A Living Stories Project
The Community at the Provincial Office-Oakland
I am
staying with a community of five Oblates in a house that serves as the provincial office.
The Provincial lives outside of Los Angeles, closer to where the Oblate missions
are clustered. Here, the administration support of secretary and bursar run the office.
Father Leo Dummer OMI
Telling Tales out of School
There are stories in the tradition about those "good old school days."
A Ministry of Presence
The Oblates of the West ran three schools, the first two in the Archdiocese of Los
Angeles and one in the Diocese of Oakland until 1978. Eventually lack of manpower led to
one being closed altogether and the other two being handed back to the Bishop. Thus closed
a chapter in the Province's history that is still spoken about for the ministry of
presence it successfully cultivated.
No Lone Ranger
In the latter part of the years of school ministry when it was becoming clear that the
Oblates were not going to be able to sustain their commitment the way they had, a meeting
was held where Oblates were asked to express whether they were willing to carry on
with the work. Only two men said that they wanted to continue. The option was that Oblates
would still take on individual ministries in other schools, but one of the men who had
long been an Oblate educator told the meeting that the Oblate presence in a school was not
ever meant to be the presence of a lone ranger. The ministry of presence to young people
required that at least five Oblates be working together and that their lifestyle be seen.
You can't achieve that with one or two.
Teach them where they're at
The Oblate ministry to education inspired men to reach out to the educationally
disadvantaged, those who had been tossed out of public schools etc. So many students
who mature late are branded with the labels "Stupid" and "Slow
Learners" whereas, what they needed was a teacher and a program that could move them
at their own pace, and teach them where they were at, and not where the curriculum said
they should be at. In this way, at one of the Oblate schools, many of these students were
tutored and coached into achieving successful graduation. A lay teacher who was involved
in this program told one Oblate that 13 years after the Oblates were doing this, the
Public school where he taught was deciding to give it a try.
Strikes and Shut-Downs
The school ministry was never easy. At one of the schools, the lay staff were paid so
poorly that they went out on strike against the diocese to demand a just and living wage.
The Oblate faculty were in support. But the struggle of catholic education was not
just about finances, it was also around the moral issue of how could one teach students
about the Christian obligations to justice when the church was refusing to pay a just wage
to its teachers in that school.
One of the schools that the Oblates decided they had to hand back to the church was
closed down because the diocese wasn't prepared to take the responsibility back. Hence the
Oblates took the flak for closing the school as if it were their decision.
Back to the top.
[ Day One ] [ Day Two ] [ Day Three ] [ Day Four ] [ Day Five ] [ Day Six ] [ Day Seven ] [ Day Eight ] [ Day Nine ] [ Day Ten ] [ Summing Up ]
If you have any of your own
"Tales told out of school" to add to the one you have read, please follow the
hyperlink to the Living Stories
Discussion Page and post in your additions or comments under Oblates of the West.
