Saints and Sinners

Saints and Sinners

Last night there was no formal schedule so I decided to join two friends of mine from the States to see one of the movies for the WorldPride Film Festival. Joining us was a very interesting guy who was the Jerusalem editor for the Economist. We went to see the movie Saint 9/11.

The movie was a documentary about the life of Father Mychal Judge, the Franciscan who was the chaplain to the NYC Fire Department and who subsequently died in the twin towers because he was serving his men. This is even more poignant when he was offered the chance to leave the twin tower site with Mayor Guilliani, but he chose to stay.

I was moved by his story despite the very traditional format of the documentary. Throughout the movie there was this juxtaposition of his incredible generosity and his average “guy” status. In fact, there are several times when he refers to himself as a sinner, which was ironic because I had been wearing a T-shirt with a sense of irony that had sinner emblazoned on it. (We got a chuckle out of this.)

Father Judge was a charismatic man of the people who ministered to the homeless, the desperate, the ill and who became an ambassador of New York. And while the movie dealt with his humanity, like his being gay or his alcoholism, it was never in a complex or fully satisfying way. I believe that despite his willingness to admit his shortcomings, the film used his trials to show his triumphs without the struggle or pain in order to beatify him—at least as a gay saint. That is all said and good, but there are suggestions in the movies that this is not what father Judge would have wanted.

It was never clear how he reconciled his participation in Dignity or his ministry to people with AIDS as one of the first loving and affirming ministers treating people with GRID and then AIDS with dignity and humanity with his later turn as a chaplain to the fire fighters to whom he hid his gayness in total.

What impressed me about this man, who had both Clintons speak about him at his funeral, is that he was not one who sought out the elite or awards or the spotlight. He went about serving and his work. I wonder where this spirit is within the GLBT clergy community—is there a humility amongst us? I take this to heart as I saw in his life ways I do not live up to the selflessness he represented.