Name Dropping

 Indulge me, dear Reader, in some nostalgia. You will agree that Fleckinstein is a strong contender for the "Catholic Forest Gump of our Time Award." 

(Sidebar: one who refers to himself in the third person is an "illeist." Occasional or playful usage need not be pathological. So you need not worry about Fleckinstein!)

Age 10, 1957, my union leader father brings me to Washington DC where congress (McClellan Committee) was investigating fraud in the Teamsters. I saw Walter Reuther (UAW President, my father's boss), Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy; I shook hands with Senators Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy.  Even to a 10-year-old, JFK was startlingly, unforgettably handsome and charming.

Circa 1967, with seminarian classmates, volunteered in Chicago's inner city Presentation parish where Monsignor John Egan was pastor and important figure implementing Catholic social justice, civil rights and the community organizing of Saul Alinsky.

Summer 1968, studied Spanish at the famous Cuernavaca think tank where Ivan Illich (mystic, eccentric, iconoclast, most brilliant man I ever encountered) gathered radical thinkers like Paulo Freire (godfather of liberation theology), Erich Fromm, Archbishop Serio Mendez Arceo,  

1969-71, studied theology as non-matriculated, mendicant lay student at Woodstock Theology Seminary in NYC, especially fundamental theology with Avery (later Cardinal) Dulles S.J., arguably the preeminent American Catholic Theologian of the late 20th century. Also studied under patristic scholar Walter Burkhardt S.J., mystic Joe Whelan S.J. and some of the best Protestant theologians at Union Theological: Cyril Richardson, Anne Ulanov, Robert Hardy, Samuel Terrien, Paul Lehman, Philip Phoenix (Columbia U.), Letty Russel (Hoekendike).

1970, visited Catholic Worker community and spoke with Dorothy Day. Looking for the place, I asked a humble looking elderly lady "Do you know where the Catholic Worker is?" and she pointed to the house before which she was sitting and said "Right there." Later, I learned she was Dorothy.

November 1972, I heard influential theologian Bernard Lonergan S.J. speak on "Religious Commitment" at St. Peter's College near where we lived in Jersey City. I was bored. I have remained immune to the "Lonergan fascination."

March 1973, with my wife and parents heard Cardinal Leon-Joseph Suenens speak at the People of Hope in Convent Station, NJ. A major player at Vatican II and the preeminent ecclesiastical advocate for the charismatic renewal, he described his own personal touches of the Holy Spirit.

Circa 1974, met and spoke with Mother Teresa of Calcutta as she visited quadriplegic mother of students in my religion class in Jersey City. She looked at me sternly and said "I hope you are teaching the right things." I froze in silence. My wife, our daughter in her arms, defended me "Mother, do not worry, he teaches with the Church." She advised me to obtain and use the Catechism of Fr. John Hardon S.J. Needless to say, I did precisely this. Later we received the official, marvelous Catechism of the Catholic Church . 

Summer 1976, attended Eucharistic Congress for bicentennial in Philadelphia and heard Archbishop (now Blessed) Fulton Sheen. I was startled by his flamboyance, histrionics and exuberance. Since then I have come to appreciate his holiness, brilliance and significance.

For over 50 years, I have read, heard, followed and on occasion spoken with Ralph Martin, the most important leader of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, in the USA and across the globe.

In the 1990s and 2000s I twice heard Kiko Arguello speak in NYC. This is unusual for one that doesn't "walk in the Neocatechumenal Way." More intimately, I had the honor of being directly confronted and corrected by Kiko's missionaries to the USA, Giuseppe and Claudia Gennarini. 

1979 in NYC and 1995 in Newark, NJ, my wife and I saw Pope John Paul II.

Circa 2002 we heard Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, of the Communion and Liberation Movement, speak at University of Notre Dame.

Around that same time I heard Scott Hahn speak at Franciscan University. 

2012 I participated in audience with Pope Benedict XVI.

Over the last two decades, largely through my own children, I have enjoyed the company of and conversation with Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Catholic psychologist Paul Vitz, theologian (of happy memory) David L. Schindler (and his remarkable colleagues at the John Paul II Institute in Washington DC including son David C, Healy, Lopez, Prosperi) and the Girardian Gil Bailie. 

That adds up to  over 20 of the most significant players in the American Church of our time. It is not just that I was physically in their presence, but that they have immensely influenced my own life and faith. 

Do you see why I love the Church so?

It has been a great time to be American and Catholic!

Yes, we stand on the shoulders of giants!