Mutiny at St. Peter’s

 The Rev. Michael O’Sullivan, who has served as pastor at St. Peter’s Church for over three decades, announced at morning Mass on April 29 that he is leaving for a priest’s retirement home in Northeast D.C. After the service, he told parishioners it wasn’t his choice.

Now lots of folks are angry. Barbara and Phil Nowak spent the May 6 Sabbath protesting in front of their church, gathering petition signatures and hoping to hobble church operations by discouraging donations. They gave out little slips of paper to be dropped in the collection baskets in lieu of money, telling parishioners to withhold funds “until we are assured that Father O’Sullivan will remain at St. Peter’s Parish.”

O’Sullivan retired as pastor two years ago, but he has continued living at the rectory next door and remained involved in church activities.

The Nowaks and many others have also been sending letters to the archdiocese demanding answers. But the official response is that the only thing unusual about the situation is that O’Sullivan hadn’t left the parish as soon as he retired and a new pastor, the Rev. Charles McCann, took over. (A third priest, the Rev. Bill Hegedusich, assists McCann.)

“It’s like having your mother-in-law live in the house when you get married,” says archdiocese spokeswoman Susan Gibbs of the multiple-priest arrangements.

Members of the flock believe doctrinal differences are also involved.

“I think O’Sullivan has protected St. Peter’s from Rome’s edicts for a long time,” says Anne Kraemer, an involved member of the parish for 40 years. “What’s being taught at the seminaries and what’s coming from Rome is more conservative.”

St. Peter’s parishioner Bill Phillips agrees. He says what’s happening at St. Peter’s is partly a local manifestation of an ongoing clerical backlash against the Second Vatican Council, which liberalized the Catholic Church in 1965. O’Sullivan’s strong encouragement of lay involvement is now out of vogue with the Vatican’s conservative vibe. For example, it used to be that the layperson holding the wine chalice was allowed to clean it after communion. Now, by holy decree, only an ordained clergyman may “purify the vessel.”

But O’Sullivan did more than just involve the community in the church; he involved the church in the community.
Neighbors honored his upstanding role in the ’hood with a Capitol Hill Community Achievement Award in 1996.

“O’Sullivan made St. Peter’s an active, involved community,” says Phillips. “He made us realize the value of our faith in what we do and that the community needs to come together.” Phillips believes the archdiocese ought to give the community a legitimate explanation. O’Sullivan, for his part, wants people to quiet down.

“It’s not something that I would approve of,” says O’Sullivan of his former flock’s efforts. “I’m not about to get involved in any discussion or anything.”

After the service on May 6, Pastor McCann said he did not expect the protest to shut down the church, largely because most of the younger parishioners don’t know O’Sullivan as well as older people like the Nowaks.

“The older ones are the ones who are hurt,” McCann said.

Indeed, a number of young folks seemed oblivious to the Nowaks’ protest that afternoon. One couple listened to Barbara Nowak’s explanation of the situation but stopped short of signing the petition. The couple said they didn’t care what happened at St. Peter’s “as long as they stay true to Rome.”

(Disclosure: O’Sullivan baptized this reporter, who went on to be a starting forward for the undefeated St. Peter’s basketball team in 1993.)

Delusions of … grandeur?

Notice to the guy who plays trumpet outside Union Station: What you do is now subject to government regulation. You must audition for this privilege of trumpeting on the sidewalk. Report to the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority building downtown. Bring your instrument. Don’t blow it (the audition).

Last Thursday’s auditions for official Metro musicians started with a great operatic performance by a young woman.
HillScape missed that one, though, arriving just in time for the next act: a magician. He pulled an egg out of his pants but was one-upped by the judges, who made him disappear.  

After the magician were disasters. A man offered original poetry, only to be cut off mid-line: “Thank you, Malik,” said the judges.

A guitarist sounded pretty good until crooning in a cringe-inducing, off-key falsetto. “Thank you! Thank you!” the judges insisted.

Then a guy who whistled through his teeth actually apologized after judges thanked him for stopping.

One man demonstrated some examples of non-permanent tattoo art (not music, really, but whatever).

“How do you apply them?” asked a judge.

“I draw them on the person.”

“What medium?”

“I use markers.”

Next! A man set up some steel drums that collapsed, permanently, before he could even get a note out. Next!

One of many trumpeters began his act. He got through a few measures before the judges offered their loudest “Thank you!” yet.  He paused with the trumpet still on his lips. “It’s over?”

“Yes,” they said.

Then he played “Taps.”

Super Business Improvement District Man

At Eastern Market on April 30, as people were still taking in the devastation wrought by a fire that gutted the landmark building, a man in a blue jumpsuit and cape paused near a crumpled piece of trash on the sidewalk. He shook his head.
“This kind of stuff will keep me up at night,” he said, picking up the trash and tossing it in a garbage bin.

What the hell?

Meet Gabriel Brow, 28, a member of the Capitol Hill Business Improvement District (BID) “Clean Team.” He’s a blue whirlwind of non-stop positivity. He wears a bright blue cape over his bright blue BID uniform, and nothing makes him happier than sweeping streets and removing refuse on the Hill. And he wants everyone to know it. “That’s why I’m wearing this cape,” he says. “In addition to personal glory.”

Brow has come a long way from serious drug addiction and a three-year stint in jail. A year ago, he was a jobless father of four and “totally hopeless.” He decided one day to undertake a 14-day hike to the District from his native Morgantown,
W.Va., and wound up at the Gospel Rescue Ministries in Chinatown. There he became involved with the Ready to Work Program — an in-house, quasi-rehabilitative job-provider for formerly homeless men. The BID’s Clean Team is staffed entirely by members of this program, and several say it saved their lives.  

“This program is a complete solution,” says Brow, who has been sober since July, off cigarettes since September, and a vegetarian since January. And he exercises at least five days a week.

Patty Brosmer, executive director of the Capitol Hill BID, says she gave all her employees capes last Halloween. Nobody
else wanted to play along, but Brow wouldn’t take his off. At first, Brosmer said “absolutely not” to continued capering. But she relented after three days, and now the BID has its own superhero.

“It was just such a great and positive effect on me,” Brow says.

But does the cape help him get attention from the opposite sex?

“You would think that!” he says excitedly.

It does not.

But Brow reports that 99 percent of the locals he sees love the cape, and 10 minutes with him on the street proves it — people are smiling, shaking his hand, and hollering, “Caped crusader!” He enthusiastically greets almost everybody who looks at him, and is personally acquainted with dozens and dozens of people going about their daily business on the Hill.

Brow can brighten any routine:

 “That was amazing,” he says after a trip to the bathroom.

“That’s awesome that people like different temperatures,” he says after a discussion of seasonal preference.

Walking on the Capitol campus, looking toward the clouds, he says he likes when it rains. But then some pretty flowers catch his attention and he runs toward them, yelling, “I love azalea bushes!”

Clarification: Last week Hillscape reported that a fire department employee recently lost his job over the handling of the David Rosenbaum case. The person was fired, but last week a D.C. judge put a hold on the dismissal.