Photos by Suzanne Opton

Originally published November 30, 2007

War is, in some ways, the ultimate spiritual crisis.

By its very nature, it requires participants to perform acts that would be considered legally and morally wrong in civilian life. “Your whole life, regardless of religion, you’re told, ‘Don’t kill, don’t kill, don’t kill.’ Then all of a sudden it’s, ‘Here’s a gun.’ It’s hard to reconcile that,” says Linda McClenahan, a Dominican nun, trauma counselor, and former Vietnam Army sergeant who lives in Racine, Wisconsin.

In a 1995 study, 51 percent of veterans in residential post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment in a Veterans Affairs facility said they had abandoned their religious faith during the war in which they fought. In the same study, 74 percent of respondents said they had difficulty reconciling their religious beliefs with traumatic war-zone events. Battle creates moral confusion, and it can leave a soldier spiritually as well as physically wounded.

Unlike many other traumatic experiences, combat can cause “moral pain” arising from “the realization that one has committed acts with real and terrible consequences,” according to a seminal 1981 article in PSYCHOLOGY TODAY by Peter Marin. He was writing about Vietnam, but his overarching thesis could be applied to any military conflict. Profound moral distress is the “real horror” of war, yet its effect on those who fight is rarely discussed.

The difficulty of talking about the spiritual wounds of war was apparent in October when the Episcopal Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Mass., announced a four-day retreat at its monastery called “Binding Up Our Wounds,” for men and women returning from places of war. Nobody showed up.

A November report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association underscores the magnitude of the problem. After they return from combat in Iraq, one-in-five active-duty soldiers need mental health care. For reservists, the numbers were even higher: Two out of five need treatment. And one 2004 study concluded that veterans who avail themselves of mental health services appear to be driven more by guilt and the weakening of their religious faith than by the severity of their PTSD symptoms.

“In a war, in a firefight, you’re both victim and perpetrator at the same time,” says the Rev. Alan Cutter, general presbyter of southern Louisiana for the Presbyterian Church (USA) and a former Navy officer who served in Vietnam. “At its heart, a trauma, and especially a war trauma, leaves a wound to the human spirit. When I came back, my spirit was pretty well shredded and ripped.”

Marin wrote that moral pain or guilt erroneously remained a form of psychological neurosis or pathological symptom, “something to escape rather than learn from,” and he alleged that therapy failed to take moral experience into account. More than a quarter-century later, many experts feel little has changed.

“Once the category of PTSD was established in the early ’80s, that swallowed the veteran whole,” says William Mahedy, an Episcopal priest and former Army chaplain who has spent 33 years working with veterans in southern California. “Combat creates far more wide-ranging problems than stress.”

It’s not just the act of taking a life that raises the kinds of questions Mahedy says can only be addressed spiritually and philosophically. Witnessing death and suffering also goes to the heart of life’s meaning: Why did God, if there is a God, allow this? Why is killing the enemy not a sin? How can I be forgiven? Why couldn’t I save my comrade? Why am I alive when I don’t deserve to be? Psychology isn’t always equipped to answer such questions.

“Trauma can be characterized as a sense of betrayal of one’s experiences: life wasn’t supposed to be this way,” says the Rev. Jackson Day, an Army chaplain in the central highlands of Vietnam from 1968 to 1969 and now the pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Upperco, Maryland. “The faith parallel to that would be the statement, ‘God has let me down. I did my part, and God didn’t do his.’”

In his book ACHILLES IN VIETNAM (1995), clinical psychiatrist Jonathan Shay explored combat trauma through a close reading of the ancient text of the Iliad and his own experiences treating Vietnam veterans with chronic PTSD. Those with lifelong psychological injury, he argued, had suffered a betrayal of “what’s right” — of leadership, trust, the dead, the social and moral order — above and beyond war’s “usual” horror and grief. Those whose belief in God’s love was shattered by war suffered another betrayal: their worldview and sense of virtue were obliterated.

In Shay’s follow-up book, ODYSSEUS IN AMERICA (2002), he used Homer’s Odyssey to look at returning troops whose spiritual wounds incurred on the battlefield can fester and worsen at home. The conviction that virtue is no longer possible, given God’s abandonment, can result in a withdrawal from moral commitment.

Medical-psychological therapies, Shay wrote, “are not, and should not be, the only therapies available for moral pain. Religious and cultural therapies are not only possible, but may well be superior to what mental health professionals conventionally offer.”

In an interview, Shay, whose work at the Boston VA outpatient clinic has been primarily with Roman Catholic patients, elaborated. “My sense is that this is a fundamentally religious issue. It’s possible to package it as a mental health issue, but I think we lose out. Even people who have had good secular treatments for their trauma still feel a need for the religious dimension of it. I don’t think as a society we’re offering it.”

VA research suggests that veterans who have suffered a greater loss of meaning to their lives are more likely to seek help from both clergy and mental health professionals. Therapists, however, may hit a roadblock with treatment when they feel out of their depth on spiritual or religious matters, and most clergy are not trained in trauma response.

But all faith traditions offer resources to respond to trauma, such as the Catholic sacrament of penance and reconciliation, of which confession is a part.

One of Shay’s patients was ordered by his lieutenant to “take care of” 17 Viet Cong prisoners, an order he interpreted as “kill them.” His squad was reluctant, and so he began firing first, even egging the others on. What weighed most heavily on his conscience years later was not his crime, but his belief that he had led others into mortal sin. “My response was that we knew a number of priests who had been chaplains in war and who knew what this was about,” Shay says. “This is about the real stuff, not the sins you confessed to in parochial school, but murder, cruelty, rape. [Your faith] has the resources to respond to that in a way that will matter to you.”

What matters to one won’t always matter to another. It depends on what faith, ritual, sacrament, or person you have invested authority in, says Rabbi Harold Robinson, a retired Navy rear admiral and the current director of the JWB [Jewish Welfare Board] Jewish Chaplains Council. As a chaplain, Robinson found that the study of Jewish texts on war and self-defense served as a powerful resource in addressing spiritual injury. “I think you invest more of yourself when you try to study and understand something,” he says. “By grappling with the text you’re also grappling with yourself. It’s an interactive process, not one that’s just imposed.”

Other chaplains have used Psalm 23, which famously portrays God as a patient shepherd, or Psalm 31, whose speaker calls himself a “broken vessel,” and they ask where veterans see themselves in the psalm. Even people who are not religious might be open to the psalms, according to Major Samuel Godfrey, an ordained minister in the Pentecostal Holiness Church and a chaplain in Iraq for the Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. Shareda Hosein, an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and the Muslim chaplain at Tufts University, lists several passages from the Qur’an dealing with Allah’s forgiveness and guidance that she says she might use in counseling a Muslim soldier — from Sura 39, for example, which promises mercy for those who repent: “Say: ‘My servants who have transgressed against themselves! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah, verily Allah forgives all sins. Truly, He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.’”

In early medieval Europe, warriors returning from battle were expected to feel shame, even when their killing was technically licit. A 9th-century penitential, according to THE MORAL TREATMENT OF WARRIORS IN EARLY MEDIEVAL AND MODERN TIMES by Bernard Verkamp, “stipulates that the man who is blameless in committing homicide in war should nonetheless seek purification, because of the shedding of blood, and stay away from the church for one or two weeks, and abstain from meat and drink during the period.”

For the ancient Hebrews, too, the shedding of blood was considered a source of contamination. The Book of Numbers dictated a seven-day period of segregation outside the camp for returning warriors and mandated the purification of fighters and their garments.

As founder of the International Conference of War Veteran Ministers, Father Phil Salois, a Catholic priest and chief of chaplain services for the VA Boston Healthcare System, has developed ecumenical liturgies incorporating verse by World War I poet and soldier Wilfred Owen, Bible readings, and prayers written specifically for services of reconciliation and healing. “I think it’s about redemption, to bring back meaning in their lives,” says Salois, who served as an infantry soldier in Vietnam. “We try to teach them God loves them no matter what happened to them. There is nothing that is unredeemable.”

Some Jewish veterans use the mikveh, or ritual bath, in their search for a rite of purification and rebirth. The Birkat Hagomel, a public prayer of thanksgiving (”Praised art thou O eternal God ruler of the universe, who has redeemed with kindnesses those who are guilty, and who has redeemed me with all manner of goodness”), can also be recited before a Jewish congregation by someone who has survived a life-threatening situation. The prayer requires a communal response affirming redemption. “Afterwards, it entitles everybody in the congregation to go up to you and say what happened to you? Are you OK? And to make human contact out of that moment,” says Rabbi Robinson.

But Robinson questions whether a truly communal purification ritual is possible, suggesting that the separation between those who serve in the military and those who don’t is too wide to bridge meaningfully, and there is no consensus about where purification finally resides. Is it with the doctor and the psychiatrist, or with the priest and the rabbi?

Yet community involvement is something Shay feels is crucial to the whole notion of a purification ritual. “It’s not a matter of pointing a finger at the returning vet,” he says. “It’s that we all need purification after battle. You have gone into danger and done some things that perhaps were truly terrible, but you’ve done them in our name, and it’s we who sent you to do those things.”

Some returning veterans experience great feelings of isolation, and communal rituals can offset their sense of aloneness and provide them with an opportunity to talk about their experiences. As Captain Jeffrey Cox, a Massachusetts National Guard social worker who returned from a tour of duty in Iraq in 2006, puts it, “Does anyone…know my story outside of the people I’ve served with?”

As the recent experience of the Episcopal monastery in Cambridge demonstrates, for those who have served — and will serve — in Iraq and Afghanistan, it may be a long time before anyone hears their stories. Salois recalls a Chicago retreat where four couples canceled the day it began. That was the first retreat a young Iraq veteran had attended. “He was very focused on what we said about our experiences [in Vietnam] and how we journeyed throughout the years. When it came time for him to speak, he said, ‘I appreciate everything you’ve said, but I’m not ready to talk about it.’ And I thought, well, it was 13 years before I started talking about this.”

“One can hope that the rest of us will accompany them when we can and follow them when we should,” Peter Marin wrote of the nation’s war veterans. Their recovery, we may need to learn again, is a collective responsibility.

Benedicta Cipolla, a writer in New York City, has also written for Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly on Iraq, the ethics of torture, and Reinhold Niebuhr.

BOB FAW, correspondent: At Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee, four-year-old Ethan Barker might seem carefree. But his parents, Chris and Tamara, are frightened about Ethan’s upcoming brain surgery. So when neurosurgeon Dr. Stephanie Einhaus asks if the family would like to pray, they readily agree.

DR. STEPHANIE EINHAUS (praying with family): We come before your throne today, Lord, asking for your blessing on this sweet child of yours.

FAW: Ethan’s surgery is delicate. Einhaus takes a bone from his skull and modifies it to cover a space created by an earlier surgery.

DR. EINHAUS: (in operating room): …the bone of the skull is kind of in two layers and so you can split it like an Oreo cookie…

FAW: For this skilled practitioner, praying benefits her as much as the patient’s family.

DR. EINHAUS: If I’m having a hard time doing something, getting a catheter in a fluid space, I’ll just pause and in my own head I will pray, “Please, Lord, help me get this right.”

FAW: Einhaus says praying with families helps them with the stress and gives them hope.

DR. EINHAUS: It helps them to hold on to something to get through, you know, that crisis that’s going on. Most people want to do it. They’re like, they’re so relieved.

FAW: Eleven-year-old Holly Barkley, about to undergo surgery to drain fluid from her brain, does not face a crisis.

DR. EINHAUS (to patient): How’s your head feeling?

FAW: But her family also wants to pray.

DR. EINHAUS (praying with family): I pray that you will let this family feel your power, let them feel your peace, Lord…

FAW: Prayers like that, family members agree, can bring comfort.

CHRIS BARKLEY: It puts a sense of comfort in you. Normally, doctors don’t do that, and it probably makes people feel closer to the doctor. You want them to care just as much as you do.

LAURA YOUNG (Holly Barkley’s mother): It was more of the Lord was on our side, and it told me then it was going to be okay, and you know I was ready to—if anything came out negative, I was ready to face it.

DR. EINHAUS (to Ethan’s family): Hello. We are all done, and it went great.

FAW: Einhaus, raised Catholic and now a Southern Baptist, was once reluctant to pray with patients in the beginning for fear of being ridiculed. But as time went on she felt more comfortable asking patients if they would like to pray.

DR. EINHAUS: Once you start doing it you realize how much people really like doing it and how powerful it can be as a support for not only the patient but for the families.

FAW: You regard your role as a physician as a kind of ministry.

DR. EINHAUS: I do, I absolutely do.

FAW: In this part of the Bible belt, many patients—like Marletta Scott, facing difficult triple bypass heart surgery at Methodist South Hospital—say they would welcome a chance to pray with their doctor, even though Marletta Scott’s doctor, heart surgeon Alim Khandekhar, happens to be Muslim.

MARLETTA SCOTT: He did explain to me that, overall, that, you know, it was in the Lord’s hands and that he’d be watching over him as well as me during this procedure. I mean, and that’s all that we can ask for.

FAW: That makes you feel good, that gives you comfort?

MARLETTA SCOTT: Yeah, it does.

FAW: in his 32 years of professional experience, Khandekhar says he has found that patients with faith often recover faster.

DR. ALIM KHANDEKHAR: Because they rely not only on the doctors, the medicine, but they rely on a power that is more powerful than all of them, that puts them at ease with themselves, at ease with the decision they are making.

FAW: What all this suggests, especially in this part of the country, is a growing trend by physicians to treat physical and spiritual problems together. After all, says the founder of this Memphis clinic, 50 percent of the patients who come here for primary care do not have medical problems.

DR. SCOTT MORRIS (Founder, Church Health Center, and United Methodist Minister): Many of our physical complaints come about because of our spirits being broken. What they need is a way for us to help them deal with this spiritual devastation.

FAW: So here at the Church Health Center, which since 1987 has treated 60,000 low-income people without health insurance, the spiritual needs of a patient are addressed before they ever see a doctor.

DR. MORRIS: From my point of view, if we want to be healthier, you must have a healthy spirit as well as a healthy body. We know, I think, in our heart of hearts, that being at peace, being bathed in what a person perceives as the love of God, makes people healthier faster.

FAW: But mixing prayer with medicine can cause problems, especially when the goal of reducing suffering conflicts with the wishes of devout patients. For example, a recent AMA [American Medical Association] study found that patients of faith demand and get more aggressive treatment than is medically warranted, and there are also concerns that a patient can be exploited if a doctor uses prayer to proselytize, to promote certain beliefs.

PROFESSOR MARK MUESSE (Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Rhodes College): It might take the form of a particular kind of prayer that the patient might be uncomfortable with. It might include accepting certain kinds of creedal statements that the patient would not otherwise accept.

FAW: At Rhodes College, where he teaches comparative religion, Mark Muesse also worries that praying with a patient could compromise a doctor’s relationship with a patient.

PROF. MUESSE: There could be a boundary crossed there, that a doctor begins to lose his objectivity in relationship to a patient. You’re losing some of the critical distance, I think, that’s oftentimes necessary for proper medical treatment.

FAW: Physicians like Einhaus counter that even if that boundary is crossed, no harm need result.

DR. EINHAUS: No matter what, you’re going to develop a relationship with your patients, okay? So the fact that I’m praying with them may make that bond a little stronger, but in no way would it affect my judgment.

FAW: And that element of compassion, physicians argue, is what is often missing in the training many doctors receive.

DR. KHANDEKAR: During my training, you know, being a cardiac surgeon, I don’t think that part has been stressed enough. It helps me to have another power behind me to do what I do. I do not think enough doctors use this power.

FAW: Here, though, that recognition—that the spiritual can affect the physical—seems to be growing.

PROF. MUESSE: In the past, you know, doctors would take care of the body, and the ministers and the chaplains would take care of the soul, but now we’re seeing that those two things cannot be separated.

FAW: Shortly after his surgery, Ethan was almost as playful as before. Holly, too, was doing just fine. For each, medical technology prevailed.  But in this medical theatre, more and more physicians seem to be sharing a belief that there is more at work here than science and skill.

DR. EINHAUS: We’re not always in control. God’s always in control, and so things may not turn out the way we want them to. We may not like it.  We may not understand it this side of eternity. But we have to trust that he is still in control and that if they go and they die, that heaven is really a good place.

FAW: Here, where there is recognition that when in comes to healing, fixing the body alone is an incomplete, indeed, flawed approach.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly this is Bob Faw in Memphis, Tennessee.

BOB FAW, correspondent: Sometimes for an autistic child like Elizabeth, cheered on here by her father—

RAY BREEN (to daughter on bicycle): Turn, turn, turn. You can do it, you can do it, you can do it. Good, good.

FAW: Sometimes there are small victories—

RAY BREEN: Excellent, excellent.

FAW: —and the demons of autism loosen their grip. Too often, though, for Elizabeth there are other moments of seemingly impenetrable darkness and frustration. Unable to speak, Elizabeth communicates now by finding letters on a letterboard or typing into a keyboard. Even that, says her mother Ginnie, does not spare Elizabeth moments of agony.

GINNIE BREEN: I remember so distinctly one of the first things she typed out: A-G-O-N-Y, agony. This was a little six-year-old child, and she knew what agony was, and then she wrote, “I need to talk”—that that was her agony.

FAW: She wasn’t always like this. In her first 15 months, Elizabeth was healthy, active, alert, even verbal. Then she changed drastically.

GINNIE BREEN: Besides the complete loss of language within a week, she did start to have repetitive behavior and have frustrations and tantrums and really kind of left us.

FAW: Researchers suspect genetic and environmental factors cause autism. It is characterized by unconventional facial expressions, limited motor and social skills, and difficulty communicating—a life largely dependent. For Elizabeth’s parents that diagnosis was devastating enough, but they were also told there is no reliable treatment, no guaranteed cure, and ten years later not that much has changed, says Dr. Anthony Rostain, an expert on autism at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

DR. ANTHONY ROSTAIN (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia): It really affects almost every aspect of how the child thinks, acts, feels, and develops both cognitively and emotionally. So, as a result, it’s hard to come up with one-size-fits-all kind of treatment.

FAW: Elizabeth’s parents, Ginnie and Ray, both enjoyed lucrative Wall Street careers but gave them up to focus on their three children and the battle against autism. Early on, behavorial therapy exercises like this, they were told, might help Elizabeth to organize the chaos in her mind, help her to learn how to learn.

Teacher to Elizabeth: Show me jumping. Turn around. Good job. Can you show me sitting? Nice job.

FAW: Since she was three years old, her school district has paid a full-time professional aide to help Elizabeth academically.This is what a respected speech therapist believed might help loosen Elizabeth’s tongue. It turned out to be more fun than effective.There have also been years of special diets and vitamin supplements and homeopathic drops costing hundreds of dollars every month, a $20,000 hyperbaric chamber, which pumps extra oxygen into her brain for an hour every day, even unproven therapies like these prism lenses which distort Elizabeth’s vision in hopes of reordering the way her brain processes information.

FAW: Are you convinced that this has benefits?

GINNIE BREEN: I believe that this has helped other children.

FAW: And several times Elizabeth’s mother has taken her cross-country, seeking healing in prayer services.

GINNIE BREEN: We’ve used educational interventions, medical interventions. Why not spiritual interventions?

FAW: Parents of autistic children face a terrible dilemma. They are forced literally to experiment on their own children because the medical community has not tested and proven those treatments the way it has with treatments for physical conditions like heart disease or cancer.

DR. ROSTAIN: We are in very, very, very early stages of understanding how medications might improve functioning.

FAW: You don’t fault a parent for trying everything conceivable?

DR. ROSTAIN: I don’t, because if I had a child who wasn’t responding to treatments that were prescribed by the doctor, I might very well take that child to someone else and someone else and someone else.

FAW: What has happened to Elizabeth has happened with countless other autistic children—so many interventions with success only hit or miss. Ethicist Arthur Caplan:

PROFESSOR ARTHUR CAPLAN (Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania): I could take you online and find tons of quacks, rip-off artists, selling quote unquote “treatments” to parents of kids with autism. It is a huge problem.

FAW: It is also an ethical minefield: Does society have the responsibility and can it afford to help autistic children who lack the resources lavished on Elizabeth? If so, should that task fall, as it mostly now does, on local public schools?

PROFESSOR CAPLAN: You can’t do it that way. Obviously, different school districts have different amounts of money. We need a national policy to divvy up resources to autistic kids, not the school board budget. That makes no sense at all.

FAW: One intervention which has worked well for Elizabeth began five years ago in Austin, Texas with language therapist Soma Mukhopadhyay, who taught Elizabeth to use the letterboard. Then, a stunning turn in Elizabeth’s life: At the urging of her personal education aide, Terri Bird, Elizabeth began writing powerful, often deeply personal poetry, turning some of her frustration into inspiration, and for the first time, those around Elizabeth discovered her inner voice. For example: “…It’s not easy, you see, it’s very hard being me. / There is so much going on in my mind / All of the time.”

FAW (to Elizabeth): Why do you write poems?

Elizabeth types out the word F-E-E-L-I-N-G-S

FAW: Your feelings—that’s why you write poems. Elizabeth is, says her mother, “a very spiritual child,” and some of her poems are religious.

GINNIE BREEN (reads from poem “God Loves You”): It does not matter who you are / It does not matter if you stray far / God is always there for you…

FAW: Elizabeth has written 90 poems thus far. Many reveal her yearning to be heard.

GINNIE BREEN (reads from poem “Me”): If only they could walk in my shoes / They would share my news / I am in here / And trying to speak / Every day in some kind of way.

FAW: Sentiments echoed in this anthem written for children with autism.

Vocal music: “Oh, don’t you know I’m trying to find a way to show you who I am…”

FAW: Because she can communicate, Elizabeth, accompanied by Terri, also attends a mainstream public school where she excels especially in math.

TEACHER: Find the greatest common factor of 18 and 24?

Elizabeth types the number 6.

TEACHER: Good girl.

FAW: Her teachers marvel at her performance and persistence.

KERRI BENSON (Math Teacher): She’s taught me about patience, and I just, I can’t even begin to explain that I’ve probably learned more for her than anybody in life so far.

FAW: Elizabeth is warmly received by other students. Besides writing, Elizabeth can read with remarkable speed, and Terri tests her comprehension.

TERRI BIRD (Education Aide): Doing this job with Elizabeth is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life.

FAW: Elizabeth’s success and her failures—this two-steps-forward, one step back—have been physically exhausting and emotionally draining for her and her family. It has also severely tested her mother’s faith.

GINNIE BREEN: It’s a natural thing to cry out where are you, God? I mean, I’m calling here in the darkness, and I can’t take too much more sometimes.

FAW: And though she on occasion has wavered, her beliefs have emerged stronger.

(to Ginnie Breen): Has it reinforced you faith?

GINNIE BREEN: Absolutely. There are times I know that we are being blessed on the right path here, and I’ll pray about it, and we’ll move forward.

FAW: Whether Elizabeth will eventually speak is, at best, a long shot. She may, her mother concedes, always need assistance, which is why in this household success is measured one day, one small victory, at a time.

GINNIE BREEN: I want to be able to say I have done everything to make my little girl talk. I mean, how can I hear her say, “I’m in agony because I can’t speak” and not try something? The data may say only one percent, but if that one percent is Elizabeth, that’s all I need, and she wants us to keep trying.

FAW: For Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly, this is Bob Faw in Northern New Jersey.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: For the past 50 years, many churches and health organizations have observed the last Sunday in January as the World Day of Leprosy. Hansen’s disease, as it’s also known, is now curable, but it still strikes a quarter of a million people each year. Remembering leprosy victims recalls the life of Father Damien, a Belgian priest who cared for the outcasts in a leprosy colony in Hawaii, and who eventually died of leprosy himself. Father Damien is expected to be named a saint later this year [Editor's note: Father Damien will be canonized in Rome on October 11, 2009] and Lucky Severson tells his story.

LUCKY SEVERSON: This place may look like a slice of heaven, but to many who lived here it was hell on earth. This is Kalaupapa, which was and still is a leper colony on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. It is an extremely isolated place, forgotten by the civilized world for over 100 years. That may soon change because of the honor about to be bestowed on a priest long ago who helped the diseased of Kalaupapa when no one else would. His name was Father Damien de Veuster, a missionary priest from Belgium. He is remembered by another Catholic priest, Father Clyde Guerreiro.

Father Clyde Guerreiro

Father CLYDE GUERREIRO: It’s the story, the classic story of heroic virtue versus the worst we can be as human beings.

SEVERSON: Father Damien called the numerous cemeteries on Kalaupapa “gardens of the dead.” Almost all of the 8,000 souls buried in these gardens were victims of Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy. Its victims were first exiled here beginning in 1866, forcefully separated from their loved ones, treated as criminals, literally thrown off the boat near this rocky beach.

Fr. GUERREIRO: The schooner would park out there, and they’d just throw them over, and if they survived, well, then they lived here.

SEVERSON: When Father Damien arrived in 1873, those thrown from the boat — the castaways — lived under the most primitive conditions, without potable drinking water, in shacks they constructed out of sticks and dried leaves. Food was scarce. Doctors would occasionally leave medicine but refuse to touch the patients. Survival was all that mattered, and the place became a lawless wild land. Father Damien would change all of that. Father Lane Akiona grew up on Molokai, and grew up admiring Father Damien.

Father LANE AKIONA: He was the builder. He was the coffin builder. He was the grave digger. He did the services. He anointed them. He was their nurse and doctor. He did practically everything for them.

SEVERSON: And when Father Damien was 49, he died for them, a victim of leprosy. He had simply treated too many sores and infections. His grave is located next to a church he preached in. Most of those buried on Kalaupapa died in the early 1940s, before the new sulfone drugs were developed that controlled the infectious disease and stopped its contagion. Still, it wasn’t until 1969, a quarter of a century later, that the law ordering forced exile was finally lifted. Dr. Walter Chang says victims of Hansen’s disease have always been treated with callous disregard.

Dr. Walter Chang

Dr. WALTER CHANG: From the Bible and from historical accounts, leprosy was considered a very ghastly disease. Lepers were detested. They were stoned. They were even killed.

SEVERSON: Today, there are only about 20 patients living in Kalaupapa where there is now a hospital, and care is always available for those still afflicted with the disease. They were sentenced here. Some don’t need to stay here any longer, but they do. Others stay because they can’t leave the stigma behind. Melly Watanuki has been here since 1969 because it’s her home.

(to Melly Watanauki): Are you still sick?

MELLY WATANUKI: No.

SEVERSON: But you have to take medicine every day, right?

Ms. WATANUKI: Yeah, that was way before when I would get sick, I got to take the medicine for cure.

SEVERSON: But you don’t have to take the medicine anymore?

Ms. WATANUKI: No.

SEVERSON: The place is still almost as inaccessible as it was in the 1800s. No one is allowed in without government permission. There are only two ways onto the peninsula: an up-and-down eight-minute flight over the worlds tallest sea cliffs, which separate the colony from the outside world, or a steep mule train ride down from what is known as topside. Audrey Toguchi, a retired schoolteacher, has made the journey from her home in Honolulu five times, always to pray at Father Damien’s gravesite.

AUDREY TOGUCHI: Oh, he’s helped me a lot. He really has. And so how else can I look at him but as my hero?

Dr. CHANG (pointing to x-ray): See how vicious it looks? They look like all kinds of different criminals.

SEVERSON: If Father Damien was Audrey’s hero before, she’s convinced he became her lifesaver after Dr. Walter Chang, a general surgeon, diagnosed her with a very rare kind of aggressive cancer of the fat tissues 10 years ago.

Audrey Toguchi

Dr. CHANG: You know, I told her, “You need chemotherapy. Without chemotherapy,” I said, “the likelihood of you surviving a long time is extremely small.”

(to Ms. Toguchi): How long did he give you to live?

Ms. TOGUCHI: Well, probably about five or six months.

Dr. CHANG: Well, she told me very calmly, “Doctor, I’m not going to accept chemotherapy. I’m going to Molokai to pray to Father Damien.” And I replied, “Mrs. Toguchi, prayers are very nice, but you still need chemotherapy.” And she said, “Doctor, I’m going to pray only.”

SEVERSON: And so Audrey made one more trip to Father Damien’s grave, and here’s what she said.

Ms. TOGUCHI: “Father Damien, I have all these problems, and I really need your help to intercede, and dear Lord please, please help me.”

Dr. CHANG (pointing to x-rays): OK, this is Mrs. Toguchi’s x-ray before she went to Molokai. This is the cancer spread to her lungs.

SEVERSON: But after she returned from Father Damien’s graveside, the x-rays showed her cancer was receding. Eventually it disappeared altogether.

Ms. TOGUCHI: And Dr. Chang said, “What did you do?” I said I asked Father Damien for help.

Dr. CHANG: I said to myself, “This is a very remarkable event. It has never happened before in as far as I can detect from the history of medicine.” So I said to myself, “You know, Mrs. Toguchi,” I said, “this is so remarkable you ought to report it to your — people in your religion.”

SEVERSON: So Mrs. Toguchi contacted the Vatican and sent along Dr. Chang’s meticulously detailed record of her recovery, which was thoroughly investigated by church authorities, who eventually declared it a miracle. Now Father Damien is scheduled to become, officially, Saint Damien.

Dr. CHANG: The true skeptic will call this a random coincidence. The true believer, the truly faithful, will call this a miracle. I think I’ll have to straddle that line and call it a complete spontaneous or complete and permanent spontaneous regression of cancer.

Father Lane Akiona

SEVERSON: The canonization process is not quick or easy. Father Damien was first officially venerated for his work in Kalaupapa over 100 years ago. Then, to become a saint, he needed to perform two miracle healings authenticated by the best science of the times. The first, many years ago, was a French nun. The second, in 1999, was Audrey Toguchi.

The news that Father Damien was going to become Saint Damien did not come as a surprise to the patients still living here. To them, he’s always been a saint, one who would not recognize Kalaupapa today. The place seems like an island paradise with well-groomed bungalows, a grocery store, and gas station. It’s a quiet place, but that may change after the Vatican formally canonizes Father Damien.

SEVERSON: Kalaupapa has always been considered a special place. There are stories of natives making spiritual pilgrimages here 500 years ago. Clarence and Ivy Kahilihaiwa have been here more than 50 years, and they agree with their ancestors.

(to Clarence Kahilihiwa): Is this a spiritual place here?

CLARENCE KAHILIHIWA: It is more than that. The “manna,” the spirit is here, I guess, because of our ancestors who died here way back.

Fr. AKIONA: To know that so many people went there, feeling helpless — no sense of hope. And here comes this missionary from a foreign land and was willing to do everything for them. It is a spiritual place.

SEVERSON: As long as there are patients here, the government will continue to restrict the number of visitors. But the patients are getting older. The youngest is almost 70, and when they’re gone, only the “gardens of the dead” will speak of Kalaupapa’s dark, painful history.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in Kaluapapa, Hawaii.

DEBORAH POTTER, correspondent: It’s hard work on a warm day, but Bob Lewis never shirks.

BOB LEWIS (Garden Volunteer): I garden at home. On off days, I’m out here.

POTTER: “Here” is a vegetable patch in front of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in suburban Washington, tended by volunteers from the parish.

VOLUNTEER: We got a bumper crop and more coming in!

POTTER: Last year, this garden was just an idea—something the rector dreamed up.

REV. STEPHANIE NAGLEY (Rector, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Bethesda, Maryland): I think “come eat, go serve” is becoming our slogan.

POTTER: For Reverend Stephanie Nagley, the garden as a way of living out what she sees as God’s call to give away what you’ve been given, especially in tough times. St. Luke’s is one of several churches across the country that planted vegetable gardens for the first time this spring, partly in response to the recession. Most of their food goes to local food banks, but what comes out of this garden goes right next door. All of the produce grown at the church is donated to St. Luke’s House, a mental health facility the parish helped to found almost 30 years ago.

VOLUNTEER (to class members): You want to help us get all this stuff rinsed?

POTTER: Cooking class is offered daily as part of a life skills program. The goal of the class is to help these adults with mental illness learn to live more independently.

(to class member): What are you learning?

CLASS MEMBER: How to cook different veggies.

POTTER:  The fact that those veggies come from the church next door isn’t lost on anyone at St. Luke’s House.

BETH WELCH (Client, St. Luke’s House): I think it’s really absolutely nice. We get a lot more veggies to eat.

MARK ROBBINS (Client, St. Luke’s House): I really appreciate it. I really should thank them sometime, I guess.

ERIC GORDON (Staff, St. Luke’s House) I think the clients get a real kick out of it. One guy in particular is always double-checking: Are you guys really using that in your cooking classes? Are you sure? Yes, we definitely are using this in our cooking classes.

POTTER: The clients and staff of St. Luke’s House benefit from the garden’s bounty, but that’s not its only value. Parishioner Anne Elsbree organized the 30 volunteers who tilled the ground, planted the seeds, and now harvest the crops.

ANNE ELSBREE (Garden Organizer) I think it’s produced good teamwork at church. We’ve all been working on a project together and getting results, so it’s been very satisfying.

REV. STEPHANIE NAGLEY: In some ways, I think a lot of this was just sort of an unconscious bubbling up of people’s faith, and now I think it’s sort of come to this next era, where it’s really now articulated, and we’re making it clear that this is what we’ve been about all along.

POTTER: Cara Gonzalez worships at St. Luke’s and has brought the local youth organization she works with to help out in the garden.

CARA GONZALEZ (Parishioner): There’s definitely something spiritual about working with the earth and feeling a relationship with all of God’s creation, and then taking that and making it into a human relationship with those who benefit in the cooking program and with the youth who benefit. I think it’s all about that connectedness, and that’s very spiritual.

POTTER: This year’s harvest was such a success that St. Luke’s plans to keep the garden going next year and make it bigger, so it can feed even more people, body and spirit.

CARA GONZALEZ (holding out fresh basil): Amazing. Here, take a sniff. Tell me that’s not spiritual right there. Amazing.

For Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, I’m Deborah Potter in Bethesda, Maryland.

RABBI IRWIN KULA (National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership): The central ritual on Yom Kippur, besides prayer itself, that’s most well-known, is fasting. What fasting does is it says I’m not going to concentrate on my physical body right now. I’m going to concentrate on a different kind of food. Rather than nutrients for my body, I’m going to concentrate on the nutrients for my spirit, and my heart, and my ethical way.

So when you feel hungry at two o’clock in the afternoon, the feeling of hunger is not so that you’ll be in pain. The feeling of hunger is to stimulate two things: What am I really hungry for—because it’s more than just food. What am I really hungry for in my spiritual and ethical life? And who really is hungry that I need to feed? And if you take those two insights from the practice seriously, it’s working. That’s what atonement—that is what “at-one-ment” means.

Kol Nidre is the first prayer of the Yom Kippur service. What we do on Kol Nidre is the confrontation and the challenge of having to look at every promise and obligation and commitment that I have in my life and starting by saying okay, fine. You have none of them. You have no obligations, no promises. Kol Nidre—all the promises are null and void. Okay, now what? It’s very frightening to imagine that we have no obligations, because it is our obligations, our promises that define who we are.

The rest of Yom Kippur, in a sense, is taking back the obligations, reassessing them. Okay, I am married—do I want to be married? What does it mean to have that obligation? Hey, I am a father—what are the obligations that come with being a father that may have gotten distorted in between last Yom Kippur and this Yom Kippur? What are my obligations to my work and my craft and my calling? What are my obligations, what are the promises that I’ve made to myself? So Kol Nidre is a very profound method and technology for stripping us of all promises and obligations that may distort us, so that we stand there naked, just us, with the ability to take back promises, take back obligations over the next 25 hours.

The focus of the High Holiday period is not on death. The focus is on life. It turns out that one of the great ways to focus ourselves on life is to think about death. That just turns out to be the paradox. So if on Yom Kippur we fast, if on Yom Kippur we deny ourselves certain bodily pleasures and engage in a kind of deep introspection on the moral, psychological, and spiritual level, well, it turns out we will become better people. I mean, that’s just what happens. But, again, there are no guarantees. You can go through everything on Yom Kippur and go through the motions, and on the other hand you can sit in Yom Kippur and never use a prayer book but just really think about who you are and it can make a difference in your life.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: Roman Catholic priests deal a lot with spiritual food, but Father Leo Patalinghug works with food of a more earthly nature as well.

REV. LEO PATALINGHUG (at Delaware State Fair): And I’ve got myself here a nice, beautiful piece of flank steak.

LAWTON: Father Leo is a chef who has his own Web-based cooking show called “Grace Before Meals.” It gets more than 10,000 hits a day from around the world. He’s written a cookbook with the same title.

REV. PATALINGHUG (on “Grace Before Meals” show): We ask God to bless us this holy season and the food we’re about to receive.

LAWTON: He says food is very much part of his priestly ministry.

REV. PATALINGHUG: Theologically, this is what Jesus did. Most of his greatest lessons were taught around a dinner table.

LAWTON: In his day job, Father Leo is director of pastoral field education at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, the second oldest and second largest Catholic seminary in the country.

REV. PATALINGHUG: Sometimes I like to say I’m teaching future shepherds how to feed their hungry flock.

LAWTON: He teaches classes on a variety of subjects, such as how to give a good sermon, and even here, he finds a connection with food.

REV. PATALINGHUG: I teach a preaching class, which means I can’t have guys dishing out stale, boring leftovers, but dynamic things that are going to make their appetites just expand, and to whet their appetites to show that what we have to offer is good news

LAWTON: Father Leo says his mother taught him how to cook when he was a kid.

REV. PATALINGHUG: My love for cooking started just because I like to eat!

(Cooking at state fair): I love that sound.

After doing my activities I would get bored quickly. Mother would invite me to help her with cooking because it’s a multi-tasking thing, and that actually piqued my interest.

LAWTON: Father Leo grew up in Baltimore, where his family had emigrated from the Philippines. He says faith and food were both very important in his family’s life.

REV. PATALINGHUG: My family style of eating is very much a feast day celebration and yes, we prayed before every meal, and it was something serious, because in my country not everyone gets a chance to eat, and so they reminded us that even though we were living in America, a land of plenty, there are a lot of people who don’t have the blessings on the table as well as the blessings around the table.

LAWTON: He didn’t always know he would become a priest. He first dabbled in several other fields, from break dancing to martial arts.

REV. PATALINGHUG (at state fair): I used to be a martial artist. I still practice a little of it. Third-degree black belt instructor in tae kwon do, as well as a full-contact Filippino martial art called arnis. So if you asked what I did for fun before I became a priest, I used to beat people up with sticks. That’s what I did.

LAWTON: In the midst of it all, he says a series of events, including a skiing accident and a breakup with his girlfriend, had him turning to God in prayer. Then, he says, he traveled to the Philippines with the US stick-fighting team.

REV. PATALINGHUG: I remember going to this one village, and we were handing out candy to people, and there was one little boy who only had a t-shirt, on and he came up to me, and I gave him a piece of candy, and I looked in his eyes, and I thought to myself, had it not been for my dad bringing us to America, that could have been me.

LAWTON: He felt that God was calling him to help people like that boy, and to do so by becoming a priest. He entered seminary and was ordained ten years ago when he was 29. Father Leo says the food part of the ministry evolved naturally as he began building relationships with his parishioners. He often scheduled counseling sessions around meal times.

REV. PATALINGHUG: They call me Father. I’ m supposed to be part of their family. So I would help them, we would gather in the kitchen, we would cook, I helped set up the table, and they saw the human side to me and not just the spiritual side.

(on “Grace Before Meals” show): Bless this food.

LAWTON: The idea for a cooking show was born just after the attacks on September 11, 2001.

REV. PATALINGHUG: So after a very tragic weekend worth of Masses where the churches were full, hungering for an inspiration of hope, we ourselves, the ministers, we were spent. So we went on a little retreat together, and I did all the cooking—comfort food. So one of the priests suggested, “I love watching you cook. It would be great if I had a video camera and taped all of this. You could talk about food, faith, family and culture.” And I looked at him and said, “That’s one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard.”

LAWTON: But his fellow priests didn’t think it was so dumb. Father Leo says they kept nagging him about it and eventually connected him with a producer and a production company who loved the idea of a priest cooking show.

REV. PATALINGHUG (on “Grace Before Meals” show): Ketchup—do you see that slob right there? That’s what confession is for.

LAWTON: He now does “webisodes” of the cooking show online, often with the help of his seminarians, and his Web site has recipes and blogs.

REV. PATALINGHUG (on “Grace Before Meals” show): Cleanliness is next to…you know what I mean.

LAWTON: He’s also become a much sought-after speaker, and he does cooking demonstrations around the country, such as this appearance at the Delaware State Fair.

REV. PATALINGHUG (at state fair): This beef is going to—oh, my gosh, it’s making me pray already.

LAWTON: His motto is feeding people, mind, body and soul, and he believes that families are strengthened when they share meals together.

REV. PATALINGHUG: We know that families are buying so much into the fast-food mentality that they spend no time with each other. My objective for “Grace Before Meals” is to create mini-Thanksgivings throughout the year.

LAWTON: When he speaks to a secular audience, he tries not to be aggressively religious.

REV. PATALINGHUG (at state fair): We all are hungering for something, and that’s why people go everywhere to find something to satisfy them. What I would like you to consider is to make sure you have a balanced diet for your body, your mind, and your soul.

Unidentified woman at state fair: I loved how he brought the spirituality into the mealtime and the family. I think that’s what drew everybody’s attention. And the food was delicious!

LAWTON: He’s gaining international attention and was just challenged to a cooking competition by celebrity chef Bobby Flay. I asked him how he keeps it all from going to his head.

REV. PATALINGHUG: I guess the celebrity status can be a temptation for anyone, but as a priest I’m somewhat protected in this. I’m required to spend time in quiet prayer and reflection. A holy hour a day gives me a great perspective. I’m just me doing something good for God.

LAWTON: Father Leo does get criticism from some Catholics who think it’s inappropriate for a priest to be doing what he does. But he asserts that his food ministry is deeply Christian.

REV. PATALINGHUG: We believe, at least in the Catholic Church, what binds us together and what binds God to us is food: a piece of bread turned into the body and blood of Christ in which we are incorporated into his family.

(at state fair): I’ve got to tell you that I know that the collar freaks people out a little bit.

LAWTON: Father Leo says for him, one of the most important parts of his cooking ministry is reaching out to people who may be uncomfortable with priests and helping them learn a little about God.

REV. PATALINGHUG: He can take a break-dancing, board-breaking, bread-breaking priest and, you know, give hope to people who might not understand the church or who might not understand the priest.

LAWTON: And that, he says, is a grace that extends beyond every meal.

I’m Kim Lawton in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

Read more of Kim Lawton’s interview with Father Leo Patalinghug, director of pastoral field education at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and watch him talk about his television cook-off with celebrity chef and restaurateur Bobby Flay:

Q: Tell us a little bit about how you started cooking.

A: My love for cooking started just because I like to eat, and my mom would bring me into the kitchen when I was younger. After doing my activities I would get bored quickly. Mother would invite me to help her with cooking because it’s a multitasking thing and that actually piqued my interest.

Q: And where did you grow up? Talk a little bit about your memories of your family coming together over meals.

A: Being a traditional Filipino family growing up in Baltimore, I joke with people and say the reason why I had friends as a kid was because my mom cooked so well, and so we would eat traditional Filipino food, so for me to go to my friend’s house and eat Mac ‘n Cheese was exotic. But we had a real sense of eating together as a family. Every meal was together.

Q: Did faith play a role for your family as well when you were growing up?

A: Because we were immigrants, my mother needed a connection back to her own homeland, and the universality of the Catholic Church gave her that. In fact, we moved in location to our church. She would only go to a place, a home that was close enough where she could walk with her children to church.

Q: And did you have that memory of eating together—you know, food, grace before meals—there?

A: My family style of eating is very much a feast day celebration and yes, we prayed before every meal, and it was something serious because in my country not everyone gets a chance to eat. And so they reminded us that even though we were living in America, a land of plenty, there are a lot of people who don’t have the blessings on the table as well as the blessings around the table.

Q: Let’s jump over to your journey to the priesthood. Tell us a little about how that happened. I know that wasn’t necessarily your original path that you started on.

A: No, the original path for me was to do something in journalism or to do something in law. But at the same time I wanted to do something that was service-oriented, and it was only after what is now known as a conversion I realized that there is a God, God has a plan for me, and after a few years of discerning that, praying through it, going to retreats, I felt at peace in this calling and this lifestyle, even though most of my friends would be very surprised I decided to become a priest. I was 29 years old when I was ordained. I entered when I was 24 years old.

Q: What was happening that led to that conversion or led you to really start listening and seeking, is this something that is for me?

A: I think I was given a great, for lack of a better word, grace/opportunity to think about the big picture in life: What do I want to do? I was a deeper thinker than most. I wanted to not just take care of the temporal things, but knew that there was emotions, that there’s a spirit to people and how can I help with that? There were many events that made me turn to God and prayer, whether it be a major skiing accident, whether it be a breakup with a girlfriend, whether it be trying to find the right job, whether it be a very special moment of prayer. And there was one in particular when I went back to the Philippines and I was working—not working, I went back to the Philippines and I was a participant in a world stick-fighting competition because I was a martial artist, and I was with the USA team, and we had brought some supplies over just to give to some of the poor children in the area. I remember going to this one village and we were handing out candy to people and there was one little boy who only had a t-shirt on and he came up to me and I gave him a piece of candy and I looked in his eyes and I thought to myself, had it not been for my dad bringing us to America, that could have been me, and it just made me stop and think of the hunger of the people in the world. But even though this was a poor baby, he had a bigger smile than some of our children who have plenty to keep them occupied. And so I began to think more deeply of that and obviously through the assistance of good priests as spiritual directors and confessors, I was able to come to a peace that maybe God is calling me to the priesthood. So I walked into a seminary and six years later I was ordained a priest.

Q: Did that freak you out when you even started considering that possibility?

A: Yes, it was a very shocking thing. I actually played a joke on my mother. It was Halloween, and I was in a cast and I was teaching karate, and our karate school was having a big Halloween costume [party], and I couldn’t think of a costume with this cast on, and I was going to be a mummy but that was just too much cloth. So I had this black shirt on, I had a white thing around my neck, and I looked in the mirror and I thought, “Oh gosh, I could pull this off.” So I wrapped it around and it looked like a priest collar! And I remember crutching into my mother’s room and showing her. She was obviously very shocked and all the karate students at the time said, “You look good in that.” But it was a real shocker when I put it on for the first time as a seminarian.

Q: How did you start incorporating the cooking after you started going down the seminary/priesthood path? How did the cooking come into play there?

A: Well, the cooking has always been a part of my whole family’s life, and when I studied at the North American College in Rome, I realized the importance of a family meal, that seminary required the men to come together for every pronzo, which is a lunch or a supper, dinner experience, and so coming together we developed more than friendships. We developed a brotherhood, and that was abundantly clear being so far from my family that Thanksgivings, although I missed being with my family, were nonetheless special because I was with this family celebrating a meal. As far as it becoming a ministry, it’s basically the natural becoming more apparent, simply because families in the parish would invite me to come to their home for dinner, and that was code word for, “I’d like to talk to you, Father, about something.” So I would actually show up, but about forty-five minutes earlier, which really shocked them. But I wanted to see them interacting normally. I didn’t need them to put on a front. I needed them just to be a family, because they call me Father. I’m supposed to be part of their family, and so I would help them. We would gather in the kitchen. We would help cook, I’d help set up the table, and they saw the human side to me and not just the spiritual side. They realized that as I priest I had just as many feelings and questions and needs to pray about as they do. And in that camaraderie around the table I began to think theologically: this is what Jesus did. Most of his greatest lessons were taught around a dinner table.

Q: What is that connection between food and spirituality?

A: Food and spirituality’s connectors are so evident, because it addresses hungers. What are we hungering for? If it’s just food without company, then we could be living a very secluded life. That’s why we make an effort to reach out to people on those holidays. How? Through soup kitchens. Through handing out food. The word “religion” is something that everyone’s afraid of, but the Latin verb is simply religere which means “to bind.” What brings people together and in what forum? We believe, at least in the Catholic Church, what binds us together and what binds God to us is food—piece of bread turned into the body and blood of Christ in which we are incorporated into his family, and so when we look at food as a connector, we not only look at the hunger, we also look at what we’re being fed with, and so we think that food can also be inspiring.

Q: I’ve watched some of your shows on the Web, and I know that you talk about being fed mind, body, and soul. What’s that all about?

A: Being fed body, mind, and soul is a reminder that people can’t just live in the corporeal world, just to address the earthly things that make me feel good in body, because I know a lot of people who feel good in body, but their minds are so distraught with either guilt or shame and their heart is broken because of maybe of a bad relationship. People walk around this world with a great mask looking very good in the body but being very broken in the insides. My objective is to make sure that there is a connection, to not live a dualist spirituality, to live in this world as, the word is “hypocrite,” which means “actor.” I’m very happy on the outside but broken on the inside. We need to bring those two together.

Q: When you started doing the cooking shows that went online, why did you decide to take that route? You’re doing it for your parish; you’re doing it for the fellow priests and all of that. Why did you decide to go public?

A: Going public—I mean, there are so many angles to answer this question. The “Grace Before Meals” started because I simply took a hobby and I put it in God’s hands. He turned my hobby into a ministry. It became very apparent to me that people wanted this, hungered for something like this. If I could say, after September 11, it really was September 11, we know what happened, 2001. I was actually supposed to go to France on a pilgrimage with two other priests, but all the flights were canceled. So after a very tragic weekend worth of Masses, where the churches were full, hungering for an inspiration of hope, we ourselves, the ministers, we were spent. So we went a little retreat together, and I did all the cooking—comfort food. And it really made it a clear message that we were all hungering for support from one another. So one of the priests suggested, “I love watching you cook. It would be great if I had a video camera and taped all of this. You could talk about food, faith, family and culture.” And I looked at him and said, “That’s one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard.” But they kept egging me about it, and so I kind of took it seriously, but half seriously-half jokingly said, “Oh fine, well let’s do that and we’ll call it Grace Before Meals.” I thought that was the end of the story until one day when I was in the sacristy where the priests vest, and I was disrobing from the liturgical vestments, and a man walks in wanting to meet the new priest, me. And there was another priest there who was “inside” on that joke. He started coming to church regularly because he was looking for meaning. His son has autism and that’s hard for a family. So we started to go to daily Mass. In meeting him I just generically asked, “What is it that you do, Tim?” He said, “Well, I produce TV shows and commercials for Comcast.” Immediately the other priest said, “Well I’ve got an idea for you!” And I’m looking and going, “It’s a joke.” He said, “It’s called Grace Before Meals, it’s a priest cooking show.” I didn’t think anything of it until I get an email, and he says, “Father Leo, I’m flying in red-eye from LA. Can I have a breakfast meeting with you to discuss GBM?” It’s now given an acronym. I didn’t even know what “GBM” is. I tell people I thought he was talking about the “Great Blessed Mother” But he simply said, “I’d like to discuss in a Hollywood minute, which is thirty seconds or less, what’s Grace Before Meals.” I told him it’s a joke. He said, “No I’m serious.” So I said, “Fine. Grace Before Meals is maybe a show or a movement about a priest helping families, strengthening their relationship the way Jesus did, and it’s ultimately my responsibility to feed people body, mind and soul.” He said, “I love it.” And I said, “You’re sick” And from there, a very slow start, it’s turned into a pretty big movement.

Q: How do you balance that, the movement, with your responsibilities here at the seminary, your responsibilities as a priest? I know this is your ministry, but do you ever feel there is a conflict, or do you get pulled in different directions?

A: I’m blessed to have a rector, an archbishop, and faculty and seminarians who see the need to not live many ministries, but to try to bring them together as one. So this is connected to what I do here. As the pastoral field educator, my job is to teach future shepherds how to feed their flock. I teach a preaching class, which means I can’t have guys dishing out stale, boring leftovers, but dynamic things that are going to make their appetites just expand, and to whet their appetites to show that what we have to offer is good news. You can take corned beef hash, but if you put it on a beautiful square plate, make sure that the potatoes are perfectly scalloped, normal ordinary food becomes something worth celebrating. So, to a degree, this is my job. Does it put a strain on my schedule? Yes, which is why I make sure that I master my schedule rather than it master me, and also I have great access to spiritual companions who help me to keep focused on what it is that I’m supposed to be doing.

Q: I well know, being in front of the camera, being out there can have almost a seductive aspect to it, where you like being in the limelight. It can pull you in. Is there a struggle for you as a priest, to keep that humility virtue when you’re getting all the accolades and people want to get your autograph and all of that?

A: I guess the celebrity status could be a temptation for anyone. But as a priest I’m somewhat protected in this. I’m required to spend time in quiet prayer and reflection. A holy hour a day gives me a great perspective, and honestly, Leo, you’re not that good looking. You should be taller and more blonde. You should have straighter teeth. You should be thinner. I’m just me doing something good for God. I know ultimately what my faults and failures are because of confession and because I spend time in prayer. If there’s one thing that has actually been helpful about being in front of a camera, it has taught me patience and humility. Hurry up to wait, and then I look at myself or listen to myself and say, “Is that what I look like? Is that what I sound like?” I’ve got to approach this ministry seriously, but not take myself seriously.

Q: It’s very clear that you have fun and that you try to have fun with this and project a really fun image. I’ve seen you online break dancing and doing other stuff like that. What do you make of the image of priests that you’re projecting, especially given the stereotypes many people in the wider society might have?

A: If there’s anything that “Grace Before Meals” has been able to do, it’s to shatter some of those stereotypes. We are human just like everyone else. But we’re not satisfied with that. We want to be better at what we do, and God uses even our broken past to help us turn toward a better future. A lot of people are surprised that before I was a priest I used to teach martial arts, third-degree black belt structured taekwondo, full-contact Filipino stick fighting on our knees, I wanted to either be a journalist or a lawyer, I used to teach speech and debate, and yes, the rumor is true, I used to break dance. You take a guy like that and the next logical step is priesthood, right? No, it just shows that God can use anything if we are willing to give it to him. Who would have thunk in a million years that cooking a meal with a family would inspire so many people around the world who email me and say this has been an inspiration for me. Who would’ve thunk? If we’re generous with who we are, and God has given all the priests tremendous gifts and talents, if they’re willing to put that in his hands, he can turn six fish sandwiches into a feast for five thousand. He can take a break-dancing, board-breaking, bread-breaking priest and give hope to people who might not understand the church or might not understand a priest. It’s just one more connection that I’m not ashamed of, because Jesus used food all the time to make connections with others.

Q: I know you say your bishop and seminary have been very supportive, but are there other folks who say, “I don’t really think a priest should be doing this”?

A: Absolutely. I have experienced enough criticism just because we’re public people. But priests are going to experience criticism all the time by the evangelical message which might be hard for people to accept, by other religions that might not agree with the dogma. But one thing we’ve got to do is live on this earth together and help each other get to heaven and maybe one thing I can do is bring people closer to the table by sharing with them a little bit of our culture through food and maybe learning a little bit from them too. I’d love to have an opportunity to have either a show or a radio show, and “A Place at the Table” is what I’d like to call it, where we can just bring people of diverse opinions together, share a meal, celebrate what we have in common and respectfully discuss what we don’t have in common, and if there’s anything that we have in common it’s that: Was this food tasty or not? Are you walking away unsatisfied or dissatisfied? I think it’s one of my personal objectives to make sure I can feed people at least on one level.

The family is important to “Grace Before Meals” because I think families have bought into the fast food mentality, which basically says I’m too busy for you. I’m too busy to care about what you’re eating. I’m too busy to care about who’s feeding you. And there was a commercial at one point that said, “It’s ten o’clock, do you know where your children are?” Just rephrase the question: It’s dinner time; do you know where they are? Do you know what they’re eating? Do you know who’s feeding them? Because it’s easy to swallow a bunch of lies, and this about the family being the infrastructure of society, the basic building blocks for society, we know that families are buying so much into the fast food mentality that they spend no time with each other. My objective for “Grace Before Meals” is to create mini-Thanksgivings throughout the year, a time to celebrate the blessings we have not just on the table, but around the table.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Scientists have long found an association between relaxation and health. Now, there is new evidence that meditation and other spiritual practices have a beneficial and measurable effect on the brain. In a new book, “How God Changes Your Brain,” Andrew Newberg reports that meditation improves memory and reduces stress and that the kind of God you worship can affect the structure of your brain. Lucky Severson has the story.

VINCENT FEDOR (meditating and reciting mantra): Sa, ta, na, ma…

LUCKY SEVERSON: As unlikely as it may seem, Vincent Fedor is practicing meditation.

VINCENT FEDOR: …and you go into the whisper sa, ta, na, ma…

SEVERSON: Vincent and his wife, Judy, started meditation after they answered a questionnaire about improving their memory. That was one objective of Dr. Andrew Newberg. The other was that he wanted to scan their brains while they did it. Here are Vincent’s scans before he learned to meditate and after he had been doing it for eight weeks.

DR. ANDREW NEWBERG (University of Pennsylvania, with brain scans): Okay, so it is asymmetric, more active here than here, and after meditation it’s more active here than here. So simply doing the practice of the meditation he has altered the activity in this very, very important part of the brain, and this is really important, because this means he has changed the way his brain is working.

SEVERSON: Since meditating Vincent feels he’s become a better high school track coach.

VINCENT FEDOR: I think I’ve become a calmer, more tolerant person. If the situation comes up I don’t go to the angry side. I go take the calmer road. And you know, I think the kids see this. I think I’ve become a better coach because of it.

NEWBERG: It makes sense that if by doing this practice he has increased the activity in that frontal lobe, he’s actually able to improve the way in which he monitors his emotional responses to people and perhaps can treat them with more compassion.

SEVERSON: Dr. Newberg has studied nuns who do repetitive prayer, and he has seen the same kind of results. He’s been studying the effects of meditation and prayer on the brain for several years and is considered one of the leading experts in a new field called neurotheology.

DR. NEWBERG: We’ve learned that being religious or spiritual has a very profound effect on who we are, has a very profound effect on our biology and on our brain, and what we’ve found more recently is that not only does it have a profound influence on who we are, but it actually can change our brain and to change ourselves over times.

SEVERSON: Here at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Spirituality and the Mind, images of the brain are taken during or after a person prays or meditates.

Dr. NEWBERG: The more you use a part of the brain the more blood flow it gets and the brighter or more red it looks on the scans.

SEVERSON: Over the years Dr. Newberg has adapted a 12-step mediation exercise that includes sound, movement, and breathing.

JUDY FEDOR: Sa, ta, na, ma. The first two minutes the mantra is sung. The second two minutes the mantra is whispered. The third sequence is silence, back into the whisper and finishing with the song. After that it’s deep breathing, holding in, that’s done three times, body relaxes, and the mantra is completed.

The minute I can start doing it and moving my fingers my body gets calmer. It’s very soothing. To me it gets almost in a passive mode, and then you have energy afterwards because you became so calm.

Dr. NEWBERG: Religion and spirituality do help to lower a person’s feelings of depression, anxiety, gives them some meaning in life, helps them to cope with things, and that’s going to have a potentially very beneficial effect.

SEVERSON: But Newberg has made another discovery, a controversial one, that our belief system, how we view God, can make a huge difference in how it affects our well being.  If we believe in a loving God it can have a positive effect, even prolong our lives. But believing in a judgmental, authoritarian God can produce fear, anger, and stress, and that’s not healthy.

Dr. NEWBERG: When it ultimately turns towards hatred, and whether it’s people who believe in abortion versus those who don’t, whether it’s just one religion versus another, when you hear rhetoric which is hateful, filled with anger, that turns on the different parts of the brain that are involved in our stress response and our anger response.

SEVERSON: George Handzo is a chaplain with the Healthcare Chaplaincy of New York City. He says Newberg’s conclusions, that a person’s belief in a certain kind of God can be unhealthy, is bound to be controversial among people of faith.

CHAPLAIN GEORGE HANDZO (Healthcare Chaplaincy of NYC): They’re saying that there is one word of God, and God commands us to follow that word, and if we want to save people from God’s anger and condemnation we’re obliged to get other people to believe as we do

Dr. NEWBERG: I’m not arguing that people need to change their beliefs per se.  I mean if they feel that their perspective on God is right, I mean then that’s terrific.  But I think that  what we have to all be careful about is the anger and the hatred. That’s what has detrimental effects both on the individual as well as on society as a whole.

SEVERSON: Skeptics of Newberg’s work question if science should be delving into religion and spirituality in the first place, and they ask if his research has actually proven much of anything.

HANDZO: Faith is, by definition, reliance on things you cannot see and cannot know. Faith is something we believe God gives to us. It’s not something we invent. As a person of faith, this whole debate about what is going to be knowable is not a particularly interesting question to me.

Dr. NEWBERG: You know, if we get a brain scan of somebody while they’re experiencing being in God’s presence, as I’ve always said, that doesn’t prove that God was in the room. It doesn’t prove that God wasn’t in the room. What it proves is that when the person had the experience of interacting with God this is what change was going on in their brain.

DONNA MORGAN: Can I just praise the Lord right now? I feel like if I don’t praise the Lord I’m going to bust…Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus…

SEVERSON: Dr. Newberg has found there are some religious practices where the person is intensely focused and others where they just allow themselves to be taken over, for example,  speaking in tongues. Dr. Newberg has scanned the brains of people of all belief systems, of people with no faith, and those of deep conviction, like Donna Morgan, who is a Pentecostal.

DONNA MORGAN: When are you in that realm of praise you just give over to the Holy Spirit. Then you let him take control, and when he’s taking control, right, you can speak in tongues, if you’ve been given that gift.

Dr. NEWBERG (with brain scans): Speaking in tongues you’re going to see that the frontal lobes are going to decrease in activity. So that means the frontal lobes, the part of the brain that normally makes them feel like they are in control of what they are doing, is shutting down.

SEVERSON (to Dr. Newberg): It is shutting down because…

Dr. NEWBERG: It is consistent with the feeling that they are not in charge of the process.

SEVERSON: There are some who argue that certain people are predisposed or hard-wired toward transcendent experiences, and some are not. It’s an argument Chaplain Handzo disagrees with.

HANDZO: I don’t believe in a God that creates people, especially selectively, in a way that makes it difficult for them to access this God. That’s not my God.

Dr. NEWBERG: I think to some degree we all are hard-wired to be able to think about things on these levels. It’s just a matter of how much we engage that and if we find a path that does help us to engage that for ourselves.

SEVERSON: Newberg says people of faith shouldn’t worry that his research will ever diminish their faith.

Dr. NEWBERG: I don’t think that our science is going to be able to definitively prove that God exists or doesn’t exist. It is, ultimately, a leap of faith.

SEVERSON: Newberg believes the number one activity that can exercise your brain and enrich your life is faith.

Dr. NEWBERG: When you have those kind of positive, optimistic beliefs in the world, in God or religion, depending on the person, that that really, over the long haul, seems to be the thing that really provides a benefit for us in terms our mental state and in terms of our physical health and well-being.

SEVERSON: As for his own faith, he describes himself as a searcher who is still searching. For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Philadelphia.

Reverend BILL GAVENTA (Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities): In every faith community there is a scriptural basis for welcome and hospitality. But you’ve also got congregations who live in cultures where people with disabilities have been hidden and ostracized and devalued in lots of ways, and too often faith communities sanctify prejudices in the community rather than challenge them. It shouldn’t be easier to get into a bar than a church.

Safiyyah A. Muhammad

SAFIYYAH A. MUHAMMAD: When I think back as a child, I don’t remember seeing anyone like Sufyaan at the mosque, no one. I don’t remember any children or adults like Sufyaan attending the mosque, and I don’t think that was by mistake. I think that we parents look at it as not just a distraction but an embarrassment. But he deserves to pray. He has a right to faith, too.

Well, the first time that Sufyaan attended the mosque not only was he talking out loud and using his hand motions, but he was running in and out of the rows. It wasn’t received well. There were whispers, there were talk: “He’s a bad kid. He obviously wasn’t raised right. That’s bad parenting.”

Imam W. DEEN SHAREEF (Masjid Waarith Ud Deen, Irvington, NJ): I think the primary challenge is a lack of knowledge, because sometimes families conceal the information that they have family members that have disabilities. Sister Safiyyah Muhammad made us aware of her son’s disability in terms of autism, and she’s made it almost like a quest for our community to become more knowledgeable about it.

SAFIYYAH: When the Koran refers to the believers it doesn’t say the believers except for the insane. Love for your brother what you want for yourself, and Sufyaan, autism or not, is considered a brother to another person who does not have autism.

Rev. GAVENTA: I’ve had families say to me, “I’ve fought all week to get my kid included in a school or whatever. I shouldn’t—I don’t want to have to fight when it comes to Sunday morning or Saturday.”

CYNTHIA MCCURDY (to her children): Are you guys ready to go?

In other families that I’ve talked to there’s been numerous instances of “We don’t know what to do with your kind” or “Please don’t come back.”

Katie

(to daughter Katie): Okay, that looks good.

FEMALE VOICE AT CHURCH: Katie’s going to definitely do the sign language.

KATIE: Hello.

WOMAN: You look nice in your white top.

KATIE: Why thank you.

BOY: How you been?

CYNTHIA: We noticed that people with disabilities were missing from communities of faith. It wasn’t that people with disabilities didn’t exist. They just weren’t being invited and welcomed into their houses of worship.

KATIE: I carry the banners that like, kind of like a spirit does too. And the Gospel, I have to read the Gospel. I have to study for it. Then we read the Gospel.

Pastor MARK SINGH-HUETER (St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Exton, PA, addressing congregation): We begin in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear Lord, forgive the things I have done…

Everything’s presented in a way that really is much more interactive, whether they’re in the choir, whether they’re part of the skit, whether they’re doing readings, and so everybody gets to use their gifts and get involved.

BILLY: I’m reaching up to the Lord because of my voice. I can sing unto his praise.

Billy

SUSAN: Frankly, I would not feel comfortable just walking into any church for a service because of the noisiness, and we usually make some kind of a scene—like we are right now, pulling hair—where here, you know, we really don’t have to worry about it. A lot of times when we’re out in public, Joshua does experience a lot of stares when we go into restaurants and things. So we find that we really don’t go to a lot of the public places. This is wonderful, because not only does he get time to come and be exposed to worship, but I get to come back to church, too.

CYNTHIA: When I see individuals of all abilities feeling free to be themselves and to worship as God has intended them to be, I feel the Holy Spirit moving within everyone.

Rev. GAVENTA: Faith communities have gone from doing nothing to doing special things for people, with this sort of special services for special people and special religious education, to then hearing families and others say don’t do anything special for us. Just include us.

Rabbi DAN GROSSMAN (Adath Israel Congregation, Lawrenceville, NJ): Several families moved to this community because we make it an inclusive community. I don’t want a synagogue that doesn’t let Jews in. Isaac was blind—in most synagogues he couldn’t find his way around. Moses stuttered—in most synagogues he couldn’t read from the Torah that’s called the Books of Moses. So you got to create the environment where everybody has a place, and if you start with that notion, then everything flows from there.

SAM’S MOTHER: We were at a different synagogue. Sam’s autism, you know, outbursts occasionally, was really not tolerated. So we came here. Immediately the whole synagogue accepted us. He learned Hebrew and loves to be on the bema.

Rabbi Dan Grossman

Rabbi GROSSMAN (signing): So when I come back in the summer, in August, we can study together? Alright. You’re a good guy.

BOY AT SYNAGOGUE: Not many deaf people read the Torah. My dad always said to me I am better reading in Hebrew than English.

Rabbi GROSSMAN: We have a reputation that we are a special needs community, when in fact that probably only makes up a small percentage of the active community in the synagogue. I think it defines the synagogue because it simply doesn’t happen elsewhere.

WOMAN: I happen to be married to a gentleman who’s a quadriplegic and in a power wheel chair. There’s lots of ways of creating access to the bema. But what’s really special to him is that everyone uses the ramp. That’s the first time he’s felt—when he’s been in a synagogue, accessible or not—where he’s felt there’s true inclusion.

Rabbi GROSSMAN: There are seats that can accommodate wheelchairs in a row, so you’re not stuck in an aisle separate from everybody else. There are large print prayer books, Braille prayer books. Most synagogues have Torahs usually higher; you have to lean forward into it. By having them free-hanging like this anyone can roll up literally in a wheelchair, take the Torah, lift it, and come out with it.

FATHER: What would happen to these kids if a synagogue like this wasn’t around?

Rev. GAVENTA: If everybody is created in the image of God our community should be a reflection of the diversity and the wonder of God’s creation.

Rabbi GROSSMAN: I’ve had so many people over the years say it feels like they’re part of a real, living community as opposed to an artificial community where only perfect people are sitting here.

SAFIYYAH: Some people would say what is he getting out of it? Why is he here? He’s a distraction. We need prayer more than he does.

But the fact is who’s to determine who gets more blessings and who doesn’t?