By Robert R. Schwarz
If the rains don’t come, Mrs. Kathy McGourty will be on a jet in December to plant peace and justice among friends in the Haitian hinterlands. When she returns, this 52-year-old mother of four adult children will resume leading mission trips and retreats for junior high students, comforting families of incarcerated immigrants, and promoting Fair Trade coffee and chocolate as a member of the Peace and Justice committee she started for the St. James Catholic church of Arlington Heights, Illinois.
To anyone who has known Mrs. McGourty during her 17 years in the 4,000-family member parish, it's no surprise that she follows an 11th Commandment she proclaims as "I shall not be a bystander." She intoned this with gravity and, for my benefit, some humor for our morning interview in her suburban home. When asked about her spiritual philosophy, a twinkle of assurance in Mrs. McGourty's hazel eyes came with her reply: "It's this: On earth as it is in heaven." Then she added, "It's our responsibility to make it on earth as it is in heaven."
"I have a passion for justice for the youth," she said, referring to her work as the associate director of Youth Ministry at St. Isidore parish in Bloomingdale. "They are the first to speak out when adult behavior doesn't make sense. They are first to question the justice of something. They have a heart for justice and recognize the inconsistencies in what faith says and humans do. I love to validate them by asking 'so, what can you do about that ?' "
She believes that in the church as a whole, youth are marginalized, not recognized for what they can contribute today, rather than in the future. "I always tell the kids, 'don't let someone tell you that you are the future of the church because today you are the church. ' Churches which invite teenagers to plenary functions but then don't actually engage them in ministries upsets Mrs. McGourty. She is also bothered by a church which neglects to provide age-appropriate learning methods for its youth.
Equally outspoken about what her own parish needs, Mrs. McGourty asserted "there is a need in our parish for people to be educated more on Catholic social teaching and to welcome the immigrant as well as protect the life of the unborn." Catholics are also called, she added, to see that their purchases of consumer goods are made on a moral basis too. "What we purchase affects the well being of third world countries."
Mrs. McGourty regularly goes to the Broadview detention center in Chicago where, along with other social justice advocates from the metropolitan area, she prays the Rosary for the detainees arrested for entering America without required documentation. (She frowns at the words "illegal aliens.") The group, including families of the detainees, stands outside reciting the Rosary while their loved ones, with ankles chained and wrists handcuffed to their waists , are marched out, loaded on buses, then taken to O'Hare International Airport and flown to border towns in Mexico and Central America countries. Mrs. McGourty also works part time as a consultant at the Chicago Archdiocesan office for
Iimmigrant Affairs .
Iimmigrant Affairs .
She has a missionary's eye on coffee and chocolate, which motivated her to establish at St. James a semi-annual Fair Trade event to support third world producers of these two products. Committed to a philosophy of "helping people to help themselves," she will this winter make her first trip to a remote Haitian town and encourage its people to continue growing coffee beans and to build a bean roasting plant. Heavy rains that close off the dirt access roads has twice forced the St. James volunteer group to cancel its journey there.
"Kathy is totally committed to peace and justice and it's woven into her personality and everything she does," said Bob Bruett, current chairman of the church's Peace & Social Justice committee. "I really look to her for guidance," he told this reporter. "She's inspiring and usually very serious, but she does laugh a lot."
Asked to explain the genesis of her passion or apostolate, Mrs. McGourty said, "I think it’s in our family blood. My parents were always helping other people." While serving in the U.S. Army in South Korea, her father –he had attended a seminary for nine years before deciding his call was elsewhere—started an orphanage there and later in life helped Korean and Vietnamese immigrant families. "
Struggle, Then Conflict
"My dad's courage to confront people inspired me to challenge hypocrisy in the church," she continued. "But my passion really was lit when I heard the author Dr. Megan McKenna speak at St. James, telling us that whenever there is a deep disturbance in your heart, God is about to enter. This was a month after Nine-Eleven. She said that if you believe in Christ, you cannot believe in revenge or a war as a response. But then then why are so many of us not following that ? And so I felt like I didn't have a place in this church."
She then recalled a Sunday liturgy about Solomon's discourse on the "vanity of vanities" . It was the same week that the church bulletin ran a full page promotion of a tour of upscale homes in Arlington Heights. Mrs. McGourty saw this as one of several "ironies" in her church.
She then recalled a Sunday liturgy about Solomon's discourse on the "vanity of vanities" . It was the same week that the church bulletin ran a full page promotion of a tour of upscale homes in Arlington Heights. Mrs. McGourty saw this as one of several "ironies" in her church.
"I had anger bubbling up [over this] ," Mrs. McGourty wrote in a "witness" memoir entitled "Father's Loving Care." She could no longer attend mass. " I was not sure this was the community I wanted to be in anymore. I gave up mass. I gave up journaling. I gave up prayer time."
But then she attended a reconciliation service during her church's "Christ Renews His Parish" retreat, and although she did not make a confession that day, she was stirred by a Bible verse (Isaiah 6:5-7 ) to make a mental confession. Soon afterwards, she wrote this:
"I knew then how God could look at the same community, my community, and see beauty and hope, not hypocrisy and flaws. I had new eyes now, filled with God’s love. I knew now of the love that God has for each one of us and I understood how Jesus could die on that cross… The walls came tumbling down. My parish looked beautiful again."
Her memoir concluded with: "I could forgive them now, but first I need to ask you, my parish community, to forgive me. Please forgive me for giving in to hurt and anger. Please forgive me for not loving each of you as God loves you."
She wrote to the St. James pastor, Fr. Bill Zavaski, telling him , " I need to find people who think like me. Is there a peace and justice committee in the church? " Fr. Bill wrote back, "No. Would you like to start one ? "
To hone her professional skills, Mrs. McGourty went back to school—she had graduated Cum Laude in 1981 from Loras College with a BA in classical studies—to study ethics and spirituality at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Last May, after four years of balancing class work with her role as homemaker and church volunteer, she was handed her master's degree diploma.
"She's a powerhouse of energy for social justice," said friend and colleague Niall McShane. "She has a tremendous understanding of complex global issues and how they impact the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. " McShane, who is to accompany her and others to Haiti, added, "She gives meaning to Jesus' command that we should love our neighbor as ourselves."
Nowadays, when her 60-hour work week allows it, she gets a lot of happiness from quality time with her family. She would also welcome a car trip to one of those 12 states the family has yet to visit, or a return vacation to Ireland and Italy. Little pleasures come to her in Italian and Chinese food—the name of her favorite meal is "delivered"— and with movies like "The Help", or a book like To Heal a Fractured World, or, for laughs, television's "Modern Family."
Mrs. McGourty showed tears while musing on how painful events in her life have given her compassion for marginalized people; she mentioned one important lesson: "God does not hang on to the past." But the milestone, she said, was "meeting my husband."
Her favorite quote comes from the president of Xavier University, said during her daughter's freshman welcoming ceremony last year: "Justice is what happens when prayer gets up off its knees and goes out to find its place in the world."
And what would Mrs. McGourty like people to say at her funeral? Once more her eyes twinkled: "I do enjoy a good party and I've been known to throw a number of them in my home. So, I hope they say, 'Kathy had a role in bringing heaven's party on earth.' "
