This was the first reading, from the Prophet Micah (Michaes). He hath told thee oh man, what the Lord doth desire of thee "To do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God". This window is within the Columbus mausoleum of Fred Lazarus and family.
Saturday past, i was at Fr. Robert Begin's funeral. Morricone's Gabriel's Oboe was played. Father Bob spent time as a priest in Bolivia. After Mass, El Condor Pasa was played on flute. I saw Fr. Begin outside of St. Colman's twice, once at St. Stephen's when Lennon wanted to close Colman's, and when Fr. Begin was grand marshal of the St. Patrick's parade. I really did not know much about him outside of his priestly vocation. I found out he liked music. I had seen and heard his brother, Fr. Daniel Begin play flute.
Father Bob was a humble man, and a genuine rarity—a brave priest. His belief and practice of ethics, justice, and morality was strong. He had empathy, a desire to understand, and a desire to help. He loved Jesus, and was following His Way. Politely, he was called a rebel priest, and impolitely 'Red Bob' and worse. Unlike other American priests, his chief loyalty and obedience was to God, and not the local bishop. For that, one gets punished.
As a young priest at St. Gregory's in South Euclid, Father Begin was deeply affected by a serviceman that came home from the ongoing Viet Nam War. The United States was involved in a deeply immoral war. Father Bob was enthusiastic about the reforms of Vatican II, and disappointed about church hypocrisy. He was involved with a local group, Catholics Who Care.
The first incident: he and Fr. Bernard Meyer presided over an unscheduled midnight Mass at Cleveland's downtown cathedral. The police were called in to break it up, and they did, and not delicately. Bishop Hickey [later archbishop of Wash. DC] denied him priestly faculties, residence, and salary for two years. As an aside: Fr. Begin's Uncle Floyd was the first bishop of Oakland California.
A couple of months later (March 1969), Frs. Begin and Meyer were part of the D.C. Nine. They broke into Dow Chemical's headquarters and threw red paint around, and files out the windows. Dow made the jellied gasoline, napalm, that was dropped on civilians in Viet Nam. F. Lee Bailey was a defense lawyer, but Fr. Begin dismissed him for not being moral enough. Bailey would in 1971 defend Captain Ernest Medina of the My Lai Massacre. Medina was acquitted. Fr. Begin got four years of probation for unlawful entry. Father Begin went on to become a lawyer during his lengthened, enforced 'sabbatical'.
After a time, he became the sacramental minister, and later, the pastor of St. Colman's. A new bishop came from Boston and closed 58 parishes. Two others, Colman's and Ignatius of Antioch were on the original list of 2009. Lennon did not account for Father Bob.
All pastors received a letter by Saturday afternoon on 14 March 2009. The 17th of March is St. Patrick’s Day. It is a big deal in Cleveland. St. Colman’s is the Irish cathedral. It is patterned after Rome’s cathedral, St. John Lateran. Many west side Irish convene there for Mass, or company before the big parade. Colman’s sits over a thousand on the floor, there is also a choir loft, that is without a massive pipe organ. As beautiful as Colman’s is, it is missing bells in its steeples and that grand organ. The Irish of the time loved white marble, and it is there in abundance. On the 17th people filled the church, and were on the steps, and sidewalks. A bass drummer, and bagpipers led a procession of twenty priests into Colman’s. Father Bob acted as cheerleader, and before the Mass started berated the decision to keep St. Stephen’s open and to close Colman’s, in direct opposition to the cluster committee’s [These committees were created to have conflict from parishioners directed at other parishes, and not at the diocese and Lennon. The committees were guided by a diocesan agent at the meetings, and anyway their opinion was not the final opinion] recommendation. Petitions were passed throughout the crowd. Lennon received much mail. Now Lennon was Irish, but he bristled about it. It was an inopportune [read—stupid] time to announce Colman’s demise. Either he was obtuse, and/or he really wanted to be a prick. Lennon was forced to step back. SS. Colman, Ignatius, and Stephen were put on probation, and they had to all come up with money. Robert Begin's father was French Canadian, and his mother was German. Fr. Bob was the rare non-Irishman to be the grand marshal at Cleveland's St. Patrick's parade.
Well, Lennon struck at Fr. Begin again. [click and see] In 2013, Lennon wanted to force mandatory retirement to Fr. Begin. Fr. Begin's pastorate was extended to 30 August 2014. After that, he would still say a Mass there on weekends. His spirit will remain at St. Colman's.
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