church meets state

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was a famous television personality when I was growing up in the 1950s.  He hosted a weekly show called “Life is Worth Living” from 1952 to 1957.  He died in 1979.

Five days before his death, he executed a will directing his funeral be celebrated at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and that he be buried in Calvary Cemetery in New York, where he had purchased a burial plot.  However, the then Archbishop of New York, Terence Cardinal Cooke, asked Archbishop Sheen’s niece and closest relative for permission to bury her uncle in the crypt at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  She consented and Sheen was laid to rest in a crypt under the church’s high altar.  His remains are still there.

In 2002, 23 years after Archbishop Sheen’s death, a process was started in his boyhood home of Peoria, Illinois to determine whether he should be canonized as a saint,

In 2014, the Diocese of Peoria requested that Archbishop Sheen’s remains be transferred to Peoria because a shrine was being built there.  Additionally, it was pointed out that his parents are buried there; most of his relatives live nearby and he was ordained as a priest there.

Joan Sheen Cunningham, Archbishop Sheen’s niece, now almost 90 year old, who had originally consented to her uncle’s burial at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, moved in state Supreme Court to have her uncle’s remains disinterred and transported to Peoria for re-burial.

The Court granted her petition to move Archbishop Sheen’s remains to Peoria, Illinois.

The Trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral appealed to the next highest court.  Five judges of the Appellate Division, First Department heard the appeal and three voted to overrule the lower court so the remains could stay at St. Patrick’s until a hearing could be held to determine Archbishop Sheen’s wishes. Two judges dissented and agreed with the lower court, which allowed the remains to be transferred.

As of now, the matter is pending a further hearing (before the losing party can appeal to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals in Albany).  The remains will remain where they are until a final determination is made.

Interestingly, the majority relied, in part, on an affidavit of Monsignor Hilary Franco, who stated that he worked with Archbishop Sheen and was a close friend.  He wrote that Archbishop Sheen wanted to be buried in New York.  The majority noted a hearing was necessary to look into what the Archbishop’s wishes really were before they could allow a relative to control his remains.

My personal connection:

Monsignor Hilary Franco was the pastor of my parish church for many years and spoke often of Archbishop Sheen in his homilies.  I also dealt with him in my capacity as Town Attorney with regard to parking in fire zones near the church.

I appeared many times as a defense attorney before Judge Rosalyn Richter when she sat in Bronx Criminal Court.  She wrote the majority opinion.

I also appeared before Judge Troy Webber in Bronx Supreme Court.  She joined in the dissent. 

My iPhone 6

My iPhone 6 has been to almost as many places as I have.  Since April, 2015, it has traveled to Puerto Rico, through the Panama Canal, to Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, California, Bermuda, St. Maartin, Haiti, Key West and Havana, Cuba.  Most of its journey was as a passenger in my right front pants pocket, but it came out occasionally to snap a picture or two (ok, exactly 6,592 pictures and 453 videos).

It’s been used more as a camera than a phone.  Screen shots from the internet have taken the place of handwritten notes.  I’ve played 1,744games of Words With Friends, winning 38% of the time (hey, I have some very tough competition) and there were 7 ties.

I play music on my iPhone and watch TV and YouTube clips.

I keep track of my banking and pay bills electronically.

I even track the number of steps I take.

My iPhone does not require food, sleep or shelter – just a few jolts of electricity every so often.

Quite frankly, it has replaced the dog as man’s best friend.  Now, if only it could cook, clean and sleep with me, I might not need,,,,

The year was 1959

The year was 1959.

I was 11 years old.

My parents, younger sister and I had come to Florida from New York by car for our yearly summer vacation.  After a stay at the beach in the Clearwater-St. Petersburg area, my father, the only one with a driver’s license, drove us to Key West, the southernmost city in the continental United States.  Until 1938 you could not get there by car, but now, 21 years after the only road into the city from the mainland was built, we drove the 125 miles from Miami to Key West.  My father, who dreamed big – we drove 3,000 miles to see Disneyland three years earlier, just one year after it opened – wanted to take a hopper plane 90 miles south of Key West to Havana, Cuba.  I don’t know why he wanted to do that.  He had lived in Paris after fighting the Germans in World War II only 13 years earlier, but did not seem to me to be a world traveler – we traveled mostly from New York to Florida during my childhood (the only exception being California trips in 1956 and 1963).

But in 1958, a rebel named Fidel Castro, along with his buddy, Ernesto Che Guevera, fought a dictator named Batista in Cuba and on January 1, 1959 took over country in the Cuban Revolution. Castro was a Communist and it was deemed too dangerous for us to fly to Cuba.  Afterall, who vacations in a war zone?

So on August 9, 2017, 58 years later, at age 69, and as the only surviving member of my childhood family, I fulfilled my father’s dream to set foot on Cuba soil.

The circle of life, indeed,

The irony is that in 2017, I saw what my father would have seen in 1959.  Not much is newer than that. 

My trip to Havana

I’d like to say I visited Cuba, but it was really just Havana for a few hours on two consecutive weekdays in August, 2017.  Nights were spent on the cruise ship that brought me to the island.  Saying I visited Cuba is like saying I visited the United States but only saw Washington, D.C. 

The Havana I saw was a study in contrasts.  From a five star hotel built in 1930 to run down and crumbling buildings, at least on the outside.  Cuba is a Communist country and as such, the government runs and controls everything.  Even the cigar stores are controlled by the government, although I was approached by locals wanting to sell me cigars on the black market.  Fortunately, I am not a smoker.

Since Castro took control of the country on January 1, 1959, things seem to have been going downhill.  I was in Havana on a Wednesday and Thursday in August and although I saw scaffolding on a few buildings, I saw no workers.  Indeed, it seems people don’t have to work because the government supports them.  I met one woman from Tampa,Florida, who told me her cousin was a doctor in Cuba and earned just $17 a month.  That’s just $2 more than I tipped the taxi driver who drove me through the city in a 1955 Buick.  These old cars are kept running, not by mechanics, but as they say, by “magicians” using Russian car parts.  They are passed down within the family and very few other Cubans own cars.

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Cows are nearly non-existent, so there is no beef.  The meat they eat is chicken and pork.  For a port city in the Caribbean, I saw no small boats – they are banned for fear they will be used to escape to Miami.  I saw no grocery stores, no fast food restaurants, no movie theaters, and no banks.  These things are not necessary when people have no money.  I did see one church, which charged an admission to tourists since the government wasn’t supporting them.

There were two forms of currency, one for the locals and one for the tourists.  Americans are charged a 13% tax both when purchasing Cuban money and when exchanging it back for dollars, for a total of 26%.

The people seemed friendly enough, but I got the impression they have no idea what the outside world looks like.  Police and soldiers are everywhere and you are not allowed to take pictures of them.  One elderly woman  begged me for a ballpoint pen I was using,  It was a Bic, worth about ten cents, but to her, it was the world and she thanked me profusely when I gave it to her.

The bottom line is that if you are wealthy, you can do fine (ambassadors live in mansions), but if you are poor, you don’t know what you are missing.  Castro had banned Christmas until one of the three Popes who visited the island convinced him to allow it and now it is a national holiday.  But the everyday life of the average citizen of Havana seemed to consist of waking up, standing or sitting around and going to sleep.

The rest of the island may have beautiful beaches or other amenities but I did not leave Havana, which seemed stuck in 1959 and is taking its sweet time moving into 1960.

Survivor

I keep in touch with some of the people I attended grade school with through the magic of Facebook.  What strikes me is this – we all began at the same starting point, give or take a few months, but we will each be exiting the human race at a different age.  Some of my fellow classmates have already finished their journey and are six feet under or inhabiting a vase on a mantel.  I feel as if I am in a reality show called Survivor.  Who will be the last classmate voted off the planet?

Moral: Treasure each day while you can.

Creeping towards a simpler life

The following was written by me in 2006, about a year before I started this blog. I post it here for the first time:

It's difficult to write anything today without first checking the internet to see what someone else has written on the subject in question.

I've become a devotee of the philosophy of "less is more," so I did a Google search and found an article which claimed that the phrase "less is more" was first written in 1855 in a poem by Robert Browning.  I read a portion of the poem and couldn't understand it, so I'm going to use my own definition for "less is more."

"Less is more" is essentially the same as K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid).  I have enough education to use five dollar words, but I prefer the simpler ones.  Although the phrase "less is more" is catchy, what I really mean is "fewer is better."  A case in point.  There is a sign in front of a vacant lot near where I live and it reads: "NO PARKING ALLOWED."  Every time I pass that sign, I wonder what the word "allowed" adds to the parking prohibition.  In other words, isn't "NO PARKING" the same as "NO PARKING ALLOWED"?  Of course it is.

One place when the "less is more" concept should be abandoned is the sign at the express checkout lane in the supermarket.  When I see "12 items or less," I cringe.  It's "12 items or fewer."  Think of it this way: less time but fewer minutes.  If there is a number involved, it usually should be "fewer" not "less."  "But," you say, "fewer has more letters than less."  That's true, but I couldn't care fewer.

At breakfast the other day, I noticed a bottle of Heinz ketchup.  In big bold letters, the label proclaimed "TOMATO KETCHUP."  I immediately thought the word "tomato" was superfluous (see, I told you I knew some five dollar words).  I'm a child of the Fifties and never did I taste ketchup that wasn't made from tomatoes.  However,if figured I'd better check the internet for a definition of the word "ketchup."  Lo and behold, it turns out that when ketchup was first introduced, it was a "sauce made from fish brine and spices" but no tomatoes. However, in America, at least since the early 1900s, ketchup has been tomato based.  So, just as some words change meanings over the years, I'm calling for the elimination of the word "tomato" on the front of the Heinz Tomato Ketchup bottle.  Ketchup is ketchup.  That condiment we slather on hamburgers, french fries and everything else.  In my simpler world, ketchup isn't a sauce made from fish brine, no matter what the dictionary says.

Library books

I went to my local library the other day because they were having a book sale.  After browsing for nearly an hour, I left empty-handed.  Oh, there were books that interested me, but what prevented me from buying any of them, was this: I have too many unread books on my bookshelves already.  Books that I purchased, intending to read, but never got around to reading.

Another factor in my not making any purchases is that lately I have been reading books on my e-reader.  It is so much more convenient and you can even read in the dark!  These electronic books take up zero space on my bookshelves and an added plus is that they sync with my smart phone so I can read anywhere at any time.

So, before I buy another book printed on paper, I am determined to first check my bookshelves for those books I have already purchased but never read.  The other books on the shelves - the ones I have read - will remain there because I like to look at them even if I will never re-read them.  Having favorite books look at you every time you enter a room is an experience that someone growing up in today’s world of electronic reading material will never realize. They will never know the joy of holding a real book.

I just hope the library isn’t selling all their books.