The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots. Nancy A. Collins
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beach, saying, “I can’t stand seeing those lousy beachcombers gawking at the congregation of soldiers and making sneering remarks.”
Father Burns was extremely athletic and devoted to physical training. Once, when he was forced to go to the hospital for an illness, he did his exercises in the bed. A sergeant made the mistake once of challenging him about his physical fitness, and he made the sergeant count the number of push-ups, sit-ups, and other exercises he could do. The test took so long the sergeant appealed to me to try to stop him. “Look, he’s done over a hundred push-ups alone, and that’s way above 100 percent of what we require. Now he’s doing sit-ups, and I don’t know how long this will go on. Can’t you stop him?” My pleas to Father Burns fell on deaf ears until I told him, “Father, you have worn out the seat of your shorts, and you’re showing.” That did the trick!
Father Burns physically could outperform every man in his unit and was regarded as the champion of the enlisted men. He was equally strict about religious duties and had a very powerful effect on the soldiers’ religious observance.
Father Burns also solved an unusual problem for a young married officer who had asked me, “I’m being sent overseas, and the hurricane season is approaching. I rented a house with two apartments. Could you find me somebody who is strong and reliable and who could live in the other apartment and who could help my wife in case of trouble?”
“I’ve got exactly the right man,” I said, and I introduced him to Father Burns. A couple of weeks later I called the wife to ask how things were. “Wonderful,” she said. “Father Burns came and introduced himself to me and gave me a bouquet of flowers and a quart of ice cream. The only trouble is that I tried to clean his apartment when he was on duty, but I couldn’t move the heavy weight equipment he has. I couldn’t even budge it.” I told her not to worry: “He’d be disappointed if you could move it.”
Another priest, Father Leo J. Schafer of Indianapolis, arrived about the same time, and he was accompanied by his widowed father. The two of them were a fantastic team. Father Schafer was a great asset, a very quiet and zealous priest. His father helped out in any way possible. He was a good juggler and entertained every new group of inductees.
I was even more thankful for the reinforcement of our chaplain ranks when I received an official order that I was to take care of the psychiatric patients at the huge Coral Gables Hospital, “in addition to my usual duties.” The “hospital” was a converted massive hotel and was filled with wartime psychiatric cases. I soon discovered that it was best to visit the overworked staff and the struggling patients in the evening. A clever doctor determined that having them tend “victory gardens” could help many of the less troubled patients. There is no less likely site for a successful garden than the sand of Coral Gables, but the idea worked. The cycle of nature — the fascination of seeing the sprouting and growth of vegetables — had a very calming effect on the patients.
Some of the psychiatric cases were far more difficult. One young man was catatonic and impossible to make contact with. I was asked to help him. I thought that maybe he, like others, had found the effect of combat, including dropping bombs, to be shattering. He was a bed patient. I bent down and started to recite the Lord’s Prayer in Latin. I saw his lips begin to quiver, then to fashion words. Next I said the Hail Mary in Latin. Finally, he responded. Those timeless words had broken through. I soon discovered that he was a former seminarian.
Breaking down barriers with another patient required my knowledge of Italian. The “patient” was a very healthy young foreigner who could not speak a word of English. After trying several phrases in the few languages I knew, he seemed to understand a bit of Italian. Soon I discovered he was a sailor from the Dalmatian coast who had been working on a freighter that had been sunk by a German submarine. He swam ashore and was picked up by the local police and taken to the local draft officer, who drafted him and dispatched him to the Army. Anything to fill the quota!
I tried to capitalize on the increased attendance at Mass for the feast days to teach Catholic doctrine about many matters. Whenever two or more soldiers are gathered during wartime, the discussion invariably centers on two topics: religion and sex. I redoubled my efforts to instill a better understanding of our Christian faith and the Sixth Commandment — “You shall not commit adultery” — including the dangers of venereal disease and infidelity. I also touched on stealing and the treatment of prisoners of war, as well as the Geneva rules of warfare. I found soldiers coming to me more often for Confession.
Naturally, my preaching also produced a large number of requests by soldiers to see me about their problems. Most of the problems dealt with their parents, or wife, or girlfriend back home. The most peculiar case was that of a married soldier from New York who was convinced that his wife was unfaithful. He secured a furlough, found indeed that his wife was unfaithful, and went to see a lawyer. The lawyer told him he did not have witnesses for a divorce. The soldier spied on his wife, saw a man entering his wife’s apartment, and called the fire department. The firemen discovered the couple in bed — and no fire. The soldier secured the names of the firemen who saw the infidelity, paid the fine for a false alarm, and went to the lawyer with the names of the witnesses.
In one day, I received five applications for “shotgun” marriages. Despite the entreaties of the girls, I always investigated the circumstances to see if the marriage had a probability of success.
I had other minor difficulties, including correctly pronouncing Slavic names in marriages. An excellent young fellow came in for a marriage application and smiled as he wrote his name. “I dare you to pronounce it,” he said. It was Szuszczewicz.
Then there was the poor fellow who could not stand the heat in Miami but who had made arrangements for his marriage. He landed in the hospital with heat exhaustion but still insisted on being married. He fainted three times after leaving the hospital to go to the church, went back to the hospital, was given two shots to stabilize him, and finally got to the church for the wedding. I was very pleased I was not the priest for the wedding.
Soldiers tried every trick in the book when it came to finding a way to get back home for an “emergency.” One soldier asked me to recommend his application to go home “because my father needs me badly.” I asked where his father was. “He’s in the penitentiary,” the soldier replied. “He needs me to cheer him up.” I asked how long he had been in prison and how long his sentence was. He told me he’d been there for ten years and was sentenced to one hundred years for a murder. “I think he’ll still be there when the war is over,” I said. “He’ll also need cheering up then.” After listening to these inventive arguments, I always hoped the soldiers would expend as much energy and creativity in fighting the enemy.
Of course, I recorded all of these activities in my monthly reports to the military command and to the Military Ordinariate in New York City. I never knew if anyone read the reports until one day when an affable Protestant chaplain came to my office with an unusual offer. “My commanding officer has learned about all your activities, including the large number of confessions you have been hearing,” he said. “He told me to help you out. I’ll be glad to hear some confessions for you if you tell me what to say.” I explained politely that I could not give him permission to hear confessions because it was a sacrament that required ordination to the priesthood. That explanation didn’t stop him. “Well, I’d like to see the words you use,” he said. “Maybe I could change them and use them with our Protestant men.” I showed him the words in Latin and firmly, but politely, asked him not to offer “confessions” to his men. We remained good friends.
Despite my overcrowded schedule, I intermittently tried to secure a decent portable altar for the Masses on the Beach. I finally located an “official artist” for the Army by the name of Guranowski. He had been brought over from Poland to decorate the Polish Pavilion for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York and never found his way back to Poland. Guranowski said he needed an assistant to help him, and I suggested a number of men who were registered as artists. Guranowski brushed aside all the suggestions and said decisively, “There is only one artist here. He is Max Schnitzel.” Max was an abstract painter who had painted enough “moods” to get him into our “Who’s Who.”
I accepted Max and then went to