I

MAKING OF A BISHOP

    "Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man--the biography of the man himself cannot be written." Mark Twain's astute comment is especially applicable to Paul Francis Anderson, the fifth bishop of Duluth. It is not enough to study the climatic highlights of his career. To really know the man and appreciate his impact on people and their lives, one must see him in the small moments of his life relating to people. This can not be done. Still, if Anderson's legacy and contributions are to be preserved, if we are to document the history of the post-Vatican II era, then it is necessary to study the man and his career.

    To understand Anderson's life and career, we must journey back to his Massachusetts boyhood and his early years as an assistant pastor and hospital chaplain. Paul Francis Anderson was born in West Roxbury, a division of the City of Boston, on April 20, 1917. He was the second son of Mary Elizabeth and Philip Anderson both children of Irish immigrants.

    Never prosperous, the family was at times in dire straits. Paul's father lost his job in the famous 1919 Boston police strike, crushed by Governor Calvin Coolidge the future President. Showing his faith in God, Philip Anderson dropped his last dime in the collection plate at mass. Sixty years later, reflecting on those trying days, Bishop Anderson remembered that his father literally did not have a dime to his name, but the family survived thanks to friends and the grace of God.

    The stock market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression which followed was an especially difficult time for the Andersons, since Philip, like so many fathers, was out of work. The family, which at times lacked ample food, scraped by with everyone doing odd jobs. Finally, Phillip found steady work as a motorman on the Boston Elevated Railway. The future bishop never forgot his boyhood experience with poverty and it left him with a profound sense of compassion and an abiding concern for the poor and disadvantaged.

    Despite hardships, Paul's boyhood years were happy and he shared precious memories with friends for the rest of his life. He fondly recalled making toys from odds and ends found at home or in the city dump--bows, arrows, slingshots, swords, shields, kites, model boats, planes, and other things that filled his heart with delight. Sports equipment included skis made from barrel staves and footballs made from stocking caps filled with rags.

    Memories of his parents filled his heart and animated his life as he recalled his tall, busy mother with her smiling face, and his father who taught him to take advantage of every day urging him to try things: "You can do it!" From his family he learned two cardinal virtues: hard work and generosity. For Paul Anderson, family was central. His life-long effort to form Christian communities wherever he went stemmed in part from boyhood memories of his family.

    Paul cared about people. Working for a number of grocery stores--pushing a cart and helping customers in the store--he got to know most of the people in his neighborhood. This personable young man was offered a managers position as soon as he finished school, but another calling was beginning to stir, a vocation that would combine his strong interest in people with his growing religious faith.

    Raised in an old fashion Irish Catholic family by devout parents, Paul experienced the first stirrings of a call to the priesthood in the 1930s. Vivid images of services at St. John's in Winthrop remained all his life: candles glowing on the altar, Marian hymns and prayers, homilies, the smell of incense, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and weekly novenas to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. Taking an active part in those services as an altar boy made a lasting impression. Another precious memory from altar boy days was of a very special Christmas when a man celebrated his first Christmas as a priest. Anderson never forgot that Christmas and the priest became a model that helped lead him to the priesthood.

    After graduating from Winthrop High School in 1935, Anderson attended Boston College, a Jesuit institution in Chestnut Hill. Then, despite doubts and fears, he decided to follow his dream of becoming a priest; he transferred to the seminary of the Archdiocese of Boston, St. John's in Brighton. With this important, life-changing decision made, he planned to catch a streetcar and tell his grandmother the good news. His mother urged him to refuse the money that his grandmother was sure to offer. She reminded her son that his grandmother was poor and took in laundry and scrubbed floors just to make ends meet. He set out determined to heed his mother's advice and when he arrived he refused to accept any money, but his grandmother persisted until he finally took the envelope assuming that it contained $5 or $10. Imagine his shock when he opened the envelope and found $1000, a large sum in those days. Though poor, she long believed that her grandson would study for the priesthood and was determined to help. The money, eked out of her meager income, was of immense help.

    Anderson completed his studies in an accelerated year-round program, designed to meet the shortage of priests during the Second World War. He was ordained on January 6, 1943 by Auxiliary Bishop Richard Cushing , the future cardinal who continued to play an important role in the young priest's life.

    After celebrating his first mass in his hometown of Winthrop, Anderson returned to the two-floor house, his family had long called home. He greeted family and friends and bestowed his first priestly blessings. A most touching incident occurred in the middle of the afternoon when an elderly Jewish neighbor, a friend of the family, hobbled up the front steps to congratulate the new priest saying "it is so nice that you are a priest. Someday my son Reeven will be a rabbi and he can come and preach in your church and you can come and preach in the temple." Anderson never forgot her powerful words and the day would come when as Bishop of Duluth he would have the opportunity to preach in a temple, condemn anti-Semitism and apologize for any Christian actions that contributed to the Holocaust, the mass murder of Jews during World War II.

    Father Anderson's first assignment was at Our Lady, Comforter of the Afflicted in Waltham, Massachusetts, a parish that ministered to three hospitals as well as serving a congregation. This assignment, which tested his mettle, exposed him to the pain and agony of mental illness, old age and death. The newly ordained priest, who felt inadequate in the face of his challenging ministry, found the mental hospital most difficult as he witnessed the horrifying sight of patients locked in rooms and restrained in straitjackets. Some patients were old and infirm, not mentally ill, but since they had no other place to go they were left to languish in the mental hospital. Anderson developed a lifelong concern for the mentally ill and elderly and years later as a bishop made it a point to visit mental institutions and nursing homes.

    His ministry brought him face to face with death. The young priest witnessed the anguish of families who mourned the death of a loved one or even more heart-rending the sight of those facing the agony and fear of death alone without the comfort of family and friends. Experiences with mentally ill and dying patients left an indelible mark--a sense of compassion early in his priestly career. Moreover, his experiences in the hospitals left him with the firm conviction that Catholics needed to focus on the essence of the Christian message and cultivate a life of prayer so that they could deal with the vicissitudes of life. Later, serving as a bishop in the midst of the rapid changes following the Second Vatican Council, Anderson insisted that as valuable and healthy as the ferment was Catholics must not lose sight of the essence of the Christian faith--the life and message of Jesus. Catholics needed to pray!

    Anderson's life and priestly career took an unexpected turn when he and some of his seminary classmates accepted an invitation to serve for eighteen months in the Diocese of Sioux Falls. How did five Massachusetts priests end up in South Dakota? With the end of World War II and the return of military chaplains, Richard Cushing, now Archbishop of Boston found that he had a surplus of priests. Cushing informed the nation's bishops at a 1946 meeting that he would share some of his priests with any diocese that needed them. Cushing's plan, dubbed "Lend-lease" after the famed World War II program, allowed priests to serve, in what the archbishop referred to as the "missionary outpost of our own country." After eighteen months, the priests could elect to return to Boston or stay in the new diocese.

    Bishop William O. Brady of Sioux Falls, the future Archbishop of St. Paul, quickly took advantage of Cushing's offer. When the possibility of serving in South Dakota was broached, Anderson, conjuring up visions of dust storms and grasshoppers, was decidedly negative, but his love of adventure and his desire to see a different part of the country changed his mind. Anderson and four of his seminary classmates, John J. McEneaney, John D. Hausman, Leonard Stanton, and James L. Sullivan, decided to serve in South Dakota. Cushing, taking an active interest in the five, invited them to his home for dinner the night before they left and wrote letters of encouragement as they adjusted to life on the prairie.

    Leaving behind the hills and ocean beaches of his native state, Anderson found it difficult to adjust to the wide-open spaces and incessant wind of South Dakota. He also missed his family. When the eighteen-month assignment was coming to an end, Anderson and his classmates decided to go home, but Bishop Brady, telling them he would have to close parishes, pleaded with them to seek an extension. Ultimately, Anderson remained in South Dakota until he became a bishop two decades later. Two of his classmates remained as well. McEneaney became vicar general of the Diocese of Sioux Falls and was named a protonotary apostolic with the title monsignor. Stanton served numerous parishes, became chaplain to the Boy Scouts of the diocese, and in 1966 was appointed national chairman of the Scout's Altare Dei Award program.

    Anderson, after serving as an assistant pastor in three parishes, became administrator of St. Catherine's Church in Oldham in 1947 and worked hard to rejuvenate the 43-year-old frame structure. His efforts went up in smoke. On May 7, 1954 he was awakened early in the morning by a telephone call telling him that the church was on fire. "By the time he ran from the rectory to the burning building, the heat was so intense that he was unable to enter by either the front or back doors. In a matter of minutes flames burst through the roof and the tower collapsed, carrying with it the 1,200-pound bell which had been installed less than a year before." The story has a happy ending. Thanks to the prayers and financial sacrifices of the parishioners, Father Anderson was able to build a handsome brick church that was blessed and dedicated by Bishop Brady on June 18, 1956.

    Reflecting back on his years in Oldham, where he served from 1947 to 1959, he realized how close he had become to the people and how much "practical and psychological support" they gave him. His attachment to the people of South Dakota increased while he was pastor of St. Patrick's Church in Montrose from 1959 to 1962. Once again, the approachable priest shared meals, conversations, laughter, and precious memories becoming part of many families. Father Anderson of Sioux Falls just like Father Anderson of Boston was people-oriented and family-oriented.
In 1962 Anderson was named pastor of St. Mary's Church in Salem. It was during this memorable assignment that he developed many of his ideas about the People of God, Christian community and layministry. Seven couples joined him in dealing with the problems that plagued the town. Thirteen years later, Anderson, now a bishop described the situation in Salem: "Catholics were severely divided from Protestants. Public school and parochial school had little in common and what they did have they never discussed. Rural Electrification Association (REA) and Northern Power (NSP) were fighting in the courts. National Farmers Organization (NFO) and their opponents clashed in episodes that left barns painted yellow in the middle of the night and tires slashed on vehicles carrying cattle to market."

    Anderson and the couples "observed, judged and acted." Divisions were healed! "When Pope John XXIII died, the Protestant churches in town tolled their bells of requiem.... I saw the time come when the superintendent of the public school met with the head of the Catholic school each week at the rectory.... And who do you think installed the new fire detection system in St. Mary's school? Employees of the REA and NSP, working side by side, joking and laughing far into the night. The struggles of the family farm still continue, but Sr. Thomas More called together the heads of farm organizations and got them talking of an American Federation of Agriculture. And so it went. Conversion, reconciliation, peace and community were born through the dedicated prayers and efforts of a handful of people." His experience in Salem, convinced Anderson that the People of God joined together in small communities could effectively implement Gospel values.

    In Salem Anderson actively participated in the Christian Family Movement and gained first-hand experience with lay action. Historian Jay P. Dolan explains that the Christian Family Movement, born in Chicago, "grew out of a unique Catholic Action movement that captured the imagination of many young people in the 1930s and 1940s. Developed by a Belgian priest, Joseph Cardijn, it...stressed the reform of society through the formula of 'observe, judge and act.'" Dolan notes that the CFM movement "was militantly lay-oriented. Priests had an advisory role, but lay people controlled the groups."

    Sally Cunneen, founding co-editor of CROSS CURRENTS and widely published in the field of women's religious experience, adds that CFM included women as equals. It "took steps that would eventually help to shatter the vague idealization of women which had marked their exclusion from leadership positions in the Church. Men and women met together, breaking the earlier custom of most church groups to assemble separately by gender." She notes that "the committed priests who became CFM chaplains saw a mission in the world for Catholic lay people just as the married couples did. And for women in particular, the CFM provided an education in critical thinking and action as part of the Church."

    Historian Jeffrey M. Burns stresses that CFM was a harbinger of Vatican II since its stress on the Mystical Body of Christ and its understanding of the theological implications of this concept led to the popularization of a new model of the church. Laymen and women were told that they were the church! Burns notes that CFM clearly anticipated Vatican II's concept of the People of God. It is no surprise that Father Anderson was ready for Vatican II.

    CFM's idea that laymen and women were responsible for one another led naturally to layministry. Anderson's involvement in the movement helped shape his conviction that laymen and women were gifted and called to ministry. Later, as a bishop and member of an important committee on the laity, his views were decisive in the use of the term "ministry" to describe certain lay actions.

    The popularization of the Mystical Body concept may also have shaped Anderson's thoughts on individualism, social justice and community. As Burns explains "the concept of the Mystical Body undercut the individualism of modern American society, undercut selfish concerns about one's own success and one's own family. CFM taught that salvation was not simply an individual matter between God and the person. Salvation was communal. The person's purpose in life--to know, love, and serve God--could be worked out only within the context of the human community."

    Father Anderson became pastor of St. Martin's Church, Huron in 1965 and in this, his last assignment before being named to the episcopacy, he instituted programs that foreshadowed some of his best known ideas as Bishop of Duluth. To surface the ideas and views of parishioners he conducted a survey followed by small discussion groups. This grassroots approach reflected his People of God view of the church. In Anderson's eyes, the people were the church and a pastor, valuing their opinions, should lead and not dominate. This approach stood in sharp contrast to the prevalent model of the church as a triangle with the pope on top, followed by cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and priests with the laity assigned to a lesser, more passive role. Later as Bishop of Duluth, he instituted a rather elaborate plan to discern the ideas and goals of all the People of God.

    As pastor of St. Martin's, Anderson eliminated fund-raising gimmicks such as bazaars and raffles instituting a "Fair Share" plan. The plan encouraged parishioners to become tithers giving 5 percent of their income to the parish church and 5 percent to charity. This plan raised St. Martin's income from $800.00 to $3,000.00 a week in three years. His skill at fund-raising was perhaps decisive in his promotion to the office of bishop and his assignment to the financially troubled Diocese of Duluth. Moreover, his long tenure as editor of THE BISHOP'S BULLETIN (1950-1963) provided an opportunity for Bishop Lambert A. Hock and the chancery staff to know and appreciate his talents.

    Not only was Anderson not seeking the office of bishop, he was shocked--indeed thrown into turmoil--when the letter offering the promotion arrived. On vacation in the Boston area, he prayed constantly walking around the city, sitting on the commons, and in a Paulist chapel, but often the only prayer he could muster was "God help me." He was painfully aware that it was a difficult time to be a bishop and felt unsuited to the office since he did not want the authority and pomp that usually accompanied the promotion. He wanted to live simply rather than in a mansion.

    A candidate for the episcopacy, while he is considering whether or not to accept, can only share the news of the promotion with his confessor. Anderson was especially blessed since he was on vacation with his seminary classmate and best friend John J. McEneaney who told him: "You can do it!" Anderson, who felt that McEneaney should have been named a bishop instead of him, later realized that his friend was the vehicle that God used to convince him to accept the appointment. Finally, he went to a Western Union office and sent a coded telegram of acceptance to the pope's official representative in the United States, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Luigi Raimondi, Apostolic Delegate (1967-1973).

    When Anderson met with Raimondi, the archbishop asked how he felt about the appointment. The bishop to be, realizing that he held no graduate degrees and had no chancery experience pointed out that he had only been a pastor. Raimondi had the perfect answer: "Well what do you think you're going to be now?"

    On July 17, 1968 Paul Francis Anderson was named a coadjutor bishop with the right of succession to the ailing Bishop of Duluth, Francis J. Schenk. Paul VI had assigned Anderson to a far-flung diocese, established in 1889, which included the following counties in northeastern Minnesota: Aitkin, Carlton, Cass, Cook, Crow Wing, Itasca, Lake, Pine, Koochiching, and St. Louis. The Diocese of Duluth served almost 109,000 Catholics and maintained 90 parishes and 35 mission churches.

    At Anderson's ordination, held on October 17, 1968 in the Huron Arena, a stirring homily was delivered by Cardinal Cushing of Boston, the man who had played such a pivotal role in Anderson's life and career. In "thundering tones" and in words Anderson would never forget, the cardinal spoke about the role of a bishop and the needs of the time. Cushing declared that "a bishop should know how to listen. One of the most profitable ways of learning is to listen, and when we cease listening we most often stop learning. When we stop learning, we really stop living." He then applied this maxim to Anderson's new office arguing that a bishop needed to know the thoughts, attitudes and fears of the people he served. "Sometimes bishops in our country are described as administrators, and truth to tell, a diocese--especially a large one--demands a great deal of administration. For all of that, the wise bishop, in my judgment, is out of his office more than he is in it. And he should not be out preaching all the time." A bishop should spend some of his time listening. "Not everything he hears will be helpful and not everything will be pleasant to hear. But, in most cases, he will come home wiser than he went out." With those words of wisdom in mind, Paul Francis Anderson journeyed to Duluth to begin his new challenging ministry as a bishop in the post-Vatican II church.