Guess Who Visited Abp. Dolan?

Sometimes it's fun to read between the lines and get the answer.

Here, Abp. Dolan writes a note to his priests about 'being available.' But the prelude is all about a well-known local guy!

A good friend of mine was a very successful shoe salesman who was so effective that he now owns his own company and is a self-made multi-millionaire. He gives a good talk on “the priest as salesman,” and claims that “evangelization” is only a fancy word for marketing! Anyway, he was just in for a visit, and read me the riot act on how utterly frustrating it is to get through -- either in person or by telephone -- to our priests and parishes. He went on at length telling me that no wonder people are drifting away from the Church. They might show up, but the doors are locked and the parish buildings a ghost-town; they try to call the rectory and get nowhere; or try to contact their parish priest and can’t get through. Before you think he was picking on parishes, I need to tell you that he had equally bad grades for the Cardinal Cooke Center [i.e. Chancery], and berated me for being next to impossible to reach.

We might agreeably disagree about 'marketing' and 'salesmanship' being marks of the Church, by the way, but certainly NOT disagree about phone-trees and voicemail.

Anyhoo...

My friend has a point: he concluded that if it was as hard getting in touch with him or his shoe salesmen as it is with some of us, he would be in a homeless shelter instead of a mansion on Lake Michigan.

Shoes. Millionaire. Lake Michigan shoreline home.

Doh.

Need a hint? He's NOT Ernest Borgnine.