Word: kern
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...operates at a loss of about $300 a week, but much of this deficit is covered by the "Ecclesiastical Shakedown Society," a group founded in 1957 by Earl ("Hank") Shurmur, a Detroit TV cameraman. Hard drinking occasionally led Hank Shurmur to bed down at Holy Trinity, and after Father Kern "straightened him out," Shurmur began putting the bite on high-salaried executives all over the city for contributions. The society shook down $4,200 the first year, has already topped $3,000 so far in 1960. Members send materials and food, as well as money. One member contributed 900 cases...
Sins of Weakness. Pastor Kern, 52, is the son of a Pontiac assembly-line worker, a graduate of Sacred Heart Seminary, and a former chaplain in the Catholic Worker movement. He came to Holy Trinity in 1943, was made pastor in 1949. Since he took over, reports Juvenile Court Judge Nathan Kaufman, the area around Holy Trinity Church has had the lowest juvenile delinquency rate of any comparable slum area...
...souls, but actually ministers to thousands more, at least half of whom are non-Catholic. For almost all of them, the old church is the kind of hearth and headquarters it once was for the immigrant Irish. If pastors in the suburbs have trouble reaching their parishioners, Father Kern and his assistant priests do not. All through his 17-hour day, parishioners surround him, and the commonest phrase he hears is "Tengo una molestia" (I've got trouble...
...part of the day's trouble at Trinity. Alcoholics are everywhere-even on the church staff. Joe O'Brien, the doorman, is a retired bartender who knows what it is to lose a weekend in the bottom of a glass. So do Charley Hirst, 51, Father Kern's secretary, and onetime Engineer John McCarthy, who runs the employment agency. Father Kern is an expert at straightening out "whisky priests...
From time to time it has been suggested that a dozen or so of the parish's 25 assorted activities be brought under the jurisdiction of Detroit's prosperous United Foundation, but Father Kern is dead set against it. "It would take away our charm," he explains with a smile. "We've got some pride, too. People help us down here because they want to-we don't recruit. The benefits of giving are somehow lost when it's mechanically deducted...