blogtcs.com

More than 200 gathered at St. Timothy Parish in Mesa to pray for the president.

It was exciting, but also a bit anticlimactic to cover President Barack Obama’s visit to Mesa. Well, I didn’t really cover his visit as much as I covered the St. Timothy Parish prayer vigil across the street.

I arrived at St. Tim’s early yesterday, hours before the 8:30 a.m. Mass. I’d heard there’d be a lot of road restrictions, and I certainly didn’t want to get shut out of the big event. The editorial team made the decision to cover only the prayer vigil and not Obama’s actual address at Dobson High School because we thought the Catholic reaction would be of more interest to our readers. That’s the story you wouldn’t necessarily hear from other media outlets, though azcentral.com did run a piece on it.

When I arrived, folks were already sharing coffee and donuts — well before 7: 30 a.m., so fasting before Mass really wasn’t an issue. Fr. Gerry LaPatka wondered if he could just have half a donut. I suggested he do anything he liked. The semi-retired priest has certainly given enough service to the Church to do what he likes with breakfast pastries.

Lining up to see the president

Before Mass, I went over to Dobson High School to interview some Obama supporters. They were lining up to get into the school’s gymnasium to see the president address the housing crisis.

“To be honest, I didn’t vote for him,” said Jacob Borrell, who graduated from Dobson High two years ago. “But he’s my president. I may as well support him. It’s as important to be here as anywhere else.”

Hriday Sibal, a Dobson student, said he’s a “huge Barack Obama fan.”

“It’s history in the making and I want to see it happen,” he said. Sibal said he likes Obama’s leadership and policies and said the president is a symbol of hope. “He’s a change from the typical idea of a president.”

But Sibal stopped short of endorsing Obama for 2012. “I have to see what happens,” he said.

Arlene Willis and her brother Clarence, long-time Mesa residents, said they wished their parents had been alive to see the first Black president of the United States. Arlene talked about the many challenges she and her family faced as Black residents of Mesa.

“I grew up with racism,” she said. “If you were Black for a 24-hour period, you’d know there’s still racism.”

She hopes Obama’s presidency will begin to put an end to that.

“When we get to heaven, it’s not just going to be all one color,” she said. “We need to learn to love one another. There’s good and bad in every race.”

Fr. Jack Spaulding leads 200 in a rosary for the president and the unborn.

Christ is our center

Mass itself wasn’t a big production. No music. The more than 200 who showed up looked small in the large St. Tim’s sanctuary. But Fr. Jack Spaulding’s homily was incredible.

“We are here to pray for our president,” the pastor said. “We are not to here to protest anything. We’re here to pray.”

He touched upon other themes that regularly come up in his homilies: “We need to remember that God is God. We need to remember that He is in control. No matter what we think, no matter what we do, no matter what we say, God is God. The more we come to realize that, the more we come to realize that there is always hope, always peace.”

Fr. Spaulding also regularly talks about “trusting in the Lord,” and he did yesterday as well. “We trust in the Lord and this is giving us a great opportunity to show our support…. If it were McCain across the street, we’d also be praying. We all need to realize our dependence on the Lord.”

The emphasis on the power of prayer ran throughout the morning. “Prayer can change hearts,” Fr. Spaulding said. “More than any legislation, more than any ballot box, more than any protest, more than any sign that we carry, prayer can change hearts… Even ours.”

Me and one of our Flip Video cameras.

Camera issues

I have his homily on video, so I was able to transcribe most it. Unfortunately, the video isn’t very good quality, so I haven’t put it up on our YouTube channel. We use Flip Video for reporting. None of us on the editorial team are trained in video journalism, so we’re kind of figuring it out as we go. The Flip camera is decent for face-to-face interviews (unless you’re interviewing giant Mike Phelan (see video)), but for recording anything at a distance, well, it’s not great. Homilies in particular are tough. We’d have to stand face-to-face with the homilist, and that would be more than a little distracting for everyone.

As I left Mass, the woman sitting behind me asked about the strange object I was holding during the Fr. Spaulding’s homily.

“It’s a camera,” I said.

“Oh, I see. And what were you doing?”

She seemed a little confrontational and I couldn’t help feeling like my mother had just caught me eating an extra serving of ice cream.

“I was recording Fr. Jack’s homily.”

“Who are you with?” she asked, in a real protective way.

“The Catholic Sun.”

“Oh,” she said, all smiles now. “I see. Sorry. You can never be too careful.”

Sunny Craig of Apache Junction carries a sign mocking Obama's bailout plans.

Prayer and protest

So after that, and a bit of praise and worship music in the outdoor amphitheater, Fr. Spaulding led folks in the rosary.

“We pray for the president, the unborn, and all those affected by the economic crisis,” he said.

Right next to the prayerful gathering, hundreds lined the sidewalks on Guadalupe Road. Some waited to get a glimpse of the president, but most wanted the president to get a glimpse of them.

“We want president Obama to guarantee freedom of religion and freedom of speech and not let radical fringe groups infringe on those rights,” said Sunny Craig of Apache Junction. He held a sign, mocking government bailout efforts, that read: “Free Beer for My Horses.”

Down the line, Christopher White of Arizona Student’s for Life held a sign that read “Is this a choice?” Below the writing was a picture of an unborn child.

Christopher White of Arizona Students for Life lines up on Guadalupe Road.

“Our college and university campuses are really the front line in the abortion tragedy,” he said, noting that half of abortions are obtained by college-aged women.

“There’s always reason to hop. We have the truth on our side,” he said. “But there’s the challnege of the secular university campus, where we’re losing the ideological battle as well.”

As I was speaking to White, Obama pulled into Dobson High School. The fleet of cars didn’t pass any of the protestors, or even St. Timothy Parish (though he did drive by St. Timothy Academy (see photos)). There was no way I would have gotten a photo, but I was still disappointed. So were the hundreds of protestors.

But they weren’t the story. Neither was the president, really. The real story for us is how Catholics live their faith, every day, in a culture that just doesn’t get the Church’s teachings. We don’t seem to completely fit in with a pro-Obama crowd because of his position on many issues — like abortion, embryonic stem cell research and euthanasia. And we don’t really fit in with the protestors, carrying signs mocking the president of the United States. Instead we belong around the altar, gathered together around the real presence of our Lord in the Eucharist. We belong together in a group praying the rosary. We are called to a life of love and prayer, as Fr. Spaulding said. We believe in the transformative power of prayer. And that’s quite a story.