THE PROBLEM WITH THOSE ASBESTOS SHINGLES ON OUR HOMES

I  bumped-into  asbestos  many  times  in  my  life,  initially   when  I  was  about  8 years  of  age  in  the  Northwood  section  of  the  Frankford  section  of  Philadelphia's  Lower  Northeast.   

There  was  a  secondary  railroad  line  which  ran  behind  the  famous  Sears  Roebuck  Tower   and  Smokestack  on  the  west  side  of   Roosevelt  Boulevard,   then  under  the  Boulevard,   and then east  in  a  kind  of  man-made  chasm   along  Allengrove  Street   and  then  through  Frankford  to  the  Kensington  &  Allegheny  section  of  Philadelphia  to  supply  what  was  left  of  the  post-Civil  War  factories  still  in  operation  down  there.   (Amazingly,  even  in  the  early  1960s,  some  factories  were  still  in  operation  down  there.)

When  we  were  kids,  we  played  in  a  piece  of  undeveloped  real  estate  along  the  railroad  which  we  referred  to  as  "The  Lot."   I  did  an  article  on  The  Lot   for  a  paper  called  The  Frankford  Gazette  not  too  many  years  ago ...

http://frankfordgazette.com/2011/09/18/the-terrifying-railroad-staple-machine-guns/

Contractors   would  engage  in  illegal  dumping    in  The  Lot.     As  kids,  we  used  to  pick  through  the  piles  of  contractor's  debris   for  "useful"  items  --  2x4s   for  the  roofs  of  our  "forts,"  for  example,  and  tin  cans   as  targets  for  rock-throwing  contests.

Once  I  found  an  entire  pile  of  asbestos  chunks.   Probably,   Johns-Mansville  and  other  companies  manufacturing  asbestos  products  in  that  era  would  sell   leftover   asbestos  debris  to  furnace  builders   for  use  as  fill  between  super-hot  giant  iron  fireboxes   in  their  furnaces   and   the  brick  exterior  of  the  furnaces  constructed  by  them.   Perhaps  a  demolition  contractor  replacing  the  old  furnaces  at  Sears  served  by  the  famous  Sears  Smokestack  ditched  his  load  at  The  Lot  to  save  on  tipping  fees  at  the  landfill.

In  any  event,    I  took  home  two  of  the  asbestos  chunks,  each  of  them  looking  something  like  this  ...

... and  added  them  to  my  mineral  collection.

A  few  years  later,  our  father  somehow  acquired  an  amazing  asbestos  fire  blanket  from  a  Philadelphia  fireman  for  us.  I  say  "amazing"  because  of  what  we  used  to  do  with  it.   

As  kids  we  went  fishing  year-round  --  even  in  the  Winter,  when  we  would  take  the  bus  up  to  Pennypack  Creek   in  Northeast  Philadelphia,    break  through  the  ice  and  try  to  catch  something  through  a  hole  in  the  ice.

We  would  also  take  a  bus  to  the  Schuylkill   River,  south  of  the  Boathouse  Row  dam,  but  just  north  of  the  Vine  Street  Bridge,  at  the  foot  of  the  Art  Museum,    cross  through  the  not-yet-refurbished  Fairmount  Water  Works,  and  wade  through  the  shallow  frigid  tidal  water  to  some  rocks,  not  yet  drowned  by  any  global  warming  water  depth  increase,  that  were  maybe  200  feet  from  shore.  

There  we  would  pile-up  driftwood  and  scrap  lumber,     generate   a  roaring  fire,    and   throw   our  fire  blanket  over  it  and  literally  sit  in  the  fire,  to  keep  warm  in  the  screaming  cold  winds   racing  along  the  river's  surface,  while  we  fished  in  the  Schuylkill !    

I  did  not  learn  about  the  problems  posed  by asbestos  until  after  I  moved  to  New  Jersey  and  became  a  New  Jersey  lawyer,    sometimes  providing  representation  in  asbestos-related  cases:       Asbestosis  and  mesothelioma.  Those  little,  teeny,  tiny  asbestos  fibers  become  airborne,  and  are  inhaled,   and  permanently  implant  themselves  into  lung  tissue,   a  condition   which  nature  never  learned  to  cope  with.   As  the  number  of  fibers  per  square  inch  of  lung  tissue  becomes  greater  and  greater,     the  more  likely  it  is  that  the  individual  with  the  high  number  of  asbestos  fibers  in  his  lungs  will   develop   debilitating  lung  damage,  referred  to  as  asbestosis,  or  even  the  mesothelioma   form  of  lung  cancer,  and  die.

In  my  first  encounter  with  an  asbestos  case,    I  was  in  Nate  Friedman's  office  in  Cherry  Hill  where  I  was  assigned  to  function  as  "second  chair"   in  a  mesothelioma  case,  writing  interrogatories,    answering  interrogatories  and   working  on  motions  connected  with  the  case.   It  was  then  that  I  learned  the  etiology  of   mesothelioma  --  how  the  asbestos-caused  sickness  develops  in  our  bodies.

The  next  case  connected  with  asbestos  was  about  a  demolition  contractor  trying  unsuccessfully  to  remove  and  dispose  of  asbestos  shingle  siding   on  a  house  in  a  cost-effective  fashion.     

The  problem  was  (and  continues  to  be)  this:   Asbestos  costs  a  bloody  fortune  to  correctly  and  legally  remove  and  dispose  of.

To  give  you  an  idea  of  the  size  of  the  problem  ...

Once,  when  I  was  on  Council  in  Magnolia,    as  the  School  Board  was  cranking-up   to   build  the  addition  to  the  public  school,  an  inspector  found  a  mere  75  feet  of   asbestos  insulation  on  a  single  75  foot  long  pipe  in  the  basement  of  the  school.  We've  all  seen  it  in  our  homes  as  we  grew  up ...

The  Borough  was  ordered  to  hire  an  asbestos  abatement  contractor  to  remove  it.

Just  the  idea  of  hiring  a  separate  asbestos  abatement  contractor  to  remove   a  few  lousy  yards  of  pipe  insulation   was  astonishing  to  me.  In  one  of  the  Borough  Council  meetings,  I  grumbled  that  "I  wish  that  I  had  put  on  a  surgical  mask,  snuck  into  the  school  basement,    cut  the  insulation  off  with  a  utility  knife,     and  carted  it  out  of   the  school  in  a  trash  bag.  I  would  have  charged  you  a  dollar  to  do  it."  Here,  we  had  to  solicit  bids  from  asbestos  abatement  contractors  to  do  it.

And  then  the  bids  came  in  for  the  removal  of  the  asbestos  insulation  on  a  single  75  foot   length  of  pipe:   $105,000,    $90,000,  and  $75,000.

$75,000!!!     For  a  single,  crappy  little  75  foot  piece  of  insulation!!!

That  came  out  to  $1,000  per  foot!!!   The  price  was  obscene!!!

When  I  inquired  as  to  why  the  cost  was  so  enormous,    the  $75,000  contractor  said,  "Well,  the  guys  who  go  in  to  do  it  go  in  dressed  like  astronauts ...

Each  piece  we  remove  has  to  be  carefully  wrapped  for  permanent  storage  in  an  expensive   licensed  asbestos  landfill.     So  do  the  suits  themselves.  The  disposal  protocol  was  written  for  public  and  environmental  safety  --   not  for  cost  effectiveness.   Our  costs  are  enormous.  You'd  be  surprised  how  little  money  I'm  making."

Now,  the  problem  which  the  above  poses  for  contractors  involved  in  the  demolition  of  homes  in  the  United  States,  in  New  Jersey,  and  in  Magnolia,  itself,  is  this:  One-third  of  the  homes  in  America  are  covered  with  asbestos  shingles ...

Yup!  That's  right!   That  stuff!   A  lot  of  the  people  reading  this  --  probably  about  one-third  of  you  --  have  asbestos  siding  on  the  outside  of  their  homes!

When   I  sat  down  in  the  1980s,  as  I  became  aware  of   the  absurdly  enormous  cost  of  asbestos  removal  under  existing  legal  protocols,  and  estimated  the  cost  of  removal  of  all  of  the  asbestos  siding   in  the  United  States,    it  came  out  to  more  than  $200  trillion.

I  burst  out  laughing  and  realized  that  it  was  never  going  to  happen.  The  economic  value  of  all  human  enterprise  in  the  history  of  the  world  up  to  the  1980s,  when  I  made  the  calculation,  did  not  add  up  to  $200  trillion.    The  then-current  asbestos  removal  protocols  would  have  to  be  trashed.

Well,  the  State  of  New  Jersey  had  imposed  fines  of   about  $50,000   on  the  contractor  I  was  representing  for  not  following  those  early  "$200  trillion  protocols,"  as  I  called  them  in  court.

When  we  first  walked  into  court,  I  made  my  opening  statement  before  the  State's  Administrative  Law  Judge,   and  as  I  was  predicting  that  our  expert  witness  would  show  that  the  government's  absurd   asbestos  abatement  protocols  would  cost  the  homeowner  about  $1  million,  I  held  up  a  piece  of  siding   sealed  in  a  zip-lock  baggie    in  my  hand,  as  I  talked  about  it.

To  my  intense  astonishment,    the  Administrative  Law  Judge   jumped  out  of  his  chair  and  partially  ducked-down  behind  the  judge's  bench,   for  fear  of  the  asbestos  siding  in  the  baggie!!!    

This  is  real!!!   It  is  not  an  exaggeration!!!

I  thought,    "Oh,  my  heavens!!!  Look  at  this  kook !!!   My  client  has  no  chance  in  this  courtroom!!!"    

So  I  immediately  filed  a  motion  for  recusal   of  our  judge  on  the  grounds  of  extraordinary  prejudice.     In  argument  on  the  motion,    like  the  lawyer  who  ate  the  roach   in  open  court  in  the  famous  there's-a-roach-in-my-soda  case,     I  stood  up  in  open  court  and  licked   the  baggie   holding  my  asbestos  shingle  several  times,    and  said,  "Here  I  am  licking  the  baggie  containing  asbestos   shingles,  without  fear  of  harm.     I  invited   State's  counsel  to  pick  up  an  unwrapped  piece  of  asbestos  at  the  beginning  of  this  hearing  with  his  bare  hands,    and  he  did  so.  Your  Honor  jumped  out  His  chair  and  literally  hid  behind  his  chair  at  the  last  hearing,    when  I  merely  held  up  a  sealed  baggie  of  asbestos  shingle  about  15  feet  from  Your  Honor.

"If  that  is  Your  Honor's  attitude  before  judging  my  client's  case,  how  can  we  possibly  get  a  fair  hearing?    I  have  another  asbestos  shingle  wrapped  in  plastic,  here.   I  invite  Your  Honor   to  take  this  other  baggie  of  asbestos  from  me  in  Your  Honor's  hand,  right  now,  as  I  speak,  to  prove  to  all  and  sundry  that  you  are  not  prejudiced !"

I  had  the  judge  trapped.   

If  he  took  the  baggie  from  me  to   show  that  he  was  no  fool,  and  could  judge  correctly,  he  had  to   imply  that  he  had  been  a  complete  fool  in  the  previous  hearing.    

If  he  didn't   take  the   baggie,  he  would  dramatize  that  he  was  prejudiced  to  the  point  of   being  mentally  sick  on  the  subject  of  asbestos.    

If  he  ruled  that  he  was   prejudiced,     and  recused  himself,     he'd  almost  be  shouting  to  his  colleagues  on  the  bench  that  he  was  the  biggest  fool  on  the  bench  in  New  Jersey.    

If  he  didn't   recuse  himself,   any  decision  he  rendered  against  my  client  was  hopelessly  poisoned,  and  would  never  stand  up  on  appeal.

Court  is  like  chess.

The  judge  turned  blood  red  and  stared  at  me   with  the  evil  of  Satan.    Finally,   he  called  a  recess,    spoke  to  the  State's  counsel  ex  parte  (out  of  my  hearing),   and  State's  counsel  offered  an  off-the-record  settlement    where  my  client  would  pay  an  off-the-record  fine    to  the  State  of  $2,500,  and  the  state  inspector  would  be  pulled  from  the  construction  site.    My  client,  the  contractor,  agreed.

Then  my  client  went  back   and  disposed  of   the   rest  of  the   asbestos  shingles  "in  the  wrong  way"  --  while  the  State's  inspector  stayed  away,   my  client's  workmen  carefully  pulled  the  shingles  off  the  wooden  superstructure  underneath  (to  avoid  aerosolizing  asbestos  fibers),  stacked  them,  and  put  them  in  construction-quality   polyethylene   bags  that  would  be  acceptable  to  the  asbestos  landfill    and  then  they   drove  the  bags  in  their  trucks  to  the  asbestos  landfill  --  about  4.5  man-days  of  labor  costing  $2,500,  and  about   $1,000   in  costs.

In  another  case,   I  was  representing  a  couple  selling  their  house  in  Mount  Ephraim,  New  Jersey.   The  home  inspector  hired  by  the  contracted-for  buyers,  an  unmarried  boy  and  girl,  observed  that  there  was  a  tiny,  ramshackle  shed  in  the  back  yard   covered  with  asbestos  shingle  siding.   That  was  fine  with  the  couple,    and  no  one  complained,  until  the  couple  announced  that  they  had  changed  their  minds,   and  they  were  breaching  contract  allegedly  because  the  property  was  characterized  by  a  "dangerous  asbestos  presence"    in  the  back  yard.   I  and  my  clients  immediately  went  out  to  the  property,  tore  down  the  useless  little  shed,  scraped-up  the  dirt  it  had  been  sitting  on,    took  the  asbestos  shingle  siding  and  dirt  in  thick  polyethylene  bags  to  a  licensed  landfill,   and  announced  to  the  lawyer  whom  the  boy  and  girl  had  hired  to  represent  them  that  "there  isn't  a  molecule  of  asbestos  on  the  property."   

He  told  us  that  his  clients  were  unpersuaded,  and  were  still  breaking  the  contract.     

I  said,  "Okay,  then  I'm  going  back  to  my  office  and  draft  the  breach  of  contract  complaint  against  them."

The  lawyer  offered  to  compromise  by  having  us  pay  a  lab  to  test  for  an  asbestos  presence  on  the  property.

We  agreed.

The  lab  tested  the  area   where  the  shed  had  been  in  the  back.  They  could  not  find  one  molecule  of  asbestos  in  the  back  yard.

Finally  they  found  one  tiny  asbestos  fiber  in  one  of  six  "traps"  placed  throughout  the  house  --  the  one  next  to  the  front  door.

I  called  the  lab  and  asked,  "Was  the  front  door  closed  or  open?"

The  lab  said,  "Closed  and  open."

I  asked,   "Well,  how  do  you  know  that  the  single  fiber  you  collected  was  not  from  outside  the  house?"

The  lab  manager  admitted,  "We  don't."

The  buyers  were  stuck.  The  home  was  sold.

Okay,  so,  how  is  all  of  this   connected  to  the  Magnolia  Life  Blog?

It's  this ...

Every  night,  now,  there  are  those  ads  on  cable   urging  victims  of  asbestosis  and  mesothelioma  to  come  forward  and  make  a  claim   for  their  asbestos-related  condition.   The  ads   are  restricted  to  those  who  have  worked  in  industries  characterized   by  chronic  exposure  to  asbestos.   Ship  building,    boiler  installation,  demolition  contracting,  and  so  forth.

However,    two  factors  suggest  that  that  limitation  on  collecting  from  the  fund  is  unfair.     (a)  A  21st  century  study  of  lung  tissue,  announced  in  2010,   removed  the  lung  tissue  from  cadavers  of  Americans  never  exposed  in  their  jobs  to   asbestos   found  that  each  gram  of   lung  tissue  contained  between  tens  of  thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands   of   microscopic  particles  of  asbestos.   

(b)   Among  female  baby  boomers  who  simply  never  worked  in  an  asbestos-related  industry,  a  certain  baseline  percentage  comes  down  with   asbestos-caused  mesothelioma,  anyway,   probably  due  to  that  presence  of  those  tens  of  thousands  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of   asbestos   fibers  found  in  each  gram  of  lung  tissue.

Some,  where  does  it  come  from,  that  asbestos  in  the  lungs?

Two  places.

(1)   From  the  homes  in  America  with  asbestos  shingle  siding;    and  (2)  from  automobile  brake  pads.

Re   (1),   asbestos-sided  homes,  people  are  unaware  that  our  homes  "breathe"  like  people  every  day.   When  the  sun  comes  up   in  the  morning  and  the  house  heats  up,  the  air  inside  the  house  expands,  and  the  house  "breathes  out"  past  the   asbestos  shingle  siding,  carrying  millions  of  microscopic  asbestos  fibers  into  the  air  around  the   home.    When  the  sun  goes  down  for  the  night,   the  air  inside  the  house  contracts,     and  the  house  "breathes  in"    past  the  asbestos  shingle  siding,    carrying   millions   of  microscopic   asbestos  fibers   into  the  air  inside  the  house.

When   a  sun  beam  comes  in  through  a  window  of  a  quiet  Sunday  afternoon,    and  you  see   those  millions  of  little  dust  particles  floating  in  the  sun  beam,  a  rather  high  percentage  of  those  dust  particles  are  actually  asbestos  fibers  "inhaled"  by  your  home   from  your  siding  or  your  neighbors'  homes'  siding!

Re  (2),   though  asbestos  brake  pads  were   illegal  under  the  federal  Clean  Air  Act  for  a  few  years,    a  legal   challenge  struck  down  the  federal  prohibitions  as  unconstitutional.

So,   asbestos  brake  pads  are  back.

Every  time   a  driver  whose  car  has  asbestos  brake  pads   touches  his  brake  pedal,    an  invisible  cloud  of  asbestos   particles  comes  spraying  out  of  each  wheel  of  the  car.  You  and  your  kids  breathe  those  clouds  when  you  are  outside  the  house,  and  when  the  clouds  float  inside.

The  bottom  line  for  "Magnolia-ites"  and  for  other  homeowners  on  this  subject  is  this:   There  is  a  respectable  chance  that  the  presence  of  asbestos  shingle  siding  on  the  outside  of  your  house  will  interfere  with  the  sale   of  your  home  by  you  when  go  to  join  Jerry  Seinfeld's  parents  in  Florida,   when  your  kids  want  to  "put  you  out  to  pasture"    in  the  old  age  home,  or  by  your  estate  when  your  estate  goes  to  sell  your  home  after  you  are  "pushing  up  daisies."

Maybe  I  should  add,   "If  you  are  lucky,  you'll   come  down  with  asbestosis  or  mesothelioma   and  recover  damages  equal  to  the  value  of  your  home  equity."

ZEN BUDDHISM JOKE

HOT  DOG  MAN  TO  ZEN  BUDDHIST:   "Don't  tell  me ...  you  want  'one  with  everything'!"

ZEN  BUDDHIST  TO  THE  HOT  DOG  MAN:   "Only  someone  free  of  fear  and  attachment  could  see  so  clearly!"

HOT  DOG  MAN  HANDS  ZEN  BUDDHIST  HIS  HOT  DOG:   "That  will  be  $4.99."

ZEN  BUDDHIST  HANDS  HIM  A  $10  BILL.

HOT  DOG  MAN  PUTS  THE  $10  IN  HIS  CASH  REGISTER  AND  GOES  TO  SERVE  ANOTHER  CUSTOMER.

ZEN  BUDDHIST  TO  HOT  DOG  MAN:  "Where  is  my  change?"

HOT  DOG  MAN:   "All  change  must  come  from  within!"

"FREE MONEY !!! FREE MONEY !!!"

I  always  looked  forward  to  the  Science  Fairs  announced  by  Our  Lady  of  Grace  Grade  School   for  our  kids.  The  school's  guidelines  had  the  kids  performing  such  interesting,  high-quality  science  projects  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  public  at  the  Science  Fairs.

THE  BATTERY  TEST

My  all-time  favorite  experiment  was  by  a  kid  who  compared  the  per  minute  cost  of  Brand  X   batteries  --  the  un-advertized  cheapest  batteries  on  the  shelf  in  local  stores  --  

... to  the  per  minute  cost  of  heavily-marketed   batteries  like  the  one  which  made  made  the  Energizer  battery  go  on  and  on  and  on  and  on ...

... and  Duracell,  with  "endurance"    built-into  their  name ...

The  experiment  used  three  identical  flashlights  to  compare  how  long  each  variety  of  battery  kept  the  flashlight  burning,  and  then  divided  that  time  by  the  cost  of  flashlight's  battery.

Batteries  were  carefully  tested  before  use  to  insure  that  they  were  fully-charged.    Flashlights  were  rotated  through  battery  types  to  make  sure  that  the  wiring  or  light  bulb  in  each  flashlight  did  not  impact  results.

In  the  kid's  dramatic  results,    Energizer  and  Duracell's   batteries  would  consistently  burn,  say,  20%  to  30%  longer  than  "Brand  X,"    and  so  they  won  the  endurance  race,   but  "Brand  X"  batteries  won  the  per-minute  cost  test  by  a  mile.     The  difference  was  shocking.     The  kid's  conclusion  was  that  one  has  to  be  stupid  to  buy   the  heavily-advertised  brands. 

 "Get  Brand  X  instead!"

Three  experiments  by  our  boys  were  as  follows.

THE  BAROMETRIC  PRESSURE  TEST

In  one  case,   I  helped  one  of  our  sons   build  a  home-made   barometer  out  of  junk,  and  then  he  had  to  get  up  every  morning   one  half  hour  before  sunrise  (to  eliminate  the  effect  of  solar  heating)   and  record  ambient  barometric  pressure  and  temperature   and  compare  these  to  the   day's  weather.

The  results  were  wonderfully  consistent.

THE  CLAIRVOYANCE  TEST

One  of  our  sons  tested  the  ability  of  test  subjects  to  predict  the  roll  of  dice.   I  helped  that  particular  son  construct   a  long,  narrow  wooden  chute  with  heavily-textured  carpet  on  the  floor   to  force  the  dice   to  roll,  so  that  the  fashion  in  which  the  participant  threw  the  dice  could  not  possibly  influence  the  results. 

Actually,  a  photo  of  a  sluice  box

which  resembles  the  simple  wooden

"dice  randomizer  chute"  without

the  carpet

To  minimize  the  element  of  coincidental correctness,   each  subject  had  to  do  200  dice  rolls,  while  the  child  doing  the  testing   measured  rights  and  wrongs.   

Just  in  case   the  person's  guess  somehow  "weighted"  dice  of  the  side  of  the  number  guessed-at,  so  that  the  number  guessed-at  was  appearing  on  the  down-side  of  the  dice  thrown,    the  down-side  result  was  also  recorded.

The  results  were  intriguing.  Out  of  about  2  dozen  individuals  tested,    the  results   varied   remarkably,  despite  hundreds  of  dice  throws.

In  other  words,  some  people  seemed  substantially  more  likely  than  others  to  guess  the  upcoming  dice  roll.

THE  SUSPICION  TEST

For  another  science  fair,  with  the  permission  of  Mall  administrators  one  of  our  other  sons   went  to  the  Echelon  Mall  with  about  $50  in  nickels   and  had  a  classmate  try  to  give  a  nickel,  with  the  words  "Free  money!,"   without  further  explanation,   to  Mall  customers ...

... and  then  carefully  recorded   which  group  was  most  prone  to  accepting  free  money  from  a  stranger,  according  to  age  and  gender  of  the  proposed  recipient.   

The  decision  was  made   to  keep  the  age   categories  pretty  broad,  and  then  guess  which  age  group   the  targeted  recipient  belonged  to,   to  eliminate  the  need  to  actually  ask  the  person  their  age,   otherwise   the  study  would  be  limiting  itself  to  measuring  the  suspicion  of  just  talkers,  and  not  include   the  suspicion   level  of  the  shy  non-talkers.  

I.e.,  if  they  didn't  record  the  willingness  of  the  silent  to  accept  money,  they'd  be  excluding  the  results  of  those  whose  suspicion  prevented  them  from  talking,  defeating  the  purpose  of  the  test.

The  results  of  that  test   were  displayed  in  an  explanatory  booth  at  the  Science  Fair.

So,  if  you  went  into  the  Echelon  Mall  years  ago  and  some  nutty  little  kid  was  offering  you  "Free  money!,"  that  is  what  was  going  on!

MONSIGNOR EDWARD KORDA, R.I.P.

GETTING  TO  KNOW  HIM.   My  wife  Rise`  and  I  moved  into  Magnolia   in  the  Spring  of   1981  while  we  were  only  engaged  to  marry,  because  the  opportunity  to  purchase   our  current  home  on  Warwick  Road  presented  itself  when  it  did.     I  immediately  registered  with  St.  Gregory's  Parish  on  the  White  Horse  Pike  at  Evesham  Road.

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.