Ateneo High School in the 60’s was full of Americans. Come to think of it, none were Blacks. The Jesuit priests looked Irish while the handful of students sported Anglo-Saxon names. The President of the U.S. was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. That spelled family fortune, political blue blood, Harvard, charisma, good looks, idealism, and Catholic. Everybody hailed him and strove to be part of Camelot. The Americans in our midst were a sure sign that we belonged. They loomed like Hollywood stars before our eyes.
Fr. Kreutz rode his motorcycle with locks flying in the wind a la Steve Mcqueen. The pretty girls from Maryknoll across the creek crooned more over him and paid scant attention to snot nosed underlings like us who paled in flamboyance. Fr. Denny’s blue eyes blazed like Tab Hunter’s when one faltered with the conjugation of the verb in Latin. Fr. Murphy, the Principal, scowled like Richard Burton racked inside by the temptations of Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra as his sculpted profile glowed continually red with no nonsense intimidation. One stare and a rise in tone were all it took to shrivel an erring pimply faced adolescent down to size.
Fr. Schneider was so cerebral and taken with his slight Einstein accent behooved you to think that Aryans were indeed a master race after all. The kind smile perpetually plastered on his countenance and his mild manners made one underestimate the sinewy physique underneath the average frame. His build was made of the tenacity that brought World Cup soccer glory to Germany.
Fr. Bogart, the amiable Student Counselor, played the good cop while Fr. Welsh, the tough ex-Marine who was Prefect of Discipline, played the gruff hardliner. Fr. Bogart was Jimmy Stewart, bumbling, fumbling, stammering, but stuck to his guns and was always the finest gentleman who got the job done quietly without fanfare. The fireworks followed Fr. Welsh everywhere he went. Rough and tumble was his game and if you dared cross the line you have to be ready to make your bones. He once pulled up a recalcitrant imp of a classmate by both ears like Richard Nixon’s beagle to show him what sterner stuff is all about. He plowed the knife between the spread fingers on top of the wooden desk of a gangster student who had to be taught a lesson not to spirit such dangerous weapons into the school locker. Next time I will do it blindfolded, Fr. Welsh threatened him with a never known to bluff menace.
Fr. Welsh Marine buddies landed a helicopter on the school grounds to pick him up to play a round of golf over at what used to be the American airbase at Clark Field 150 miles north. When he was moved up to fill a position in college he had the sexiest secretary who was a middle aged seductress like Mrs. Robinson and our imaginations ran wild when they would spend endless hours cloistered in his office threshing out some very important matters just between the two of them. Back in high school, the funniest thing I witnessed but of course not for the participants was when he caught a bunch smoking in a hidden part of the terrace at the back of the school overlooking Marikina valley. He made them put out the lighted butts and swallow them. He stood there just long enough to see them get a good taste then left them without writing them up for punishment.
They were all men of God, the Abba Krishna. They wore their sentiments and emotions up front. They didn’t sneak around like emasculated Pewee Hermans under a cloak and abused the children. Of course they were prone to temptations of the flesh just like us and some of them abandoned the priesthood because they fell in love with a woman. The Abba Krishna teaches us that Priesthood is serving God and loving God by living your life for His glory as a Priest or as a married layman. Raising a family dedicated to the Abba Krishna is a form of Priesthood too. Loving a woman with all your might is a form of Priesthood too as long as it is offered for the glory of the Holy Almighty Father God, the Abba Krishna But of course those who persevere as macho priests are double blessed because they have triumphed over their human nature as an offering to God Almighty, the Abba Krishna.
Postscript:
We cried with our American classmate Hugh Fenimore, on that fateful Manila morning when we learned that JFK had been shot in Dallas. Even our burly security guard with his antique air cooled Winchester shotgun shed tears as we stayed glued to the news from his transistor radio. It’s been half a century and it seemed redemption would never come for the Camelot that we lost. Then the Abba Krishna dealt us a black ace. JFK came back black in Barack Obama. Hooray for America. Now we can love you again. Thanks to the Holy Almighty God the Father in heaven, the Abba Krishna.
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