Was he the one?
Father Gerry Kleba remembers the 70s in St. Louis
In my first pastoral assignment in 1973, I was burdened with two churches, one Holy Ghost, a massive Gothic structure which was closed for worship and only occupied when homeless people broke in after the neighboring beer joint closed at two am. Sometimes the tipsy intruders rang the church bells when the rope brushed their faces in the pitch dark. I’d call the police, meet them at the door, and watch as their German shepherds crawled under each of the pews with a thoroughness that almost required their crossing themselves with holy water before bellying under. I tired of this sleep deprivation and when I learned that the parish’s $7,000.00 insurance bill was to cover the imported stained glass windows I sold them to an antique dealer who resold them to Talayna’s, a Jewish pizzeria near Washington University. Soon, a venerable monsignor who discovered these pizzeria windows bearing his revered grandparents’ names harangued Cardinal Carberry who was bewildered and shrugged the whole matter aside. I deposited the cash sale money in the parish account and felt the weight lift.
Months later, St. Henry’s Parish was closed and consolidated with near by Immaculate Conception, an Augustinian parish, where young novices learned community organizing. A Mass of Unity began at St. Henry’s with the Liturgy of the Word, then preaching, and finally the offertory procession were bread and wine and holy relics from St. Henry were brought to IC. There, Mass was concluded and followed by a unity party. Finally, Carberry gathered the Augustinian community. He sat with an open canon law book on his lap and he laid out the rules for the new parish. He cautioned, “None of the precious religious artifacts are to be sold for any secular purpose. Word has it that a few years back a pastor sold priceless stained glass church windows which then ended up in a Jewish pizza restaurant.” Novices glanced around and one piped up, “Oh, whenever we go to Talanya’s, we always ask to sit in the St. Augustine booth.”
That was the year when Bob Prevost, future Pope Leo, was a novice at IC. Was he the vibrant young man who spilled the beans? Does he remember his year in St. Louis?