Priest reached out to people of many faiths

NorthJersey.com ^ | 08.02.07 | JOHN CHADWICK

[Coleus]

The Rev. Tom Norton is a Catholic priest with a knack for relating to people of other faiths. Growing up in heavily Catholic Jersey City, he frequently checked out Protestant churches. When he pursued a doctorate in ministry, it was in a class of mostly Methodists at Drew University. And for the last 21 years, Norton has ministered to people of all faiths at Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood.

Norton retired last month, but he still gets requests to perform funerals for people with no religious affiliation. "The funeral directors recommend me to the families," Norton, 70, said. "They say 'He's a priest, but he'll do it the way you want it.' " In an era when many faith groups define themselves with sharply drawn lines, Norton's openness to other faiths seems out of fashion. His superiors at the Vatican, for example, issued a statement last month that said Protestant churches "cannot ... be called 'Churches' in the proper sense" because they're not Catholic.

But Norton said his outreach deepens his understanding of Roman Catholicism. And it has also made him a respected and beloved figure at the hospital. "Before he came on, I could never get a clergyman to be ecumenical," said Francesca Moskowitz, the hospital's former director of public relations, who also oversaw the clergy. "What made Father Tom so endearing was that he didn't look at people and see religious labels.

"He just saw a common human element and tried to take care of them without proselytizing." Indeed, when meeting with Jewish patients, he'd say a Hebrew prayer without invoking Jesus. Norton, a slender man with a gentle bearing, said he sees no conflict in such interactions. He sees the Hebrew Scriptures as an inextricable part of his own tradition. "We're people of covenants," he said.

Norton said he once got into a dispute with a priest who had complained that the hospital was displaying a menorah in the lobby at holiday time but not a nativity scene. Norton said there was already a nativity scene in the hospital chapel. "It wasn't even the first Sunday in Advent and someone was making a big deal about it," Norton said. "My feeling was that I wouldn't care if there were 35 menorahs in the lobby because it wouldn't affect my faith." Norton's faith was shaped at his hometown parish, St. Aloysius Church in Jersey City, where he was impressed by how the priests connected with the parishioners. "They were so close to the people," Norton said. His faith was deepened by reading the Catholic theologians Thomas Merton and Karl Rahner, and by the Second Vatican Council, in which the church stressed the need to reach out to other faiths. After two decades of serving as a priest at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Washington Township, Norton made a change and became chaplain at Pascack Valley Hospital.

It was in the hospital setting that he found his true calling. "You have to enter into people's suffering as much as you can," he said. "You become more of a listening presence. People will give me their life story and their medical history." Hospital workers say Norton was a humane, down-to-earth presence they'll never forget. When celebrating a Mass, Norton would let nurses and other employees receive Communion as soon as he consecrated the bread so they could get back to their stations. "He'd say, 'Would you like your host now so you can get back to work?' " said Lila Guerriero, a hospital telephone operator from River Vale. "He was the kind of a guy who got into the trenches of the little guy."

[Coleus]

As church grows, priestly ranks shrink

[Cicero]

Sounds like another well meaning idiot.

[firebrand]

Well, this is refreshing. Still, he sees it as bringing other people to his faith.

Let me enlighten you.
No, I'll enlighten you!
No, I'm the one doing the enlightening here.

How many have gotten into that trap? Seems like we can't shake our contentious past.

[Salvation]

I wonder how many converts he had?

[Coleus]

probably none.