The Church That Father Stan Built

In June of 2007, a priest from the state of Tamil Nadu, in South India, arrived in Dallas to serve in the parish community of All Saints. Father Stan, as we now know him, was taking a sabbatical leave from the diocese of Kumbakonam, where he had primarily served since his ordination in 1980. Leaving behind the joys and the challenges of daily pastoral work in his poor, rural parishes, Fr. Stan came to find refreshment and a new perspective in the Dallas Diocese. In some ways the contrasts he discovered couldn't have been more marked. Where Father Stan had small churches with no pews, worshippers sitting and kneeling on the floor during mass, in Dallas he found a large church, pews filled to overflowing with relatively well- to- do people at multiple masses every weekend. Where Father Stan had one housekeeper, and a sacristan to aid him, in Dallas he is part of a large staff. In addition the parish has many willing volunteers who see it as their lay vocation to serve the church in a variety of ways. From a Diocese where Hindu temples dominate and Christians make up only 6% of the population (compared to India's national average of 2% Christian) he found a Catholic Diocese thriving in the midst of many Christian churches, overall roughly 50% of the population Christian, with some 38% identifying themselves as Catholic. 

In the end it may be the differences in demographics that will tell the biggest tale as Father Stan returns home to India later this June and reflects on his three years among us. As Father Stan explained, when missionaries sought converts in South India, it was often the poorest people who responded. Due to India's caste system, in addition to being poor, these people of the Sudra class were at the lower end of the social heap as well.

The top of the heap, India's Brahmins , are mostly not converted for the simple reason that they have always been the Hindu priestly class. Between the Brahman Hindu caste and the Sudra, Christians also can be found in the two middle classes. Father Stan and the people he grew up with were from these middle groups, mostly farmers, people well-respected in their agricultural villages. While the caste system is officially on the wane in India, in rural villages old customs remain. Father Stan recounts that until as recently as 30 years ago, a Sudra could not be ordained a priest because no parish would have accepted him. Today, members of different castes still sit in their "section" of a church, especially if the church is built in the old cruciform plan. They will eat together as a group at a church function, but outside church gatherings, they may not even eat at the same event.

 Pastorally, this is challenging for India's priests. In his typically quiet and unassuming way, though, Father Stan told of a change of heart that occurred while he was the priest of Our Lady of Lourdes parish. The one hundred and fifty year old building he and his parishioners were using was only large enough to hold a small percentage of the 5000 people seeking mass on a regular basis. It was clear that a new building had to be built, and so Father Stan undertook a building campaign. Realizing that the old style of separation into castes at Mass could not continue, he planned to build the new church not in the shape of a cross, which by its nature offered convenient sections for each group to occupy, but in a simple rectangle. Father Stan recalls that when people got wind of the plans for the new church's design, they announced that this church could not be built.

"Where will we sit?"

 Father Stan encouraged them not to worry about such things, explaining that there would be plenty of room in the building, and seating would sort itself out. The idea of putting up barriers to section people off was broached, but Father Stan again reminded them that they needed to get the building up and running, and seating could be managed at a later point.

 As he talks about this, Father Stan points out that it is no small matter to placate people whose way of doing things is deeply embedded in the social fabric of India. All priests in India realize that the ideal of one body in Jesus Christ is not being met as long as the caste system remains in place. But undoing it is a huge pastoral problem. Priests learn to be patient with the system even while they try to undo it. 

The new Our Lady of Lourdes church was built and blessed by the Bishop, and predictably, the lower caste loved it. The upper castes were not enthusiastic. But through God's grace and the kind patience of Father Stan, people came to accept the arrangement. It is possible today at our Lady of Lourdes to sit wherever one chooses! Of course Father Stan points out, outside of church his parishioners still separate in the old way.

 To know Father Stan is to know a gentle, loving and spiritual man. It is also to know a priest for whom the advice "preach the Gospel daily and occasionally use words" is most wonderfully lived.

Not having the patience or the loving trust that Father Stan has, I cannot imagine myself ever doing what he did. The longer I ponder this miracle, the more I realize that it took some very special pastoral gifts for him to have overcome in Our Lady of Lourdes Church centuries of custom.

Do his parishioners realize that they are embodying in a very new and special way the unity of the body of Christ as they mix together under one roof in the name of Jesus Christ? Surely they sense the movement toward genuine Christian living as they sit and kneel behind and in front of and next to people from other classes.

Father Stan has many accomplishments to his credit, two masters degrees from the "Greg" in Rome, the position of Rector of the Minor Seminary in his Diocese.

But his greatest achievement may well be the church that he built in a poor and rural part of South India, the church shaped as a rectangle where everyone now sits together. It is called Our Lady of Lourdes Church, though in my mind it will always be the Church That Father Stan Built.