of life.
Thanks so much, Father.
Thanks, Joan, God bless.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.