Tuesday night a minor miracle occurred at Park Ridge City Hall. No, Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark didn’t turn some lead balloon idea into gold for one of his campaign contributors. No, Taste of Park Ridge NFP (the corporation) didn’t book Bruce Springsteen to headline at Taste of Park Ridge (the event). This was much more significant, perhaps even profound.
A number of St. Paul of the Cross parishioners mustered the courage to publicly challenge their pastor, Fr. Carl Morello, on a local government matter: his decision to put a PADS homeless shelter in St. Paul School.
Approximately 60 of them showed up at the City Council’s Procedures and Regulation (“P&R”) Committee meeting for the discussion of whether St. Paul needed a special use permit under the city’s zoning code in order to host a PADS shelter there. And to anybody who loves our form of government – the way our Founding Fathers intended it to work, not the crass and corrupt way it often operates here in Illinois – it was an inspiring sight.
The discussion opened with Fr. Morello reiterating the Park Ridge Ministerial Association (“PRMA”) party line that a PADS shelter is part of their religious ministry and, consequently, they aren’t bound by city zoning laws. If Morello expected the kind of reception he gets when preaching from his pulpit, however, he must have been sorely disappointed.
One after another, his parishioners – many wearing “Protect Our Children” buttons – repudiated the notion that “Father Knows Best” as they asked P&R committee members Ald. Jim Allegretti, Ald. Tom Carey and Ald. Dave Schmidt to do what Morello would not do: put the safety of their children ahead of whatever “right” the card-carrying PADS-certified homeless might have to a Sunday night flophouse in Park Ridge.
Several spoke timidly, occasionally glancing back nervously at Morello as he sat in the audience for what most Council watchers believe was his first time since the PADS shelter became an active topic on the City Council’s agenda. Some even choked back tears while questioning how Morello could put their children at risk from PADS “clients” who suffer from alcohol, drug and mental illness.
Some were defiant, reminding Morello that it was the parishioners who raised the millions of dollars needed to build the very gym that he, without even consulting them, has decided to turn over to the homeless every Sunday night from October through April. They pointed out that PADS is a business instead of a ministry, they questioned the motives of PADS and the PRMA in bringing non-Park Ridge homeless to Park Ridge, and they suggested alternatives such as putting the homeless up at nearby motels or in the Park Ridge Senior Center.
One of the most courageous appearances was by St. Paul school board member Jan Whitelaw, who reportedly has been pressured by St. Paul parishioners for her “disloyalty” in publicly expressing her disagreement with Morello. She recited the health and safety risks presented by the homeless shelter and noted that many St. Paul parishioners are afraid to even question Morello about these and other matters.
As best as we can tell, only one speaker offered a half-hearted defense of a PADS shelter in Park Ridge: Zoning Board of Appeals member Gary Zimmerman, who warned the Committee that the Archdiocese would fight the City in court if the City required a Special Use Permit for the shelter. That brought a pointed response from Schmidt, who noted that this is a governmental rather than a religious issue and that the Archdiocese cannot be allowed to dictate whether and how the City will enforce its laws.
Unfortunately, Morello didn’t hear most of these comments. Shortly after being admonished by Chairman Allegretti for trying to turn the hearing into a debate by speaking a second time before others had a chance to speak once, Morello walked out of the Council chambers with his Social Service Ministry Director, Adrienne Timm, in tow – followed moments later by his legal counsel, Jack “Mr. Insider” Owens. They huddled outside City Hall for awhile before Morello reportedly adjourned to Hay Caramba. The consensus among a number of the parishioners present? Morello’s departure was nothing less than disrespect for their views and for the Council.
Mayor Frimark, on the other hand, stayed until that discussion was over. As he was leaving, he was politely confronted on the City Hall steps by several of the parishioners who asked for his commitment to support the special use permit requirement. Frimark did his politician’s best to dodge those questions as long as he could, finally suggesting all the other people they should be lobbying before taking his leave. Don’t expect to find a Harry Truman-style “The buck stops here” sign on his desk.
But the night belonged to the St. Paul parishioners and to Fr. Morello. The former showed what paying attention and becoming politically active can do. And the latter showed what happens when a clergyman gets confused about what gets rendered to God and what must be rendered to “Caesar.”
19 comments so far
I wonder why Frimark wasn’t hosting the meeting and where was the prees?
I didn’t see Ms. Johnson or whoever that beared guy is.
As far as I’m concerned, this is encouraging: the outing of Mr. Morello’s arrogance is a welcome unintended consequence of the PADS controversy. While I am encouraged that so many parishioners had the “courage” to stand up to Morello, I remain troubled that a mortal man who wears gowns and questionable headgear to work could invoke fear in the hearts of other grownups. Only deep childhood indoctrination can deliver those results.
Morello is not anyone’s Father. He’s a middle manager for an institution that began to lose its power when it stopped doing magic incantations in Latin.
The delusion that the church is above the law is one more extension of the illegal, unethical and immoral behavior the church exhibited for decades covering up the perverted behavior of its employees. Few priests went to jail because the bishops didn’t and don’t believe the church is subject to earthly laws. The St. Stanislaus Kostka parish was excommunicated by the St. Louis archdiocese over a real estate dispute, excommunication has been threatened for those who vote incorrectly (careful of that tax exemption now, bro), but no priests to my knowledge have been excommunicated for having sex with children.
Is that the source of your moral imperative, Mr. Morello? Protecting child molesters? Works for me. Bring on the shelter.
I hope the Archdiocese does sue Park Ridge. What an excellent use of our tax dollars and St Paul parishioners’ “offerings”.
Your post is not clear. Your are anti-catholic…right?????
I do not want to have to spend a dime fighting St. Paul’s or the Archdiocese. There are potholes to fill, streets to repave, sewers to replace and much more which needs to be done with our infrastructure. However, the elected officials, myself included, must have the will to fight to enforce our laws, especially in a situation when the result of not doing so could have such far-reaching and permanent ramifications, and even if the price tag seems high. If we do not, no amount of money will bring back what we have lost as a community.
Dear Anonymous,
Since I am using me real name and you have chosen to be anonymous, I feel at somewhat of a disadvantage. Are you the Inquisition? To respond to your comment: your observation that I am “anti-catholic” is a rhetorical mechanism that distracts attention from the validity of my comments, and attempts to place the discourse on a different footing: the tribe has been attacked, therefore the message must be wrong. Instead, how about responding to the points I made in my post. For example, do you disagree about priestly headgear being questionable? That sort of thing.
Sean O’Leary may very well be anti-catholic, but that doesn’t bother me. Actually, I’m always interested in hearing why somebody is anti-catholic, and I believe Sean O’Leary has offered some reasonable reasons for his negative view of the Catholic church.
His comment about Morello not being anyone’s Father struck a chord with me in relation to why Morello seems so eager to take the risks of having a homeless shelter in the school gym at SPC. Morello doesn’t have that true protective parent streak that real fathers (and mothers) have when it comes to keeping their children safe.
Sean O’Leary’s anti-catholic view doesn’t necessarily make him wrong about the inadequacies and flaws of the Catholic church as an institution nor Morello as a person.
It’s baffling to me why would the archdiocese fight to have a PADS shelter in SPC? For a moment forget the fact that they need their millions to pay off the victims of their “men with funny head gear”. The money they spend on the fight could feed or house more people than the 20 or so their talking about at the PADS shelter. What about the bad will they generate and the hit the collection plate will take by forcing something down a community’s throat. It doesn’t make good business sense. Then again I guess that’s one of the corner stone’s of the Catholic Church. Is this what Jesus would do?
Nice post Sean. Can’t keep you behind a locked bathroom door….
When members of the clergy move beyond “God’s” realm into “Caesar’s” they are no longer entitled to any credibility or deference related to their “religious” status. Fr. Morello and his PRMA cronies seem to want to have it both ways.
Hopefully, they will realize their error before our City Council – and a federal district court – have to educate them. Assuming, of course, that a majority of Mayor Frimark’s alderpuppets can muster the nerve and integrity to buck their political master, Mayor “Let’s Make A Deal,” and join Ald. Schmidt and Ald. Wsol in standing up for the people of this community.
Dear Anonymous 10:29
My bathroom door is unlocked for anyone to who wished to enter.
Just in case you want to play connect the dots, Mayor Frimark (Dot) is for the PADS shelter. His 5th ward alderman, Robert Ryan (Dot) is for the PADS shelter (FYI, Ryan was the only alderman NOT at Tuesday night’s meeting). And Zimmerman (Dot) was Ryan’s aldermanic campaign manager and a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals. If the Council requires a special use permit for the PADS, would the process end up going to the Zoning BOard of Appeals and Mr. Zimmerman?
Mark Twain wrote in his “Autobiography”: “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
This seems to pretty much describe Fr. Morello’s opinion about the need for a PADS shelter at St. Paul.
Morello and his pro-PADS sympathizers are blowing smoke about this shelter being what Jesus would do, because Jesus wouldn’t just be sheltering the homeless only one night a week.
This seems a lot more about PADS, the PRMA and Morello than about the homeless.
This PADS shelter is NOT a good idea to bring into a community – and CERTAINLY not into a school. A noble concern? a good cause? Sure this is the human and nice thing to do but at a much greater cost. If there is a need in our communiyt let’s take care of that need – bringing in a transient group one night per week who have no ties to the community and the uncertain rick they pose to our children is too great a risk – Fr. Carl and MS. Timm need to get off their high thrones and realize they didn’t give us a chance to vote because they know we would vote no and for some unknown reason they think this is a good idea??? There are alternatives and they need to see this…
Tammy,
Worried that your daughter might be exposed to good old fashioned HUMAN VALUES at her school? Gasp! (Note I’m not specifying Christian/Catholic values — helping people in need is a very basic human value, regardless of your religion.) Let’s face it, you left public school because the hours were better at SPC — so you & your husband can both work full-time and leave your children in someone else’s care. You do not in any way represent me or my fellow SPC School parents’ viewpoint. The youth who spoke last night about learning social action values at school and putting them into action at a place like PADS were raised right! That’s what our church community respects. Feel free to find yourself a new (3rd!) community to try to infiltrate. You don’t fit here.
Proud SPC Parishioner:
If Fr. Morello and people like you really had those Christian/”human” values you talk about, then why would you open up your hearts and school to these unfortunate homeless only one night a week? Did Jesus say to shelter the homeless only on Sunday? We’re being told that there are plenty of homeless in Park Ridge, so why not give them a more permanent place to stay? Walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk.
According to my math, 1 night > 0 nights.
Originally posted by “anon”
I have asked this question here before and never got an answer. I am not a regular church goer and not a catholic so I guess that is why I am so confused.
I have read many posts from people on this site and others who appear to be catholic and have kids at SPC who are now up in arms and threating to leave the school and church.
So why did it take so long? This is what caused you to question your religion? This is the first time you have ever disagreed with the church? You talk about protecting the children and yet you made it through the prieest pedophile issue and cover up and you didn’t quit???
You and I are against PADS for the same main reason – RISK. But you have sat there for years listening to the sermons. As an outside observer I see nothing in the behavior of SPC that is inconsistent with there “mission” or their past behavior. Wern’t you listening.
Well here’s what I’d like to know for those who are critical of those against the shelter.
I don’t have a major problem with helping out those who are down and out.
But besides RISK it’s more about bringing those in and where are they gonna go after the shelter closes and not keeping an eye on those who are not emotionaly well off. Whether it’s being drug or alcohol addicted or engage in crimminal activity and many seem to question how PADS will resolve those issues and I’ve even read elsewhere how is other suburbs whether or not they had a homeless problem or not opening those shelters have already caused such trouble. And even if a community has a homeless problem, another problem is the concern of bringing is more from other places.
Why do they wanna do that?
Why spread it around?
PADS needs to either go where the help is needed and if there are some homeless people around PR open it for thos people and keep a good eye on them unless you know they’re not troublesome and as for SPC, maybe they should go into the areas where you find the most of them and help them there. As one at last weeks meeting says there are many places in Chicago that have beds and are hardly used.
Are you kidding me? You want to talk drug problems? Alcohol issues? Crime & vandalism? There’s more drugs sold out of the trunk of a BMW in the parking lot at Maine South (or in the bathrooms there – look out!) than you could ever find near any homeless shelter! Park Ridge McMansions, flowing money, and absentee parents create a breeding grounds for illicit activity among our youth! We don’t need to SEEK it out people, it lives next door! The drug problems (we’re talking heroin & meth, not pot) at MS are higher than they were in the free-wheeling 1960’s!
We ignore it there because maybe our country-club friends won’t notice if we don’t say anything. Hell, Mom & dad are dabbling in it, too, it’s a lifestyle. And when our kids get caught vandaizing or stealing to support their habits – or, like 2 or 3 kids from our high school last year, actually DYING from an overdose — we still don’t take it on. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t fit the Park Ridge image, so let’s pretend it doesn’t exist!
PADS clients are more carefully screened & managed than your next door neighbor. The risk of exposure to TB or any other airborne illness is lower among the PADS guest population than it is among the population at a movie theatre. I’d feel more comfortable & safe volunteering there every week than I would walking downtown Park Ridge on a Saturday night.
Live in the real world, people. And maybe even take a step to make it a better place.
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