My Father's Gun
McDonald, Brian
Carmelite convent in Cologne, Germany, taking the name Benedicta of the Holy Cross. There is an eerie symmetry between these two women: both of Jewish background, both powerful intellects,...
...In the city, that heart was often covered with a bulletproof vest...
...We meet William Devery, "the obese and corrupt chief of police who once owned the New York HighCommonweal 2 8 January 28, 2000 landers, a baseball team later sold to CORRESPONDENCE Colonel Jacob Ruppert and renamed the New York Yankees...
...The chapters on the author's brother (Frank, Jr...
...The author's father was one of the first twelve New York City cops--dubbed later the "Apostles"-to break department rules forbidding cops to live outside the city and to move his family into this suburb across the Hudson River...
...In this project, McDonald is largely successful...
...i i ~ - - i i - ~ ~ --~-i COPS & BARTENDERS Maurice Timothy Reidy A s a saloonkeeper in the Bronx in the 1940s, my grandfather was always wary when a cop walked into his bar...
...He teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame...
...McDonald once considered becoming a cop, but decided instead, after working odd acting and bartending jobs, to become a writer...
...In this regard, McDonald sets out to help all of those who (like my grandfather) may have some distaste for cops understand the stories behind police dramas and the 11 P.M...
...news...
...Her Latin was sparse, her writing style is not elegant (in the autobiography, she has a multichaptered digression...
...At times, McDonald's writing seems clearly the property of the NYPD and all of its trite bar-room banter: "At home he was a father who put his whole heart into trying to build a home for his family...
...MASTER OF ARTS IN PASTORAL THEOLOGY DISTANCEL EARNINGF ORMAT The program welcomes all who seek a deeper understanding of the integration of Christian tradition, contemporary cultures and personal experience...
...9 To develop appropriate skills for ministerial service and foster independent learning, critical thinking, ability for theological reflection, clear and coherent expression and commitment to the Christian lifestyle...
...The most poignant moments in this book remain those in which the author reveals his own story...
...Continued from page 4) ministries and at Creighton University's Center for Marriage and Family...
...There is an eerie symmetry between these two women: both of Jewish background, both powerful intellects, both nurtured in the mystical tradition of the Carmelites, and both writers...
...They tended to make a lot of noise, drink too much, and act insulted when their bar tab actually reflected how much they had consumed...
...These pages often read like a string of stories from the precinct pub, connected by a few significant events (promotions, marriage, birth of a child, etc...
...and her reading depended very much on what she could find in the vernacular...
...For the author's own literary style--his use of metaphor, simile, and anecdote--reveals that struggle...
...It seems that the author is, at points, too close to the NYPD to write about it with the clarity and nuance of which he is clearly capable...
...For information about the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement, contact: Vocation Director ~r Gravmoor ,~.J~ PO Box 300 Garrison, NY 10524-0300 914 424 3671 of McDonald's book is that he chooses to pay attention to the neighborhoods and families behind the men in blue...
...McDonald also gives us a rare portrait of the cop hamlet known as Pearl River, New York...
...For instance, in one passage, the author describes his mother's life as the matriarch of a cop family: "Sometimes, as she listened to her son's cop's talk, she would put down her crossword and close her eyes like someone listening to a sad aria...
...But as this biography makes clear, she was an authentic religious genius...
...In his article, and in The Catholic Myth, Greeley rather cavalierly dismisses the pastoral experiences of most other priests who believe that the rate of interfaith marriage has been increasing...
...JAMES D. DAVIDSON West Lafayette, Ind...
...My Father's Gun also works because it is more than a memoir...
...A simple approach, yes, but not one which has been done much before--by writers or television producers...
...The experiences of most church leaders suggest, and most research confirms, that "in their own way" means less frequent Mass attendance, more disagreement with church teachings about what it means to be a good Catholic, an increasing inclination to marry nonCatholics, and a growing willingness to marry outside the church...
...In fact, the struggle between McDonald's identity as the grandson/son/brother of a cop and his identity as a writer is ever-present--even when McDonald himself does not make an appearance on the page...
...Even Greeley says he is "virtually the only one in the public arena of the church" who still believes that young people "are still strongly attached to Catholicism, if in their own way...
...The goals include: 9 To provide instruction, experiences and resources for serious theological inquiry...
...For my grandfather, cops--much like baseball players and army veterans-acted as if their uniform gave them a license to behave boorishly...
...however, aren't as strong...
...Teresa, as Medwick makes clear, was not by the standards of the day a letrado (a "lettered one...
...Maurice Timothy Reidy b an editorial assistant at Commonweal...
...In his recent encyclical Fides et ratio, John Paul II lists Edith Stein as one of the figures he sees as a model for those who have integrated the life of the mind with the life of the spirit...
...2C~,n OJ~" .G~'~,~,~po~'~ Commonweal 2 9 January 28, 2000...
...9 To integrate personal spirituality and pastoral action...
...As McDonald ably shows, this town--packed with over-worked men trying to leave the violence of the city behind--is a sociology dissertation waiting to be written...
...MASTER OF ARTS IN PASTORAL TH EO LOGY Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, IN 47876 Phone: (812) 535-5206*Fax: (812) 535-4613 experience ena~./eJ~ /o ~CCOT22e T1ZOFC ~,-~di6b any op~n/~y Joo~ of opportu~.,'/y mi'm2 /ry &yonYmy /may/n/ny...
...Lawrence S. Cunningham writes the "Religion Book Notes" for Commonweal...
...The McDonald family saga begins with Thomas Skelly, McDonald's maternal grandfather...
...His brother's tale, while fascinating at times, does not merit the space (it numbers twice as many pages as any other section) McDonald devotes to it...
...In addition to plumbing the depths of three generations of family drama, McDonald gives us a sharp history of the NYPD...
...In fact, the greatest asset "Experimenting with tradition since 1898...
...I realize now that that song had played for the whole of my mother's life, and, for her, it was both painful and impossible not to listen to...
...I was reminded of my grandfather while reading Brian McDonald's My Father's Gun...
...McDonald's narrative is equally engaging when we meet the author's father, Frank McDonald-the son of an immigrant coal miner who used the civil service exam to climb the NYPD's professional ladder...
...McDonald nimbly maneuvers his narrative from a history of his grandfather to a history of the department and some of its most colorful characters...
...While Frank, Jr.'s difficulties dealing with a city consumed by racial tensions and a drug epidemic give us an important glimpse into the problems that tore at the heart of the metropolis in the 1970s and 1980s, the narrative loses its momentum here...
...He gives a compelling behindthe-scenes look at the life of a New York City cop...
...McDonald comes from a long line of cops (his maternal grandfather, father, and brother all served in the New York Police Department) and his book recounts their years at home and on the job...
...At other times, his writing has a touch of poetry: "The night hummed with a high-pitched crackle, like a radio station not quite tuned in...
...In particular, the author focuses on how his blue brethren--none of them particularly heroic or corrupt-were able to hold down such an exacting job and raise a family at the same time...
...The son of Irish immigrants, Skelly entered the police department when Tammany Hall ruled New York politics...
...For him, policemen weren't good customers...
Vol. 127 • January 2000 • No. 2
