Illuminations Little church, prison ministry fill
days
By ARTHUR
JONES NCR Staff Ridgeland, S.C.
Theres Paws, the rectory cat with a guard dog complex. Paws
hisses at strangers.
Theres the lush, year-round golf courses on Hilton Head
Island, half an hour east.
Theres the rural charm: A battered handmade sign along
Highway 17 says Catholic church one mile.
One Mass on Sunday: 11 a.m.
But as Oblate Fr. Michael Hussey discovered when he arrived in
January 1995, it was an idyll on paper only. In fact, it is tougher territory
than it first appears.
Here in Ridgeland, S.C., St. Anthonys Church building is
itself a great little tale.
There wouldnt be a church for Hussey to call home if, 40
years or so ago, John and Susan Mertens hadnt stopped in Ridgeland each
year en route to Florida and their winter vacation. Before interstate highways,
Highway 17 was the main north-south drag.
For the Mertenses, Ridgeland was the halfway mark between the
Pocono Mountains, where they ran a hotel all summer and fall, and Boca Raton,
Fla., where they spent the winters.
The couple would stop in Ridgeland again on the way back. Trouble
was they wanted to go to Mass on Sundays, and the only church was in Hilton
Head, then a beautiful but remote island. They kept getting lost on South
Carolinas winding back roads.
Their solution: Build a church in Ridgeland for the little
towns nine Catholic families.
January marked the 35th anniversary of the churchs
dedication. Its a nice little place, some quite good stained glass, a
kitchen, church hall and rectory. Back then it cost $260,000. And though John
and Susan Mertens are dead, their children still stop in when they make the
Florida drive.
Ah, bliss, you say -- the ideal final pastorate. Could be.
Its golfer Husseys first pastorate and he loves it. Husseys
here because he was downsized from one of his two favorite ministries --
hospice/hospital chaplain or prison chaplain. Incarceration or death. Jesus
came to help us with our living and dying, but doesnt it get a bit
gloomy?
Hussey, ordained in 1960, still trim, wavy gray hair and a coffee
cup welded to his hand, takes the opposite view and was happy to talk about
it.
Paws hissed an unwelcome.
High school retreats
Between 1965 and 1972, in an era before team ministry, Hussey was
doing back-to-back high school retreats. Assistant retreat directors
didnt merely preach, they also shopped for the food and functioned as
general handyman.
I decided, Ive got to get out of this,
he said. He earned a masters degree in psychology at Northern
Illinois University -- 32 graduate hours -- in 12 months. Crazy, he
said. To pay bills I managed a fraternity house -- dusted and cleaned
floors -- and assisted at a local church.
Oblates didnt ask for assignments, they received them.
The boss called: the penitentiary, at Vienna, Ill. -- pronounced VY-enna.
I said, For how long? He said, A year. Ill call
you. He called me in 1982. Typical, said Hussey.
After Husseys nine years in prison ministry, the boss told
him it was time to move on. Hussey asked why. Because youre
beginning to think like them and act like them, the boss replied. I was
all set to ask him what he meant by that, Hussey recalled, but I
thought, Leave it alone.
He wanted me to go to a parish in Duluth, [Minn.]. I said,
Hold the phone, and accidentally, instead, wound up as a Mayo
Clinic chaplain in Rochester, Minnesota.
He loved the work. Until he had emergency duty on Christmas Eve
1985. The call came at 10 p.m. The temperature outside was 61 degrees below. He
didnt have a heated garage -- or any garage -- just a plug-in heater to
keep the engine from freezing. The ice on the car was thick.
He got part of the windshield clear and one door open. I was
encased in ice, said Hussey. I said to myself, Dear God,
theres got to be a place with palm trees that needs a nice guy like
me.
I floated some résumés around and, lo and
behold, St. Anthonys Hospital, St. Petersburg, Florida. Would I be
interested in being pastoral care director? He would -- from 1985 to
1992.
There was a hospital merger. They axed 16 department heads
in one afternoon. I was a victim of modern health care. From there Hussey
went to the largest hospice in the world, the Hospice of the Florida Sun Coast,
in Largo, with more than 1,400 patients. When I started we had five
chaplains. When I left, there were 12. I loved it for three years, but it
burned me out. I was averaging 1.7 funerals a week, people Id held in my
arms. I got to thinking, Hey, Im 62. I dont have too many
more miles left.
An ice-free life
When he arrived at St. Anthonys in 1995 he expected one
church, one mission. No hospitals. No prisons. So he thought.
It wasnt in the job description, lets say,
said Hussey, cheerfully enough. But there was a brand new prison in Ridgeland
that had stood empty for three years. It didnt open until Hussey arrived.
Plus the parish takes in the penitentiary at Estill, S.C.
Although providing pastoral care for inmates in two prisons does
not permit a life of acceptable, commendable near-indolence, for this Chicago
priest it is a life that is ice-free.
The area is growing. Hes now saying Mass in six locations,
including missions like Hampton. Theres an increasing Hispanic
population.
Hussey knew the Chicago Mercy Sisters, and thats how Sr.
Mary Gallagher, experienced in Hispanic ministry, arrived at the mission church
in Hardeeville as pastoral associate.
This [Charleston] diocese is one of the leading ones for
pastoral associates, said Hussey. I think weve got 14 now. I
say the Mass but I cant preach in Spanish. Hussey writes the
homilies in English, Sr. Mary gives them in Spanish.
The best and worst of hospital and prison ministry? These
are people in crisis and need to have a visible contact with the divine, with
God and a means to get there. In a hospital situation its natural.
Theyre going into surgery -- theyre frightened. They need
reassurance.
In prison, its the same thing. Its harsh, an
extremely harsh reality. People dont realize what its like in
there. In reality quite a few of these guys are scared. They need to have
something to hang onto besides the garbage that they live with.
In prisons, the worst part is trying to accommodate -- for
lack of a better word -- my own philosophy with the punishment attitude of the
whole system. My philosophy is that there is forgiveness, that there is rehab.
Im not saying anyone has to be just set loose again. Its my
experience the sole purpose of the prison system is punishment. Rehab is not
even in their mind. They do perfunctorily whats mandated. Theres no
heart in it.
The best? He saw it in Vienna, Ill. I started for the first
time a Cursillo in the penitentiary. And to see the response, not only of the
men but of the Cursillo team from the Peoria diocese. Overwhelming.
Hospital ministry has always been the best, simply because
youre responding to people in their real moments of need. In the
[operating room] or as theyre pulled off the ambulance going into the
emergency room. Dealing with the families. Tremendous.
In such circumstances, there is an immediate feedback in
what were all about, given the ministry were doing, he said.
Many times in a parish I think theres kind of a delayed feedback.
You get it much later on.
Yet even chaplains burn out.
Church in the South
Life in this part of the South?
Hard to define. More a style, very down-home. I dont
mean this in a derogatory way, not sophisticated. Segregation still exists.
Thank God were one of the -- very few -- churches that has black and
white members together. Its amazing these people have kept the faith
alive. Theyve really had a struggle. As Catholics theyve really
hung in there.
Down here, he said, they tell this joke about the nursing
home. Only one Union guy left there, and one Confederate. Someone asks the
Confederate, What do you have to say about that? And the
Confederate says, Charge!
Its an attitude, said Hussey.
Its time for breakfast. Hussey said he wouldnt
dare subject anyone to my cooking, and we join the breakfast bunch in the
Palm Motel coffee shop.
Hussey is cordially greeted, a few handshakes. He has the
breakfast special: sausage and biscuits. The priest points out one man, not a
Catholic, who volunteers when the priest needs a few things done around the
church. Catholics are not looked upon too well, the priest said.
Theyre in the same category as blacks.
But slowly, theres change. In 1997, in Hampton, for the
first time, from the steps of the First Baptist Church, a Catholic priest
blessed the community Christmas tree. It did not go unnoticed, said
Hussey. And some people said, Its about time.
National Catholic Reporter, February 26,
1999
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