Black Hawk College - Sauk Yearbook (Moline, IL)

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SAUK INTERVIEW: FATHER JAMES GR BB a candid comfemalion with the controverfial clergyman and peace advocate Condemned by many of his fellow clergyman but followed by a lost generation of young people and adults, Father James Grubb has emerged as one of the Quad-Cities' truly controversial figures. He has successfully combined the ancient precepts of Christianity with modern music in a 12:00 Folk Mass each Sunday noon which may well have the largest attendance of any area church service. In a commu- nity where apathy is the norm, Father Grubb has become controversial by exercising his basic right to speak out against the hypocrisy of Christian society. In an effort to learn more about this man, SAUK sent a group to talk with Father Grubb away from the pulpit and in the privacy of his home in St. Anthony's rectory in Davenport. SAUK: Father, could you give us a brief autobiog- raphy? GRUBB: I was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa and lived there 'till I was four. And then moved to Des Moines and lived there all my life-uneventful type of life. I ioined the Church when I was about seventeen and then I went into the Army. And it was while I was in the Army that I thought I would study for the priesthood and, as a matter of fact, did. And, let's say, I was never too certain I was going to stay. I would say the first four years I was never completely unpacked. If I felt like leaving, then I would take off. I went to school at Immaculate Conception Seminary in Missouri for the most part. I took part of my Philosophy at Notre Dame and I was ordained in 1955. I was sent to Washington, Iowa and I was the assistant there for eleven years-small town of about 5,000 or 6,000 people. We were the only Catholic congregation in the whole area but I liked it pretty well-in tact I liked it very well. I came here in July, 1966. That's a brief history. SAUK: I-low did the idea for the 12:00 Mass origi- nate? GRUBB: Well, it seems to me a number of people find going to church extremely dull and many of them, if they would admit it, would say that they would rather not go at all. And the only reason a lot of people go to Mass is because it is the Church's law that you have to. And if the Church decreed a moratorium on sin, for example, for a year I think they would find out that the church is not exactly packed to overflow. So the idea was to somehow make it meaningful and to in- volve people. And so the first thing we did was quite simple. We simply changed the type of hymn we had. We used folk hymns and we had three nuns who played the guitar. They did this and I think gradually things began to change. I thinkthat really did it. I decided one day, a year ago last summer, that I needed new vestments for the twelve o'clock Mass, that everything at the twelve o'clock Mass should be directed to the idea of ioy. And I was discussing with different guys what the vestments would be and I decided on burlap with peace symbol and the flowers and finally I had them made. The kid who made them was down today and we were talking about it because after I wore the vestments people began to talk more about the Mass and began coming down to see the freak . So the newspaper did a story on it. People for the most part are really so un- interested in other people and it seems to me we have placed the emphasis of religion on My God and Me -this type of thing, you know-and this won't work. That God is both up with this act of creation and that we find God, generally speaking, in and through each other or we don't find Him at all. You can read Scriptures till you're ready to drop but, unless you find the teaching of Christ living in someone, it is com- pletely meaningless. They have no use for me, absolutely none, and the strange thing is that most of them have never heard me talk. I don't work well when l'm hassled. Almost always when an article in the paper comes out about me, every nut in the country gets on the telephone to call me up and give me hell.

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So we had to find some way of breaking down this barrier that people have put up around Themselves and to get them involved with each other, to make them try to care about each other. This was the goal we had, and everything was to evolve around this. When I introduced the Kiss of Peace, for example, the idea was this: that it is very difficult to be indifferent to someone who has his arms around you and you have to react in one way or another. A heartful act is better than no act at all. So we started this and I have oftentimes mentioned it took a long, long time for this to catch on and it still hasn't caught on yet. People are too up- tight about touching each other. A year ago last August, I don't know why or how it happened, but I started preaching on the idea that we can- not be emotionally comfortable in each other's presence unless we can become physically com- fortable in each other's presence. But we have to be able to touch each other and not get pan- icky, and we normally panic because, with us, touching is almost always sexual. If you're crossing your legs in the classroom and you accidentally hit some other guy's foot, you both are going to pull your feet back, you pull yours back and he pulls his back as if touching your feet accidentally was tantamount to seduction, you know. And so we had to get this idea across- you've got to be able to touch each other. lt's very natural to touch each other. Clip out pic- tures of the Mets in their dressing room and see that when people are happy they touch each other, they iump up and down, they hug each other, and they kiss each other and this is very natural.-So we have to get to act naturally. Okay? SAUK: How do other clergymen within your own church and in other churches react to the 12:00 Mass and your ideas? GRUBB: Almost, I would say, every pastor in the Davenport-Bettendorf area, with the exception of my own pastor Monsignor Feeney, wishes I would go away. They have no use for me, ab- solutely none, and the strange thing is that most of them have never heard me talk. For example, I am forbidden to speak at Assumption. Three times the kids have asked me to come out and speak to them and three times the administra- tion has said no. One day, I asked the principal why and he said he didn't want me to become a circus-which meant, of course, You are a circus now. So they wish I would go away. However, l'm not going and as a result they have to make some changes, which is really great. One week ago, we had a meeting of all the clergy. We had a priest who is a member of the National Council of the Bishops' Liturgical Com- mission who was discussing the new Mass rite which is coming out late this fall or early next year, and it is real odd. Almost everything that is being put in the new Mass rite is what we have been doing down here for almost a whole year. In fact, Monsignor Feeney was real pleased, he was running around telling everyone that we've been canonized. So these things that they disliked, they are going to have to do them- selves. But again the difficulty is this: it isn't iust a matter of guitars or this sort of thing. What makes the difference, to me, of a good liturgy and a bad liturgy is the priest himself. If he is dull, if he is uninteresting, if he reads badly, you could have 180 guitars and the best folk singers in the world and it would be a drag, a real drag. When I was younger, there was an actress named Tallulah Bankhead who used to be on the telly. She used to periodically read the telephone book, lust names and addresses but with expression, so it meant something. If you know how to communicate and you know how to use words, you've got something going for you. This is what most priests have to learn, how to read with some degree of intelligence. SAUK: Were you ever interested in acting? You're really quite a showman. GRUBB: I was in plays in the seminary and I really knew how to hoak it up. You've got to be able to hoak it up. For example, down in the seminary I got to be president of the drama club, and one of my functions was to read a bunch of plays to see which plays we could put on. Obviously the thing to do was to choose a play that I could have a leading role in. In high school I was kind of shy-I wasn't too outgoing-and it took me a little while to get steam up. But then I was pretty good in the seminary. But you have to hoak it up be- cause people are used to reasonably good acting and reading from television. If you have heard the recordings of Charlton Heston reading the Psalms or of Charles Laughton reading the Scriptures-Wow! the Scriptures iust came alive. The guy could pick out the meaning and com- municate it to you, and this is acting. All good public speaking is acting because you want to move someone, you want to have an effect on them. Just looking at the people and smiling- anyone can do that if they have their own teeth. Now if you iust rent a pair or carve 'em out like George did. .. SAUK: Did you ever think of aligning yourself with some national group as Father Groppi did? Or would you rather stay a parish priest? GRUBB: Oh, l'd rather stay a parish priest! l'm not a real reformer. Actually, as a matter of fact, I don't work well when l'm hassled. Almost always when an article in the paper comes out about me, every nut in the country gets on the telephone to call me up and give me hell and send anonymous letters normally signed A Disgusted Catholic. I sometimes think the tense is wrong, it should be in the present tense for the participle disgusting Catholic. So I would prefer iust to be able to have the Mass as we have it and to be able to go about my every- day life like everybody else, but I can't. I can't even go out to get a few shots without all kinds of consternation. I went over to Hunter's one day for a hamburger and a few beers-iust walked in the place, fifteen guys yelling at me. So I leave and go someplace else, you know. There was this woman down at Parker's on the mezzanine at the gift-wrapping counter who called me over one of the last times I was down there and told me she thought I was disgusting. Yeah, weird people. Groppi needs a cause. Groppi can't exist without fighting somebody. As a matter of fact, when he was in the civil rights thing some- body asked him what he was going to do when it was over. He said, l'll find something else. He needs it. I suppose he operates better when he's hassled, but I don't. l'd lust kind of like to be kind of quiet-do my little thing. SAUK: Do you have any hobbies? GRUBB: I have a fish aquarium and my records, but I iust don't get a chance to do anything. I used to go fishing and Honda-ing until this kid bor- rowed my Honda and totaled it out, and he didn't have any money so that was out. I used to enioy that. What I enioy is anything where I can get out away from the house, where it's quiet. Golfing is not for me. At least, from the golfers l've seen, none of them are relaxed. I haven't seen a relaxed golfer yet. They're all on the verge of a nervous breakdown out there, you know. SAUK: You quote quite often from modern music. Do you listen to it because you like it or lust