Scenes From an Interview: Bishop Frank J. Dewane

By Gus Mollasis

Keeping the faith. It’s something that has challenged people of all religions throughout time. For the Catholic Church, the challenges it has faced in recent years have certainly tested its mettle and shaken its foundation. Its members are trying to keep the faith, especially the waning younger congregation, who see themselves as more spiritual than religious.

To help its followers keep the faith, the Catholic Church is standing up to confront its recent scandals with a zero-tolerance policy regarding the sexual abuse that has left many in its flock weary. Priests and bishops are also reaching out to better relate with the youth of its parishes and dioceses.

The Catholic Church considers its bishops to be the successors to Jesus’s apostles. Recently, I had the honor to visit with one of them—Bishop Frank J. Dewane of the Diocese of Venice. We discussed some of the Church’s challenges, how he keeps faith and helps others do the same, as we took a look at some scenes from an interview of his life.

Tell me about your childhood.

I grew up in a traditional Irish Catholic family on a farm near Denmark, Wisconsin. Small town, rural farming America. You got up early. There were always chores to do in the barn before school. For us, the church was where you went to worship, but also to socialize. 

How did you come into the faith?

I was 33-years old and living in New York City when I entered the seminary. I went to Notre Dame for a year because you were supposed to have a degree in philosophy before you started theology. I did a year of philosophy at Notre Dame. Great experience. I’m still a bit of a Notre Dame fan to this day. It was the best year of my life. I just didn’t know it then. Because all I had to do was eat, sleep, pray and study. 

What is your definition of faith?

Faith is believing God. Faith in something bigger than we can understand. Faith means that at some point you arrive and you turn yourself over to something that’s more than you can know, comprehend and be. Then you have to set about to live your life within that context. People express it in different ways. Some do it by praying. Some might sing. Some do it by their actions—how they treat people.

What advice do you give those who lose or question their faith? Have you ever lost your faith?

Lose my faith, no. I think we have to be honest when we go to prayer to the Lord. “Come on Jesus. Cut me a break on this one. I’m trying.” We have to be who we are with our heart. With our joy and our sorrow. With our challenges and what we are grateful for. Other times things turn out great. That’s when we have to remind ourselves, “I didn’t yet thank the Lord. This turned out really well.” Faith is bigger than ourselves. But living it is when the real rubber hits the road. You got to live it. I sometimes ask people, “Who here wants Jesus as a friend?” And their hands will go up. And I ask, “How often are you talking to your friend Jesus?”

How are you addressing the needs of the youth in the Catholic Church?

The youth are a real priority for me. They’re not our future. They’re our present. Each year we organize a youth rally. The Holy Father has World Youth Days. One year I came back from that event and said we can’t afford to take everyone there, so we have to do something where the youth can come here. We started with about 100 children and now, in the last two years at the community center in Punta Gorda, we take in 2,000 children. I’m cognizant when I go to parishes and don’t see a lot of young people, and that concerns and bothers me. I talk to some kids and they tell me they pray and that they’re spiritual. That usually means they don’t go to church. I’m older. I get it. I don’t judge. We’re trying to think what could be done. It’s important to ask them what more we can do. Youth is definitely a challenge. We do alright with high school kids. It’s the young adults we just don’t see. The 30-year-olds. In some cases, it’s the children who bring the parents back to church. It’s there in scripture: “The least among us…” I don’t pretend to understand the love a parent has for a child. I’m not a parent. But what I observe is tremendous—the joy you see in a parent’s face when the child says, “Let’s go to church like the others.”

Do you see that as your biggest challenge? Reaching the youth in the Church?

Call it the NONES. What faith are you? None. You can check this off on job applications. But the number of nones, not nuns, has gone way up and is climbing. They don’t claim their faith per say. They’re not atheists, which is another thing. They pray. Today, two young fellows who are active in a faith group and want a group to go to Rome next summer, asked me if I would go along with the group. And I said, “Wow, a whole group of kids. How big?” My answer was yes. The excitement that they have. They are alive with their faith. I have to go. I know the kids and the dad, who is half my age. I told them okay, I’ll do it.

How do you compete with technology and social media?

Sometimes we put our messages on social media and it resonates, and we say, “Wow!” But I don’t think we want to look to compete. We’re going to lose. We can’t go 24/7 as social media does. Some people might say that my meeting with a dad and two kids today wasn’t the best use in terms of the economy of my time and the number of people, but we have to have that interaction because we are social animals. We sit down. We talk. We engage.

What most concerns you with our world today?

We have to concern ourselves with immigration issues worldwide. Here and in Europe. Everywhere. The environment. The Holy Father wrote on this. What are we doing to address the whole carbon issue and rising sea levels? For an area like Florida, that’s pretty serious. That’s nothing when you consider what will happen to countries like Bangladesh where the people have little or no means to adjust and there is no one there to help them with the issue. 

In terms of the culture of life, I must confess I was for the death penalty, but I have changed. There’s also been much recent discussion and legislation about late-term abortion.

Good. I’m glad you changed regarding the death penalty. Regarding some recent legislation on abortion, it’s pretty scary. If we value life, we have to stick with it the whole way. I have some very good friends who are very much pro-life in the traditional definition regarding the life of the baby. They’re not so pro-life on the other end of the spectrum—capital punishment. A human being has dignity. It’s not something you grant somebody. It’s something you’re born with—an innate dignity. Every person is made in the image and likeness of God. You might meet somebody and shake your head no, but even they are made in the likeness of God. When we hear of someone who kills three people, it is definitely a heinous crime, but if you keep killing people it’s never going to end. John Paul II spoke out on it and said that capital punishment was put in place when there was no better way to protect society. We now know we can do a lot more.

What are your thoughts on the recent abortion legislation in Virginia and in the state of New York?

That has troubled me greatly—to literally be able, an hour before delivery, to take the life of the baby. To me that’s horrible. That’s not abortion. That’s infanticide. And we condemn other countries where that is practiced for one reason or another. We have to be careful. We’re becoming that. I don’t like this thing called cosmetic engineering. That’s dangerous also. Yes, every parent would like the perfect child, I get that. They all want their child to go to Harvard. They all want a genius or the perfect athlete. I see the legislation in New York, Virginia, Alabama and Mississippi as a way to move this issue into the courts, and to take a look at “who are we?” I remember when I was in Europe in the 1980s talking to a French priest. He said to me, “You Americans are obsessed on that whole pro-life issue. It’s lost. Nothing will change.” I’m pleased to see many years later that it’s not lost. I think the Americans have a different kind of culture. I think that there is a respect for the human being. I just feel strongly about that in my life. Okay, wars can break out, but it’s a different phenomenon when we are killing our own people.

What’s missing today in terms of the moral compass in people?

That moral compass was taught in a day-to-day life in society at a time when things weren’t moving so fast. I don’t know if there is time today. Everyone is worried if Alice or Joey has Math and Science as part of STEM. And we teach STREAM in our school, the added letters R being Religion, because that’s who we are, and the A being Arts. There is a beauty in nature. The church has for a long time been the conservers of beauty. Pope Francis is often saying beautiful things about beauty. John Paul II spoke about it. Pope Benedict did. We need to speak about the beauty of beauty in the world.

You just returned from the Holy Land. Please describe that feeling to a believer who has not been there.

I don’t want to complicate it and use a lot of words, but this is the land where Jesus walked. The footsteps. To walk near the sea of Galilee or go on boat into the sea. There are some tourist things, sure, but you have to stay focused and within yourself and say, “They put their nets out here.” Then you go down to the Jordan River. The baptism. Is it the exact spot? I’m not one who has to know exactly where John the Baptist stood and where Jesus was in the water, but this is the Jordan River. Then you see where the monuments have been put up over time. It’s a meeting place of all the faith groups. The Orthodox Church is there and it’s beautiful. You go down to the garden, which is supposedly the Garden of Gethsemane, and there are all these old olive trees there. I don’t know the geography of that whole area well enough. But for me it’s enough just to go to this area, sit down and pray there a little while. You imagine the scene with Jesus in the Garden and Judas comes along, and you pray never to be that. You imagine Peter pulling out the sword and chopping off the ear of the guard and Christ putting it back on him. And Peter becoming the first Pope. It tells me to check yourself once in a while. Yes, we have to listen to the Lord, but I can’t do my own interpretation. Sit with it for a while. Take whatever emotion that comes over you at the time and take it to prayer. Not just at the moment, but later, when no one is around and it’s quiet. I let it hit me as I bring it back. What spoke to me? What was Christ saying? What is it that I need to do differently in my life to be more Christ-like? When am I Peter? We are all capable of sin. We see that in Jesus’ reaction to Judas. Sometimes when we read scripture, try to be one of the characters in the scene. You don’t want to be Judas. Sometimes we need to play all those characters in the scene because that’s when we learn a great deal about ourselves.

Regarding Catholic Charities, and all the good it does, tell us something about this philanthropic arm that especially makes you proud.

I’m proud of what it does. We have to learn in this day and age that we do it in partnership. Nobody can do it all. You reach out and find partners. I’m a big one on housing. It’s hard for a family to stay cohesive and together when they don’t have a place to live. Cars are not so great to live in. How do we address this and what do we do? We always have to look at where’s the need, what can we contribute, and how do we partner with somebody to make the most of that.

How do you think the Catholic Church is handling its sexual abuse scandal on the local level and in Rome?

I think it’s sad that we have had to do it. Here in the Diocese when things come up, we try to address it immediately. Sometimes somebody knows one side of the story and they hadn’t heard the other, and they’re absolutely livid about this and that. Sometimes you know a greater story. Locally, we do move quickly. If we have to take someone out, if somebody comes in and says this happened or that happened, maybe with a priest or with an educator, boom, it has to be moved on. Recently, there was a child from one of our programs, and they needed a ride home. The person in charge of the program was here after hours and he could not give him a ride home. We can’t do that anymore. You have to call somebody and make sure there are two adults in the car. We don’t have that luxury. And this is maybe a very grass roots example of what we have to do now. We have to take those precautions because abuse has crept in. We now see action being the responsibility of the bishop when he learns something. We’ve seen the Conference of Bishops try to act in certain way and Rome said don’t vote on that.

Being in America is different from the universal church. It teaches a different vision. I spent time in Rome, and it’s agreed that this has to be a world-wide vision. In America, we have many lay people who are highly educated, and in some other countries they don’t have many lay people who are educated to the point of being a specialist, therapist, psychiatrist or psychologist to look at some of these issues. I can put a board together in no time. There are challenges out there in getting on the same page and gaining the trust back. In June, (Note: The Conference of Catholic Bishops was held in June after this interview) there will be a much clearer vision going forward. It’s a trust issue. And we want to regain that trust of the faithful, of the goodness. My going out after all that happened, listening to people in all of the parishes, I barely could get up to speak without knowing I had to say something on this. People can’t think that I’m in la-la land or that I don’t realize that we have a problem. We do have a problem and it needs to be addressed. It needs to be dealt with. When there are offenses they need to be addressed. Some of the priests get upset when I have to go and confront someone and say, “Father I heard this. This person has said this.” Those are not pleasant conversations. And I think they think that I am supposed to help them. And that’s true. But I’m supposed to help everybody. The Catholic faithful, everybody included. This more recent wave that we saw, where bishops weren’t acting properly, and were not reporting sufficiently on inappropriate actions, whether it was priests or lay people, they knew them and wanted the best for them. Parishioners are livid when we remove a priest and say, “Father would never do this. We know our priest.” And I want to say, “Hang on. We’ve got a problem.” I can’t say that to the person at the time that they don’t know them. They may in fact have given a great deal, but there is that difficulty that they have. In speaking of Judas earlier, I think that the other side of it is we have to all know that we are human and there are times when we sin. Sin and evil, which is not talked about enough. No one uses that word. Evil. There is evil out there. We have to acknowledge it. We have to seek the protection of God from that evil.       

Do you feel that America is still a Christian country?

Yes and no. I do think it’s Christian in that I go out and see people loving God and their neighbor. I see an even broader group who do good works and deeds. As a country, we are doers, and we judge our self by those visible deeds. Then I think how many countries have the death penalty. Very few. I think we have to respect other faiths and each year we do something with the Jewish community. We have the same roots. I get nervous about some of the legislation we spoke of earlier, when we look at the number of abortions that occur in this country. When I look at the amount of addiction to things like opioids. Well what does that have to do with Christianity? It’s a reflection of our moral compass. Those things bother me. There is no conscience in an economy. It’s the individuals who run the economy. That’s where the moral dimension enters in and sometimes, I don’t feel they leave enough room to hear that moral voice.   

Finish the following sentences…

A good Christian is one who…

Prays.

To me prayer is essential because…

You’re talking to God.

A good priest is one who…

Has a good prayer life.

Does it ever surprise you just how forgiving The Lord is?

No. Mercy is a tremendous component. And I’m grateful that he’s so forgiving.

Is there a favorite parable, verse or story from the Bible that especially inspires you?

There is phrase in scripture that says, “When I was young, I went where I wanted to go and did what I wanted to do. When I’m older, another will lead me to where I do not wish to go.” God has been so good to me.

What’s the biggest thing missing today in our society?

Respect.

What gives you hope?

Young people. Hope is a gift from the Lord. But really people, especially the young people of God, give me hope.

What’s the single thing you would eliminate in the world today?

Weapons of all kind.

What’s the one thing you hope everyone has in abundance?

My initial response is grace. But I would probably say food.

What do you think heaven is like?

I think heaven is joy. The Lord has put us on the earth to live and there are trying things here. Following this life, we will have one filled with joy, and we’ll see people who have passed away, like parents and children. I think it is joy.