Posted on 12/27/2006 7:39:10 PM PST by Coleus
Patrick Michael Ward’s is the face that many visitors to New York City see smiling at them in photographs they take back to their homes around the world. He is the police officer who guards St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the man in a blue uniform before a limestone and marble church facade with each black shoe planted in a different institution.
There he is, Officer Ward: a former military policeman in the Army, the officer with the big hazel eyes, hair cut short, and a black and silver mustache like a wire brush. Officer Ward: Jean and Thomas Ward’s son, easy with a laugh, still remembers his mother’s catechism lessons, wears his uncle Edward Murphy’s shield (No. 19712) and keeps a Mass card for Cardinal John J. O’Connor tucked inside his hat.
The police world and the Roman Catholic world are heavy with history. They are parallel societies whose roots run deep; both are hierarchical and ritualistic. Officer Ward’s radio crackles with calls from the precinct station, Midtown North. The radio chatter mingles with the church organ’s religious hymns. He keeps a list of soup kitchens and shelters for the homeless in his memo book.
Officer Ward, 41, is part of the “Saint Pat’s portable,” one of four officers assigned to the church post. A police officer since 1994, he works the day tour, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sundays through Thursdays, in a post he has had since Jan. 10, 2004.
“I’m taking care of God’s house,” he said on Tuesday morning, speaking, as he sometimes does, out of the side of his mouth as he stood in the chilly air outside the church.
It was six days until Christmas. The lights of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree were shining. Ice skaters moved to music blaring from speakers.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And that's why the Left hates both.
Catholic ping!
Maybe it's just my dislike for the Times working overtime, but do I detect a note of "isn't this quaint?" in this article? As though it's the National Geographic reporting on the customs of some savage tribe in the middle of nowhere?
Frankly I"m surprised they're not howling in protest at the fact that a city cop is assigned by the Police Department to St. Patrick's!
Who was on duty the day ACT-UP came to bust up the joint?
Was this a part of it?
Officer Ward has not been present for some of the more notorious recent events at the cathedral: in 2001, a man tried to handcuff himself to Cardinal Egan during New Year’s Day Mass . . .
No, this was like in '89 or thereabouts.
later
Actually, I thought it was pretty positive; they didn't sneer outright the way they usually do. To the Times, it is quaint, of course, since most of its writers do not come from New York City and, if they do, probably wouldn't have had much contact with either the Catholic or the police world.
I grew up in New York, and I remember Midnight Mass in any church always had a row of cops standing along the back wall, because they had stopped in to attend Mass but had to be ready to leave if they got called by the dispatcher.
One of the original Mid-Night Masses broacast on WPIX or WOR back in late 1950s. I watched Cardinal Spellman celebrate.
I was in New York for the Thanksgiving Holiday and was fortunate to visit St. Patricks Cathedral.
I was stunned by the disrespect shown at a Catholic Cathedral. I came in at the end of the midday mass. As I entered the Cathedral I noticed a bunch of Starbucks cups along a ledge in the anteroom (vestibule? - area after you come in, but before you get to the nave). I hoped that perhaps some misguided, but well intentioned souls had left them there and would retrive them after praying/ visiting the Cathedral. It really did look trashy, and I suppose that my hope that the owners of the trash would retrieve it was futile.
The Priest was giving his homily when I came in. It took me some time to figure out that it was indeed a Mass that was taking place at that moment. There were so many people milling about, taking pictures, talking loudly, that I couldn't hear the homily from the back and I couldn't reconcile such behavior with a Mass. I remember thinking, this couldn't be a Mass with so many milling about and being so loud, but indeed it was.
After the mass was over, I wandered about the cathedral. I prayed over Archbishop Sheen's marker. I remember his TV show from when I was a kid. May he rest in peace.
Rob
Our parish had a Poor Box with 500.00 stolen on Christmas Day. We could use someone like this fine man.
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