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The
following story first appeared in the Autumn 2001 Glenmary
Challenge.
For a free copy of the next issue
Youngest
Glenmarian Makes Arkansas Home
Father
Neil Pezzulo sees priesthood as playing ‘second string’—
in order to empower people.
By
Jean Bach
 |
| Father
Neil Pezzulo, ordained in 1999, says the past two years
in the Arkansas missions have been among the most enjoyable
of his life. |
Seminary prepared
Father Neil Pezzulo for many things, but not for raising over
$10,000 in one week to send the bodies of two migrant workers
back home to Mexico. But that’s exactly what he faced
soon after his arrival at Holy Cross Church in Crossett, Ark.,
three months after ordination.
“I had
three funerals back to back in my first month here,”
says Father Neil as he bakes sugar cookies in the kitchen
of the Crossett church hall for a gathering at Holy Spirit
Church in Hamburg, the second mission he pastors. Two of those
funerals were for workers killed while cutting trees for the
local Georgia Pacific paper plant.
“I didn’t
know what else to do to raise the money, so I went door-to-door,
introducing myself and asking for donations,” he remembers.
In retrospect, it was a good way to meet people, but he wishes
it had been under different circumstances.
“We
were able to raise about $11,500 in one week,” he says.
“I was so profoundly struck by how generous people can
be.”
That was
just one of the hundreds of ways Father Neil has been amazed
by the people of the Crossett and Hamburg communities in southeast
Arkansas where he has served as associate pastor since his
ordination in 1999. (Father Chet Artysiewicz, pastor of the
Monticello and Warren missions in counties to the north, technically
serves as pastor for Crossett and Hamburg, and he is available
to provide support for Father Neil in his first pastoral assignment.)
Now the youngest
Glenmary priest, Father Neil says these two years have been
both blessed and trying, but ultimately the most enjoyable
of his life.
Two Missions,
Two Worlds
Variety is
definitely a way to describe this priest’s ministry.
The two missions he leads couldn’t be more different.
The Crossett
community is well-established. They completed a new church
in 1997 following a fire that destroyed the original church.
Glenmary has served the area since 1975. Many parishioners
have photos of former pastors on their mantels along with
other “family” members.
Conversely,
the Hamburg mission, 17 miles from Crossett, is a small, fledgling
community founded in 1985. There are 10 to 15 Anglo members;
the rest are Hispanic. About 75 Hispanics attend Mass each
week—but there are over 200 Hispanic Catholics in the
county.
The needs
of each community differ greatly. But in both Father Neil
is committed to helping people help themselves—empowering
them to form a committee or plan an event or deal with social
service issues. That’s how he has patterned his ministry.
“I always
prefer to be involved on the fringes, working behind the scenes,”
he says. “Priesthood to me is about being second string.
You give the people the tools to succeed, then you let them
succeed.”
A Journey
to Priesthood
Father Neil,
38, spent the early part of his professional life as a retail
salesman. He switched jobs frequently, looking for just the
right job, thinking that when he found it, he would feel satisfied.
That feeling of satisfaction wasn’t to be found in retail,
though. It was found during a week of volunteering at the
Glenmary Farm in Vanceburg, Ky.
The New York
native found a connectedness with people, God and daily life
in Vanceburg that he had never experienced before. He wanted
more. Soon after his week in Vanceburg, he began exploring
a Glenmary vocation. The more time he spent in Glenmary missions,
the more satisfaction he felt.
But despite
all the preparation and training, he has discovered that nothing
can prepare a person for the daily administrative and pastoral
rigors of two missions in small towns with little financial
support. “All the theology in the world doesn’t
help when someone just wants to talk, or when the electric
bill is due.”
A Return
to Crossett
Father Neil
wasn’t a stranger to the Crossett and Hamburg communities
when he arrived in December 1999. He spent part of his novitiate
year in the area. But it’s different now, he says. Before,
he had no real day-to-day responsibilities and could dole
out his time quite easily.
“One
of my frustrations is I don’t always have the time to
be with the people. There is only one of me and, because I
can’t spend as much time with the parishioners as I would
like, I feel as if I have let some people down. We [Father
Neil and the parish] have been on a learning curve since my
arrival.”
Many who
knew him as a novice are now getting to know him as a priest.
“When I first came back, some people called me ‘Neil,’
which is fine with me. But I’ve noticed that over the
past year, some of them have evolved into calling me ‘Father
Neil.’ I hope, after watching me in action, they now
see me as priest and respect me as priest.”
Father Neil
calls Eleanor Henley, who has worked at the parish for 13
years and is now a pastoral associate, “a God-send.”
Working together, they spend much of their time doing social-service-type
work, “putting out a lot of fires,” Father Neil
says.
A new addition
to the parish staff is Luis AjĖ, a native of Guatemala, who
works as a multicultural worker primarily in the Hamburg mission.
With a degree in theology, he takes care of sacramental preparation
and adult education for the Hispanic community, as well as
helping Father Neil reach out to the larger Hispanic community
and deal with social service and translation needs.
Because of
the presence of Georgia Pacific, the parish community in Crossett
is very transient. Of the founding parishioners, only one
was born in Crossett. Today, parishioners number about 150.
“We train a lot of people who come through here with
Georgia Pacific,” says Eleanor. “When they leave,
not only is their financial support missed, but also their
involvement.”
“It’s
both a blessing and a curse,” she continues. “They
come to appreciate the smallness of our community and get
really involved. When they move, they take those gifts developed
here and share them elsewhere.” More ripples of Glenmary’s
ministry.
Southeast
Arkansas
The Crossett
Company founded a paper company in the area many years ago
and Crossett developed around the plant. It holds the distinction
of being one of the first planned communities in the United
States. The Crossett Company also encouraged building churches.
They donated land to congregations and paid one half of the
building costs. Today, the “Crossett gray” used
on the buildings developed by the paper company can still
be seen throughout the city.
The Crossett
Paper Company was later sold to Georgia Pacific, which enlarged
the plant. The huge plant now runs the length of the town
and is the top employer, employing 2,850 people.
Driving down
Main Street in Crossett is much like driving down the main
street of Small Town, USA. On an April morning as Father Neil
drives through the tree-lined streets of Crossett on his way
to Hamburg, there are kids on bicycles and people greeting
each other. Like most things southern, time moves slower in
Crossett and Hamburg. People take time to visit, and everyone
knows most everyone else in town. “It’s a great
area,” Father Neil says. “The people are warm, inviting
and friendly.”
But, like
any town, there are prejudices and hearts that could be opened
to their neighbors. There are some lingering reminders of
segregation in Crossett. Originally, a section of Main Street
divided the black community from the white. African-Americans
lived on the state-named streets to the left of Main Street.
Whites lived on the tree-named streets to the right. Father
Neil hopes that someday, if people keep reaching out, more
of the black pastors and their congregations will be a part
of the local ministerial association.
After all,
it wasn’t too many years ago when Catholics weren’t
very welcome. Yet today Father Neil is vice-president of the
ministerial association. He is also a member of the board
of directors of the local food bank as well as the interim
leader of a Hispanic Boy Scout troop. “Glenmary’s
presence here has meant a great deal to opening many hearts,”
Father Neil says. The community knows where to go for help—the
Catholic church.
It’s
not easy to get around the area, though. In just one week,
Father Neil put 1,000 miles on his car. He made several trips
to Little Rock (three hours) to visit hospitalized parishioners
as well as to Pine Bluff, which is a little closer.
It’s
not even easy to drive across Ashley County. There are no
east-west roads. You have to go north, then east, then south
to get from Crossett to the eastern half of the county.
There’s
a popular explanation why this occurred, although Father Neil
doesn’t know how much truth it holds. Years ago, the
white owners of cotton farms in the eastern part of the county
didn’t want their black workers to easily reach better
work at the sawmills in the western part of the county, so
they didn’t build roads.
“These
things from our past are changing little by little, but it
takes time for thoughts and practices to change,” Father
Neil says. “I think the Catholic Church is an understanding
presence in the community.”
Surprises,
D ifficulties
For Father
Neil, his first two years following ordination have been full
of surprises and difficulties as well as profoundly spiritual
and emotional moments.
Celebrating
liturgy during Holy Week was very special and emotional for
him that first year. Three people were brought into the church.
“I remember thinking, ‘I’m really a part of
this. I’m really doing this,’” he says. “I
could feel the joy in the family who entered the church and
was truly privileged to be a part of it.”
The same
is true each time he celebrates a baptism—which is typically
every weekend in the Hispanic community. “There is such
a sense of celebration and ceremony within the families which
spreads into the larger community’s celebration,”
he says. “It reminds me of just what being ‘catholic’
in the universal sense really means, and I feel honored to
be a part of that.”
He feels
blessed to have been trusted by those who have come to him
with personal problems or for guidance. “It is such a
humbling experience to be taken into someone’s confidence,
to be trusted and to be an instrument of God in people’s
lives,” he confesses. The feeling of being able to reach
out to people through the sacraments and see how grace works
in people’s lives is something he says he can’t
communicate with words. “It’s just a source of great
joy,” he says.
Hispanic
Ministry
But within
that same joy has been some difficulty; namely in Father Neil’s
ability to communicate effectively in Spanish with his Hispanic
parishioners. Hispanic ministry has been both the greatest
blessing and frustration of his priesthood, he says, sometimes
within the same situation.
“It’s
very frustrating to want to help but to have the language
barrier,” he says. He has pursued Spanish studies in
Cuernavaca, Mexico, like many Glenmarians, and he works to
improve his command of the language. “But I’ve still
got a long way to go,” he says. It’s especially
frustrating when it comes to sacramental preparation and in
dealing with immigration issues.
And there
are cultural barriers, too. For example, Father Neil thought
he was celebrating two baptisms one Sunday, only to arrive
at the church and find five babies. Word had spread through
the Hispanic community that “the priest was baptizing”
that day, so the other three families showed up.
It’s
common in Mexican villages that a priest visits only a few
days every three to six months. While there, he baptizes,
celebrates First Communions, marries and confirms. There is
limited sacramental preparation.
But,
Father Neil adds, even without formal preparation, they instinctively
know “baptism is good and they want their babies baptized.”
The
same cultural barrier affects Mass attendance. “Weekly
Mass attendance is so far removed from their reality,”
he points out, because in Mexico liturgy is celebrated only
when a priest comes through the village.
Celebrating
Mass is a scary thing for any newly ordained priest, Father
Neil says, and the thought of celebrating in Spanish terrified
him.
But
through work and the help of Hispanic parishioners, he has
gotten to the point where he is now comfortable with the liturgy,
although he often has members of the parish make the announcements.
“It’s
a matter of being on a learning curve again,” Father
Neil says about his Spanish. He is also learning immigration
red tape and works as a job-broker helping the unemployed
find work. “You never know what the day will bring,”
he laughs.
A
‘Typical’ Day
There
is no such thing, Father Neil says. On one day, he meets a
husband and wife in Hamburg who are hitchhiking from Portland
to Miami in search of work. They need money for food. Typically,
Father Neil would give a voucher for a local restaurant or
the grocery store, but those are in Crossett. So he gives
them cash. Half an hour later, he sees them buy cigarettes
with the money. “Oh well,” he says. “We do
what we can.”
He
also works with a 17-year-old Hispanic woman, Samantha, whose
husband is faced with possible deportation if his immigration
papers aren’t filled out quickly. She is confused about
how to fill out the papers and turns to the one she trusts,
the padre. He does his best, but trying to wade through the
legalese isn’t easy, he has found, even if you can read
and understand English!
“I
am very apprehensive in dealing with immigration issues,”
he says. One mistake could mean someone gets deported. So
he uses resources such as Glenmary Father Vic Subb, the former
pastor, as well as an immigration center in Little Rock.
A
few weeks before, he was up all night with a Mexican couple
at the local hospital because their daughter was sick. He
did his best to translate, although he admits it was very
difficult. But the couple had no where else to turn for help,
so they turned to the padre. Now, for translation help, he
will be able to rely on Luis AjĖ.
Visiting
homebound parishioners is also a priority on this “typical”
day. He spends two hours with Miss Nettie Mafauz, a longtime
member of the Hamburg community. Miss Nettie fell several
days earlier and hurt her neck. He tries to convince her to
go to the doctor. She says no. They talk a little longer and
he mentions it again. She says no. Finally, he promises to
return the next day and, if she’s not better, she’ll
have to go to the doctor, he insists. She smiles and agrees.
“Father Neil looks after me,” she says.
He
also visits Jorge Braun and his family outside Hamburg. Jorge
is very active in the Hamburg parish. He and Father Neil discuss
the upcoming Way of the Cross to be held in the town square
on Good Friday, which Jorge is organizing with Luis AjĖ.
Jorge
is also very active in the Cursillo Movement
which, according to Father Neil, deeply affects Hispanic
men. In Hispanic culture, men rarely attend Mass or take part
in the parish. After Cursillo, however, many experience a
spiritual awakening. They come to Mass more often and begin
to take a more active role in the parish.
Jorge
and Father Neil learn from each other. During their impromptu
meeting in Jorge’s living room, they speak in both Spanish
and English. Father Neil speaks Spanish with an eastern accent,
and Jorge speaks both Spanish and English with a southern
accent!
Both
learn a little more about each other’s culture and Jorge
shares his thoughts about upcoming liturgical events, even
talking about Christmas.
They also discuss options available
for their crumbling worship space. The Hamburg church is literally
being crushed by the weight of the roof, and something needs
to be done before it becomes structurally unsafe. Decisions
whether to move or what type of building to buy or build need
to be made by the parish soon.
“This
is when I feel I’m being priest, empowering the people
to plan and organize and take ownership of the services and
decisions,” Father Neil says.
An
Adopted Arkansan
Father
Neil does take some time off, but not enough according to
Eileen White, a longtime Crossett parishioner. Eileen lives
close to the rectory and has “kind of adopted me,”
Father Neil says. Eileen makes sure he eats, often fixing
him breakfast or lunch.
“The
wonderful thing about being here for me personally is feeling
like I’m just an extended member of people’s families
both in Crossett and Hamburg. I’ve had people wait Easter
dinner for me because ‘We can’t start until Father
Neil is here.’ It’s a very humbling thing.”
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