July 18, 2004

Where’s St. Christopher?


Trick question: In cabs, where does the most prayer take place? If you answered, “in the back seat” while careening through traffic, you could be wrong.

Having ridden cabs here for more than three decades, I have been tempted to agree, but a couple of experiences have me wondering.

The first was several years ago before I joined The Catholic New World. I was introduced to some of the behind-the-scenes world of Chicago’s cabbies and wrote about it.

Many cabdrivers are Muslim. One lunchtime I accompanied several to a large room above a cabbie hangout and watched, in surprise, as a large group of men, mostly from Pakistan and India, followed the Islamic ritual of cleansing of feet and hands and then praying devoutly, bowing to the east.

This makeshift mosque upstairs from a lunchroom serving lots of spicy lamb and other Middle Eastern fare was, for the drivers, a connection to their faith.

I often said afterward, and not entirely in jest, that I felt better in a cab with a driver I knew prayed five times a day. But then, I wondered, if his prayers included the passenger.

I was reminded of that experience—which happened before Sept. 11, 2001, and helped me shape a different (and friendlier) view of Chicago’s Muslim community than many have—not long ago. We received a call here from another Chicago cabbie.

The driver, named William Kehoe, wanted to know about Mass schedules at churches around Chicago. It seems he was in the habit of catching daily Mass wherever his driving duties took him.

Since we also publish the Official Directory of the Archdiocese of Chicago which has, along with a lot more, Mass times for each of our nearly 380 parishes, we were pleased to help him.

Too often we forget that the guy (or occasionally the woman) in the front seat of the cab we jump into is very much like the rest of us—dress, language, attitudes (and driving ability) notwithstanding. He has hopes, needs, problems, dreams—and, very likely, faith.

Keep that in mind when the time comes for the tip.

Quiz question: Who is the patron saint of cabdrivers? And is there a saint for passengers?

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Oh, the stories we hear … are enough to make me growl.
Dolores Madlener, The Catholic New World staffer who writes the well-read Church Clips column, gets around. She also manages to talk up our paper as an essential tool of understanding the Catholic Church.

The other day she was at a gathering and promoting the newspaper when another participant piped up (and I’m paraphrasing here): “Oh, The New World? Terrible paper. Haven’t read it in years.”

To which the never-say-die Madlener retorted: “If you haven’t read it in years, you don’t know it’s a wonderful paper.”

She’s right. This paper has been around for 112 years, since 1892. It’s been called The New World, the Chicago Catholic, The New World (again) and now The Catholic New World. But it remains the voice of Catholicism in Chicago.

Like most publications, its quality and its acceptance has been uneven. Blame some of that on journalistic expertise (or lack thereof) or that too many Catholics don’t care much about what goes on beyond their parish boundaries or even that they don’t like something someone in the church once said to them.

But such disagreements aside, there’s no better way to know what’s happening here in the Archdiocese of Chicago and in the larger church.

And since the person Madlener spoke to likely won’t see this column either, I hope readers will make a point of sharing their paper with others who might have the same mindset.

(PS: Sending them a subscription would be even better.)