A while back I wrote briefly about being something of a “crypto-Catholic” by a few years back and having concluded my teaching career at a Catholic college. But, now I have realized that my connection to Catholicism goes further back and deeper than I thought. It goes way back to my Grandfather’s heritage as an Irish person. His name “McGinnis” should have tipped me off but I was not paying attention. “McGinnis” is an Irish name, not a Scottish one. All the clues were there but I never picked up on them.

I was misled by the fact that absolutely no one in our family ever went to church or gave any other indication that religion had paid any part in the family’s history. My Mom and I lived with them all during my childhood. First off, Grandpa Jack’s middle name was Noah Elijah and his given name was John. Moreover, his brother Everette’s name had also been altered to hide the family’s race. Most importantly of all, Jack’s baby brother who had died as a child, was named Frankie after Frank Leahey the Notre Dame legendary football coach at the time.    

             But things got less cryptic when I recalled that Grandpa always gave money regularly, and without a word, to support Father Flanagan’s Boys Town orphanage near Omaha Nebraska. Indeed, he subscribed to, and we all read, the Boys Town Newspaper which came regularly for years. Finally, although I never understood why we all gathered around the little old radio every Saturday to listen to the Notre Dame Football team play-by-play broadcasts. It was our version of going to church., even though we did not know that this was what we were doing. So, now you can see, and I can now admit, that I grew up as a crypto-Catholic. Holy Father, forgive me for I must have sinned somewhere along the line.

     Also, now I realize why I loved all those Bing Crosby movies when I was a kid. Bing went to Gonzaga, a Catholic college in Spokane Washington, and I shall never forget his singing of the Christmas songs in those movies all dressed up as a Priest. Although I must admit that for me the best part of my most favorite Crosby film was that played by Danny Kaye. It was much better than the one in which Ronald Reagan played the dying George Gipp where he asked the football team to go out and “Win one for the Gipper.”

            All of this goes a long way toward explaining why I was quite comfortable teaching part-time at three different Catholic schools and why, also, I was quite disappointed when I just missed being hired to teach at Notre Dame. I can almost imagine me now singing “The Bells of Saint Mary’s” as I walked down the hall to my Notre Dame office as a crypto-Catholic. My Grandpa Jack would be very proud.