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Suffer The Little Children to -- Go Away

Latest Round in San Roque Controversy

By Maggie Garcia

Some parishioners described it as a retaliatory measure against school children when Father James Ford of San Roque parish in Santa Barbara canceled the enrollments of two children in the parish school. A series of letters between Father Ford and the parents of the children, Ray and Teresa Nowak, show that the children had been accepted to the school last April. The Nowaks say that once Father Ford learned that the children's parents and grandparents had opposed the renovation of the church building, he, in a May 10 letter, cancelled their enrollment in the parish school.

Father Ford has refused to reconsider the parent's request for their children to reenter San Roque school. In a letter written to another parishioner, Teresa Nowak said that she and her husband appealed Father Ford's decision to auxiliary Bishop Curry of Santa Barbara. According to the letter, Bishop Curry wrote back on May 22 and said, "the final decision is made in the parish under the direction of the pastor." The parents then appealed to Roger Cardinal Mahony, who referred the matter to his superintendent of instruction. Mahony's superintendent said, in a June 21 letter, that the children had been rejected because "there is a non-supportive relationship between home and parish."

The issue of the children's enrollment in the parish school being canceled by Father Ford is just the latest skirmish in a battle that has consumed San Roque for several years now. When Father Ford first announced that the church would be renovated, he said that the parishioners would play an active role in the renovation. But once the parishioners learned about the specifics of Father Ford's design plan, they started to protest what they viewed as the destruction of their church. Soon a group calling themselves the "San Roque Faithful" organized and began to distribute literature about the radical changes that Father Ford was planning for their church. In the meantime, Father Ford had enlisted the services of architect Armando Ruiz to renovate San Roque. According to one diocesan priest, Ruiz, because of his modernistic designs, had been out of favor with Cardinal Timothy Manning, Cardinal Mahony's predecessor.

Garvan Kusky, a long time member of San Roque parish, has actively opposed the church's renovation. The two Nowak children are Kusky's grandchildren. Father Ford, said Kusky, "is building a raised altar in the middle of the church, with pews facing it from all four sides. He's removed the tabernacle from the high altar and is sticking it into the former crying room off to one side of the church. He's putting in an immersion baptismal tank in the middle of the main aisle. He's repeatedly told the parish that Vatican II required all these changes, but this is untrue. Vatican II mandated none of these changes."

In the Fall of 1998, Father Ford, Kathy Lindell of the Los Angeles diocese's liturgical office and Ruiz held a series of workshops to introduce their design plan to renovate San Roque. Fearing the opposition of the parishioners, Lindell, at the beginning of the meeting, told parishioners that they were not to voice objections during the meeting or else they would be thrown out of the meeting. Lindell stated at the meeting, "we are coming together as a Christian community and thus we have a model in Jesus Christ of our acceptance and courtesy of one another. We do want to allow a safe and respectful environment throughout the whole presentation, so all are able to hear our two speakers. We will able to learn and to grow in the richness of our experience in church.... Because we want to ensure a respectful environment for our cited speakers ... any destructive action throughout the course of the evening will [be cause for] removal of oneself from this building." During the intermission, parishioners were served wine and cheese in order to "soften them up," according to the person who set up the spread.

Realizing that Father Ford was going to ignore their concerns, the San Roque Faithful began a campaign to withhold their offerings from the collection basket. For a while it seemed that the tactic was working. Father Ford seemed unable to raise the funds necessary for the renovation. Additionally, a news bulletin distributed by the parishioners called for an outside audit. The audit stated, "with a couple of exceptions, the weekly collections have not been published in the Sunday bulletin for three years. We deserve to know whether money donated to the school has been diverted to the rectory or to other non-school uses, such as the parish hall remodel. We deserve to know how much of your money Father Ford has spent remodeling the rectory, including his new upstairs suite of rooms. We deserve to know exactly how many donations for necessary repairs have been co-mingled into the 'renovation account.' We deserve to know whether the last five annual financial statements are accurate or fallacious."

In spite of this, Father Ford seems to have managed to raise the renovation funds; parishioners report that the church has been closed since the summer and the sanctuary has been gutted.

The San Roque Faithful enlisted the help of the Saint Joseph Foundation to help them with a canonical lawsuit against Father Ford. Chuck Wilson, the executive director, said that any legal action against Father Ford was a long shot. The Saint Joseph Foundation did file a denouncement with Rome, citing Father Ford's actions. As for the children, Wilson said, "they [the parents] could have gone to a tribunal, but it would go nowhere in Los Angeles. Then they could have filed an appeal with the Roman Rota, who would get around to it when the kids were on Social Security." Wilson said that Rome is very reluctant to act in these situations.

Michael Rose, author of The Renovation Manipulation, who has helped Catholics in the their battles to save their church structures, said that he was not surprised about San Roque. "From talking with parishioners there," said Rose, "it appears that the pastor had some preset ideas of how he wanted to 'renovate' right from the start. Despite giving the impression of an ongoing parish discussion, the preset program to reform the church was pushed through the parish before most parishioners could understand what was happening. This is the typical scenario of the day, both in process and outcome. Parishioners at any parish that is undergoing some sort of renovation process -- for whatever reason -- need to be respected instead of used and belittled."

"Father Ford taking out his revenge on two innocent children in order to get back at their parents and grandparents," said Garvan Kusky, "was not all that surprising, given his record of mendacity, deception and underhandedness in foisting off his wreck-ovation of San Roque Church on an unwilling parish, not to mention his cold-heartedness in driving away over 400 families who opposed his misguided plans," said Kusky. "What came as a much bigger surprise to me was that Cardinal Mahony -- a prince of the Church and a successor to the Apostles -- supported Father Ford in depriving my grandchildren of a Catholic education. I think I now better understand what St. John Chrysostom meant when he said that Hell is lined with the skulls of bishops. This has been a real test for me as a Catholic, but I do continue to pray for the two of them every day, because someday they will have to answer to the Lord for the terrible, mean-spirited injustice they inflicted on these two innocent young children."

Kusky's son-in-law, Ray Nowak, said that this skirmish with Father Ford has caused him and his family a lot of pain. "I felt that Father Ford exemplified what a priest should be. He came to baptize my son when he was in the neo-natal intensive care unit." Nowak said that he was shocked to see how Father Ford would turn on him after he learned of Nowak's relationship with Kusky.

When I contacted Father Ford on October 5 for comment, he said that he was busy but would call back to comment. He never called back.

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