A Little of My Story

Is there a resume that qualifies you for writing opinions about culture, faith and politics? Regardless of the resume, the proof is in the pudding, that is, in the value readers might find in the writing. Knowing my background does, I suppose, at least clue you in to my perspective and gives you some notion about whether or not I know what I’m talking about.

What I think and believe is shaped as much by the present and future as by my past. I am married to Sandra and committed to loving her and creating a married life with her. We have two young children and being parents to them and living as a family are enormously challenging and enriching. My wife and our children are the main focus of my life. Learning to love is my daily task and goal and I am lucky to have them as teachers and co-students.

We live in Providence, Rhode Island in a middle class neighborhood. Both my wife and I are native Rhode Islanders and most of our family members still live in Rhode Island. This state is a densely populated state but it is not a state with a “big city” mentality. Most everyone identifies with the section of town or city they come from. Most everyone grew up Democrat. Most everyone grew up Roman Catholic. Most everyone has an immigrant background. Most everyone in Rhode Island has some connection to the rest of the residents of the state. Rather than six degrees of separation, there are about two in Rhode Island.

I recently started working as a Senior Communications and Policy analyst in the Governor’s Office in Rhode Island. It has been a great challenge with lots to think and write about. Before, I worked in social services for many years, for a time at a community mental health center and, more recently, managing social services at the Providence Housing Authority. I am glad that I carry with me the countless experiences I lived through with people lacking resources and options. Those years act as an anchor for what I do now.

I grew up in a large family in Pawtucket. Both my parents are dead, my mother died of colon cancer eighteen years ago and my father died of heart disease five years ago. I have three brothers and three sisters, all living in the area. They are all really good people and the families and friends and work they’ve created and enjoyed are all remarkable.

We grew up Roman Catholic. At this point, I’m not sure who really counts him/herself as Catholic still. We all went to Catholic grammar and high schools. I was born in 1951, so my schooling reaches back into another era and I lived through some very active and, indeed, chaotic years both for the Catholic Church and society as a whole.

I received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Our Lady of Providence Seminary College in 1974. From there, I went to study for the priesthood for the Diocese of Providence at the University of Leuven in Leuven, Belgium, the oldest Catholic University in the world. I was there for four years and completed a Master’s Degree in Religious Studies and the first year of a License in Sacred Theology. While there, I was ordained a deacon in 1977. I came back to Rhode Island that summer and worked in a parish in West Warwick to “get my feet wet.” I returned for another year of study and then came back to Rhode Island for good and started a year of internship as a deacon at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. I stayed at Our Lady of Mercy after I was ordained a priest in 1979 and I served there as Associate Pastor until 1986. It was a great experience; OLM was a large suburban parish (about 1,700 families belonged at the time) in a fairly well-to-do section of the state. In 1986, I left there and went to the Dominican Republic to study Spanish. I lived there with a family for two months while I attended daily class and I came back with some proficiency in Spanish. I speak Spanish now although I do not consider myself fluent. To me, that means that you can speak the second language as well as your own and I cannot do that. I get by pretty well, but I am not fluent.

When I returned, I worked in a parish in Providence for the next three years, the Church of the Assumption. It is in one of the poorest areas in the state. Again, it was a wonderful experience. We worked to build up the Spanish-speaking community of Catholics and had some success.

In 1989, I left the Assumption and I left the priesthood. It was a very, very difficult time. As traumatic as the experience of leaving the priesthood was, I was at peace with the decision then as I am now. In 1990, Sandy and I were married. I was working doing some light construction. Luckily, my brother, Paul, let me work with him and I was able to make a living. It was a relief too, to some extent, to work with inanimate objects instead of people! After three years of this sort of work, I got a job (needed the health insurance) as a bilingual case manager at a local community mental health center working with Spanish-speaking adults with serious mental illness. I worked there several years and then came to the Housing Authority. During that time, I did some study in the Masters of Social Work program at Boston University.

Several years ago, my wife and I, life-long Democrats, left the Democrat Party because of their pro-abortion advocacy. In recent years, we joined the Republican Party and have become active on the local ward level. It is a quixotic enterprise: out of the 6,100 voters in my ward, there are 350 Republicans.

These few facts tell you something about me. I am serious about life and I am happy about it. I live from faith but not perfectly. I have seen and done and read enough to have some things to chew on and to write about, and I am pleased to put some of these thoughts out there for others to consider.