That is how we met the Pastor, Monsignor Edward L. Korda, who was 55 at the time.
Monsignor Korda made sure that I was thereafter deeply involved in parish affairs -- he had me begin serving as one of the Lectors doing the readings at Mass, arranging to have me scheduled for his Masses whenever possible. He also nominated me to serve on Parish Council, and I did so for a few terms. And so I got to know him very well.
THE CELIBATE LADIES MAN. Monsignor Korda turned out to be quite a character. He was a celibate ladies man -- the ladies (including my own mother) thought him very handsome, and he knew it.
Once when I came into the Sacristy, he was giving one of the prettier ladies in the Parish a body hug. He looked over the lady's shoulder at me, winked, and said, "Well, Peter, at least I like the ladies! You'll never find me with a young man or boy!"
"POPE" KORDA. That sense of humor of his filtered down into everything. One parishioner, wringing his hands in front of Monsignor Korda over news of yet more arrests of priests "doing" boys and young men, said, "Monsignor, they ought to make you Pope." Monsignor Korda responded by wincing while he smiled and holding his hands up-and-out in John Paul II's well-known posture for greeting people ...
THE WASHING OF THE APOSTLES FEET INCIDENT. On another occasion, I was chosen to be one of the 12 "apostles" who had his bare feet washed by Monsignor Korda, in accord with John's Gospel, at Good Friday services.
We "apostles" were sat at regular intervals down the center aisle of St. Gregory's Church. When I took off my shoes and socks, and sat in the end of the pew with bare feet in the standing-room-only crowd, as Monsignor Korda was coming up to wash my feet I noticed that a little girl at the far end of the pew in front of mine was staring intently at me sitting in church in bare feet. Clearly she was wondering, "What's this all about?"
As Monsignor came to my pew, instead of placing my feet on the towel for washing I raised my left foot, crossed it over my right knee, and waved to the little girl with my toes. The little girl and several of the people in my pew burst out laughing, as did Monsignor.
Only then did I allow Monsignor to wash my feet.
After Easter Mass two days later, a curmudgeonly middle aged guy came into the Sacristy and complained to Monsignor, with a tone of voice implying that I should be disciplined, "Did you see what this guy did at Good Friday services? He waved to a little girl with his bare toes to make her laugh, though it was a solemn event!"
Monsignor said, "I thank you for your love of God's Son. But don't you think that Jesus loved children so much that He would have interrupted His suffering on the cross for a moment if waving to a little girl with His toes would have made her laugh?"
"NO-FRILLS" PASTOR. Monsignor was, in my opinion, personally holy. He did not feed his face. He just kept getting skinnier and skinnier. Once he told me that all he had in the cabinets in the rectory were "No Frills everything."
CARE FOR HIS PARISH CHURCH. Monsignor Korda loved his parish church, St. Gregory's. He had the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine built outside the church for devote`s of Mary. He had a life-size Christ statue emplaced in the exit driveway next to the Rectory. When, on Church Council, I suggested an "icon corner" behind a bank of red candles for the deceased, with icons of Christ and the saints from cultures around the world, after first rejecting the idea, Monsignor decided to give it a try, and began accumulating various icons in the recommend corner a short time before his retirement from the position of pastor.
In the sacristy, he loved his "wooden throne." I pointed out to him once that it was almost certainly a ceremonial chair from a chapter of the anti-Catholic Rosicrucian organization, because of the rose cross symbol on the chair back ...
... but Monsignor answered, "Well, I am happy that the chair has converted to Catholicism."
I used to bring the Vietnamese girl whom we babysat on weekends to Mass with me. When I told her that the altar had sealed-up drill holes in it containing the relics of martyrs, in accord with a Church rule adopted as a memorial to the days when Christianity, in hiding from Roman authorities, would celebrate Mass in the catacombs of Rome on the sarcophagi of Christians murdered for their devotion to The Faith, she asked Monsignor if she could see the holes. After Mass, he took her to the altar and lifted-up the altar cloth, and said, "Go ahead, touch the relic holes!" And she did, satisfying the curiosity of one of God's little ones.
Monsignor was shocked and angry when some moron decapitated the Our Lady of Fatima statue in the shrine outside the church on one occasion.
THE PRIEST SEX SCANDAL IN THE CHURCH. Early-on in the priest sex scandal, when Camden County authorities finally began to prosecute priests for engaging in sex acts with boys and teens, Monsignor asked me to draft him a memo on the question of whether the Church should pay for the criminal defense of priests accused of statutory rape and sexual assault of boys and young men. He said that two accused priests, one of them who used to be a St. Gregory's priest, were being prosecuted for such behavior. "Their argument is that the Church is their family, and their family would pay for their defense."
I insisted that I be allowed to see their files, and investigate their cases, before writing such a memo. Monsignor agreed.
The files were fascinating. I also interviewed witnesses.
I ultimately took the position that, whereas the Church is in fact the accused priests' family, the laity are, too. I argued that the laity would not want the Church blindly throwing their contributions at accused priests for their defense. I noted, "Even flesh-and-blood families don't do that. Typically, they only invest in the defense of the probably- innocent." I said that the Church owes it to the laity to exercise judgment on the question of whether to pay for the defense of a criminally-accused member of the Roman Catholic clergy.
"Therefore," I concluded, "The Diocese should convene a board in each case, reviewing all available evidence, to determine if it is more probable than not that the priest is innocent. If the board decides that it is, the Diocese should invest in his defense. If the board decides that it is not, then 'throw him to the dogs.' Let the Public Defenders Office defend him. Besides, a good, experienced Public Defender can frequently be a pretty worthwhile attorney."
OUR JEWISH BROTHERS AND SISTERS. In two separate documents drafted by Ratzinger before he became Pope and signed by John Paul II, the Church in effect affirmed that Judaism is the Church of the Old Covenant -- and that God never revokes a covenant. In effect, he ruled that Judaism remains, to this day, a valid Conduit to Heaven.
However, Monsignor Korda had some of "Old Poland" in his character, probably as a result of his upbringing in a Polish home. And "Old Poland" was anti-semitic.
So, once, to my intense astonishment, though he knew well that my wife Rise` is Jewish, Monsignor Korda came close to me in the Sacristy and furtively whispered, "Peter, do you think that the Church can survive with so many damn Jews running so many of our social institutions?"
I looked at him and said, "Monsignor, do you really think that I am going to conspire with you against my Jewish wife, her Jewish family, and the Jewish community? Nope! After Mass, I'm going home and tell her what you just said to me."
A little later, I showed him two photos from the Nazi Holocaust ...
... and I said, "When you speak in an anti-semitic fashion, even a little bit, you connect God's Church to this."
Monsignor was shocked by the whole encounter, I think. My wife Rise`, who is filled with love, forgave him easily, to her credit. He afterwards made a point of going out of his way to be kind to her. He looked forward to receiving from Rise` zucchini bread loaves which she made for him every year.
Once, when something happened in Church involving Jewish people, Monsignor Korda kind of over-reacted in the opposite direction.
It was a First Communion Mass at St. Gregory's, for the CCD kids. The church was jammed. I was the Lector at Mass for Monsignor Korda. As I helped organize things, I noticed that the rear 2 pews were filled with Jewish people, some of them wearing Stars of David. I thought, "Huh! At a Catholic First Communion." I walked up to one and said, "Hi. I couldn't help but notice your Star of David. My wife is Jewish. She would think that yours is so beautiful!"
"Thank you!" she smiled excitedly. "We're all family, here, for my niece's First Communion. This is so wonderful!"
Because of the Catholic Church requirement that the Eucharist be received by one who knows that it is the Flesh of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine, I went back to Monsignor in the Sacristy and told him to think about how to diplomatically and lovingly address the issue of whether they could receive The Eucharist if they came up to receive The Eucharist at Communion time. I said, "Monsignor, do you want my help on this?"
"No, Pete," he answered. "I'll handle this."
At Communion time, the Jewish family all came up for Communion, and he gave Communion to each.
THE PAINFUL TOPIC OF BIBLE STUDY. There is, in the Catholic Church, an un-announced policy against parish-sponsored non-didactic, socratic-method-type Bible study. You won't find a single Catholic priest who will foolishly admit to this. But it is true, nonetheless. Our Protestant brethren know this. There is an old Protestant shibboleth, to the effect that "Catholic priests hate the Bible." You can even find it on-line. Try to set up a non-didactic Bible discussion group in your parish's facilities, and you will understand why our Protestant brothers and sisters say this.
Monsignor Korda was "very, very old school" in this regard. If there had been an organization called, "Catholic Priests Opposed to Parish-Sponsored Non-didactic Bible Study," they would have elected him President.
Once, shortly after the beginning of his tenure as Diocesan Bishop, Bishop James McHugh did his first Confirmation Mass at St. Gregory's Church. Monsignor Korda made me the Lector for the Mass. After Mass, on the front steps of St. Gregory's Church, I asked Bishop McHugh for an Episcopal Blessing, so that I could secure a plenary indulgence for the soul of a friend who committed suicide many years before.
In front of Bishop McHugh, Monsignor Korda said, "Oh, Pete, you don't believe that stuff about passing the benefits of indulgences on to the dead, do you?"
Astonished -- I knew objectively that the right to pass on to the dead the benefit of indulgences won by the living was Church doctrine -- I responded to both Monsignor Korda and Bishop McHugh, "Whatever you shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven. Whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven."
A short time later, as Monsignor Korda and Bishop McHugh took off their vestments in the Sacristy, Monsignor Korda was telling Bishop McHugh about a presentation I had given to the Knights of Columbus on the Bible.
"Pete," Monsignor Korda asked, "How did you explain the Serpent on the Pole symbol for Christ in the Book of Numbers, in your speech?"
"Well," I said, "Paul, wondering the same thing -- Why use a traditional symbol for Sin and the Devil, for Jesus? -- figured out that Christ, in being offered as a sacrifice for our sinfulness, so that functionally He took the punishment for our sins upon His back, ended-up being treated as though He were sin, itself. So, Paul refers to Jesus at 2 Corinthians 5:21 as 'Him-Who-did-not-know-sin-Who-was-made-to-be-sin.' The Bible bears out Paul's analysis by representing Christ as 'Him-Who-did-not-know-sin-Who-was-made-to-be-sin' with sin symbols at various places in Scripture. One of those ways is the serpent on the pole."
In front of Bishop McHugh, Monsignor Korda said, "Why, Peter, you quote the Bible like a Protestant!"
Recovering quickly, I responded, "You mean, Protestants quote the Bible the way we Catholics should be able to quote the Bible. And as far as 'sounding Protestant' is concerned, based on what I heard before about indulgences it sounds to me like I might be the most Catholic one in this room."
I fought a decades-long war with Monsignor Korda on non-didactic Bible study. He knew that I knew my stuff. He used to consult with me on the meaning of Scripture.
Once he asked me if the Bible has anything to say of contraception. I answered, "Yes, at four places." And then I explained where in the text, and I also gave proof that that was what was being discussed.
On another occasion Monsignor asked me why I thought Christ referred to Himself as "the Son of man," though He was the Son of God.
Nonetheless, being valiantly opposed to parish-sponsored non-didactic Bible study, he registered one objection after another to such a Bible study group on parish premises:
(a) "You wouldn't be insured." (This was back before the Church became self-insuring because after many claims against the Church nationwide in the priest sex cases no insurance carrier in America.) I was on Church Council, then. So, I pulled the insurance file, called the underwriter, who issued a written endorsement of Bible study group activities at no charge.
(b) Monsignor objected, "You're not a certified Bible teacher." I signed-up for the Diocesan courses to become a certified Bible teacher, but then it occurred to me that my non-certification was just an excuse. So I said, "Monsignor, do you swear that my non-certification is your reason for not allowing a Bible study group, not just a handy excuse? In other words, you swear that if I ace the courses, top to bottom, I can start my Bible study group at St. Gregory's immediately thereafter."
Monsignor Korda fell quiet, and finally said, "No, Peter. I was lying to you." That kind of honest admission is why I liked Monsignor Korda. "Even if you become a certified Bible teacher," he continued, "I still won't let you have Bible study here."
Monsignor Korda, however, after a few years of nagging by me, finally did let me have my Bible study group on parish premises.
(3) But then Monsignor Korda objected, "It costs too much to heat and cool the church building for just a Bible study group." Monsignor Korda raised this complaint after we had been engaging in Bible study for years, and the group had gotten quite large by then.
So, the Bible study group began taking up a collection every week for heating and cooling. We reached about $105 -- $5,200 per year.
After we began to answer Objection #3, above, with enough money to pay for all of the Church's heating and cooling, Monsignor Korda himself mysteriously began to attend Bible study, which I was glad to see. But it was odd. He would just sit there, quiet, declining to participate.
After about a dozen meetings like this, Monsignor finally stood up and said, "Peter, you are a heretic."
I burst out laughing and I said, "How? What did I say that was against Church doctrine?"
He answered, "I will tell you later, after the meeting."
After the meeting Monsignor said, "Peter, you misstated Church doctrine on Mary. You said that she 'died' before she was assumed into Heaven. No, she didn't. Death was a consequence of Original Sin. Mary was preserved from the stain of Original Sin. Therefore, Mary didn't die. Mary, instead, went into 'dormition,' a kind of sleep. Because you publicly misstated Church doctrine, you are 'dangerous,' so I am shutting down Bible study in St. Gregory's."
I kept my cool, and I responded, "Monsignor, I'll tell you what: If I can prove to you within 24 hours that the Church teaches that Mary 'died' before her assumption into Heaven, then you have to stand up before the Bible study group next week and say that I am not the 'heretic,' but you are, and that you will leave Bible study along after this. If, on the other hand, I can't prove it, then I will publicly agree that I am a 'heretic,' apologize, and shut Bible study down. Deal?" I put out my hand to shake it.
"Deal," he said, and we shook hands.
The next day I brought to Monsignor Korda a copy of Munificentissimus Deus, Pope Pius XII's Encyclical announcing the doctrine of Mary's assumption into Heaven. It says that Mary "died" before her assumption.
Monsignor stared and stared and stared at it, for about 15 minutes. Finally he said, "I guess I am the one who is the heretic, Peter. I apologize to you, and I will keep my promise and apologize to the group and call myself a 'heretic' to them."
I said, "Monsignor, I'm not going to hold you to your promise. I'm not going to make you do what you were ready to make me do. Just leave Bible study alone."
He said, "Agreed."
However, a few years later, just before a new pastor came in, apparently because he was embarrassed to have a Bible study program in St. Gregory's, Monsignor Korda broke his promise to me, and ordered Bible Study shut down without explanation.
THE CONTRACEPTION ISSUE. Most people are unaware that the Bible really nastily condemns use of contraceptives, implicitly demanding marital self-control, instead, if you don't want scads of kids. It condemns use of contraceptives 1 time in Galatians, and 3 times in the Book of Revelations -- in 3 of the 4 cases simply declaring that unrepentant contraceptive users are Hell-bound.
Rather than even refer to the Bible, the Church, 8 years after The Pill was approved by the FDA, issued the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, requiring Catholics to refrain from eliminating the risk of pregnancy in sex by artificial means.
The Encyclical, though it is theologically correct, was controversial from the start. The Second Vatican Council committee appointed to review the question of use of increasingly popular contraceptives actually voted to permit them. Pope Paul VI condemned their vote, and issued Humanae Vitae.
Priests around the world groaned, because the Encyclical implied that they would have to buck the tidal-wave-size tide in favor of contraceptives.
Ultimately, the vast majority of Catholics -- about 75% if you look at church-going Catholics, but 95% of all Catholics -- quietly regularly disobeyed Humanae Vitae with the rest of the Western Civilization.
Rise` and I learned Natural Family Planning -- consistent with Humanae Vitae -- and got very good at it. However, my Jewish wife and I, and the few other Catholics who make use of Natural family Planning, are very few and far between. In a sense, we are "the last Catholics."
When I first came to Magnolia in 1981 and joined St. Gregory's Parish, I went to confession on a particular Saturday for the first time. Fr. Bob Cairone was in the confessional on one side, Monsignor Korda was in the confessional on the other side.
I said to one of my new neighbors, "Why does Monsignor Korda have a long line, but Fr. Cairone have no line at all? In fact, his confessional is empty!"
"Oh," he smiled, "This is the 'birth control line'! In Monsignor Korda's line, if you confess use of contraceptives, he gives you absolution even if you confess it week after week, 52 times a year. If Fr. Cairone catches you doing that -- confessing a sin but not trying to avoid the sin thereafter -- he'll declare your sins 'retained' and kick you out of his confessional."
I thought about that, and finally I said, "All of the confessions for contraceptive use in Monsignor Korda's line are invalid since there is no contrition -- no 'sorrow for sin.'"
And I crossed-over to Fr. Cairone's side, and confessed my sins there.
As I mention up above, once Monsignor Korda and I sat outside the Rectory, discussing the Bible verses pertinent to contraception. He fell silent as I laid out the proof that the 4 verses condemn contraceptive use.
A few years later, someone in the Diocese, sick of the Church hypocritically winking-at mass contraception use by Catholics, actually convinced the Bishop to schedule Contraception Sunday.
The Bishop gave a signed written command to every priest in the Diocese of Camden to give a homily condemning use of contraceptives at all Masses the following Sunday.
Monsignor Korda was astonished at the written command. He called me over to the Rectory and asked me what I thought of it.
I read it and I looked up at Monsignor Korda and smiled and said, "You poor b - - - - - d! The people attending Mass are going to hang you from the rafters!"
"That was my reaction," he responded.
The priests at St. Gregory's obeyed the Bishop's command.
However, across the Diocese, one-third of the priests disobeyed the command, and talked about something else in their homilies.
Across the Diocese, in the churches where the priests obeyed the Bishop, hundreds of people walked-out on Mass during the homily, and thousands of people wrote nasty letters, condemning their parish priests, to the Bishop. Collections plummeted.
The Diocese was terrified at the nasty negative response, and quietly forgot the Contraception Sunday experiment.
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF ST. GREGORY'S CHURCH. As Main Line church organizations across America began to collapse as religiosity in America and therefore church attendance began to dwindle, and as the sex scandals in the Catholic Church chased the devout out of the Catholic Church even faster, the Camden Diocese began to "consolidate" parishes to "make them strong" -- "spin" for closing them slowly. The devout in St. Gregory's noticed a pattern: The churches with the good parking lots were being sold; the ones with the lousy lots or bad zoning or both were being retained -- a recipe for future total collapse. So, as rumors that St. Gregory's was "headed for the chopping block" seemed to come out of Diocesan headquarters, the fact that St. Gregory's had a good parking lot and was un-mortgaged (and so easier to sell cheap) began to weigh heavily on church-going parishioners' minds.
At a particular point, I was sitting in church attending Mass one day when I noticed that a hairline crack in the inside wall of the church led up to a line in the wood beam holding up the ceiling. That made me look carefully at the "line" in the heavy wooden beam. The "line" in the beam, I suddenly understood, wasn't a seam that belonged there. Instead, the beam had sheared through!
And then I realized that all of this was directly above the huge, wide ceiling-to-floor crack in the wall in the basement.
Suddenly, I realized that the wall and ceiling of the church had no structural integrity. I thought, "Holy cow! The church building is in trouble! It could collapse. And it's a potentially dangerous situation!"
So, after Mass, I grabbed Monsignor Korda, and I said, "Monsignor, this isn't a small problem. It's big. A thick wooden bean has sheared through!" Monsignor carefully studied the pattern in church building structural problems which I had perceived -- a huge crack in the church basement wall running from the floor of the basement to the ceiling, below a crack in the wall of the nave, where the people sit for Mass, directly above the basement crack, from the floor of the nave to the church roof, all of that below the thick ceiling timber with the line in it, so that the line in the timber was clearly a sheared-through timber -- and he agreed. The building would soon collapse.
Monsignor Korda hired an engineer who agreed with my assessment.
Monsignor advertised for bids. I asked him what they came in at.
"A quarter of a million dollars."
By this time, however, Diocesan "parish consolidations "to make the Church in Camden County even stronger" had built up quite a head of steam. It was clear to most parishioners that St. Gregory's would soon be on the chopping block. I said, "Monsignor, I know that you love St. Gregory's, but why waste the money? In a few years they're going to be closing and bulldozing your church building. Save a quarter of a mill. Tell them to close the church, and do it now!"
He said, "Peter, that's impossible! They would never close St. Gregory's!" And so he authorized the work. And a quarter of a million dollars later the building was safe for occupants, while Monsignor Korda was asked to step down as Pastor and given the happy-sounding title "Pastor Emeritus," and then as forces larger than Monsignor Korda, which lawyers study and comprehend for a living, took over St. Gregory's, poor Monsignor Korda was asked to move from St. Gregory's to an assisted-living arrangement in St. Mary's home in Cherry Hill.
Because I was a lawyer and had been active in the parish for so many years, a contingent of parishioners came to me to deputize me to try to get a written prediction about St. Gregory's future from the new Bishop. I told them that it was a waste of time. I said, "Look, we paid for these churches, but they don't care, down in Camden. To them, you and I are just flies feeding off the debris of the Church who will shortly be shooed-away from the St. Gregory's so that they can sell it and bulldoze it. If I ask for a written statement that they have no plans to sell St. Gregory's, they will give it to me. But it will just be 'spin' -- a lie -- so that you won't bother them."
I was asked to try to get such a written statement anyway.
The new bishop sent it to me. Somewhere in my files, I still have it.
Shortly thereafter, St. Gregory's parish was ridiculously merged into Mary Mother of God Parish in Bellmawr -- which has lousy parking, by the way -- and St. Gregory's church, newly-repaired at fantastic cost, was closed and put up for sale, and parishioners told to go to Mass on Sunday by driving the 5 miles, past St. Francis Church in Barrington, with its good parking lot, to Mary Mother of God. Yeeech!
I imagine that just about nobody from St. Gregory's made the change. The Church, by its piss-poor planning, simply lost hundreds of Catholics.
And they lost us. Mary Mother of God lost my marriage record, and our sons' baptismal and other records. My sons can't prove that they are Catholics in Good Standing, now, if someone asks them to be a Catholic godparent, or a Confirmation sponsor.
A member of a group of former St. Gregory's Catholics asked me for a copy of the Bishop's written commitment that St. Gregory's was not for sale, so that they could post it next to the "For Sale" sign on the front lawn.
Generally, I'm in favor of scandalizing organizations -- Would the abuser priests and the bishops who functionally "pimped" for them have stopped the evil practice if they had not been kicked in the teeth by headlines and lawsuits?
But, lucky for the Church, I could not easily lay my hands on it. So, no embarrassing letter was every posted next to the "For Sale" sign in front of the church.
Monsignor Edward L. Korda, R.I.P.
St. Gregory's Parish, R.I.P.
I loved Monsignor Korda SO much...we talked a lot and I had a huge crush on him!! I miss him more than anyone will ever know.
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