Some years ago, soon after the bishop closed St. Joseph’s church and merged the congregation with St. Michael’s and Our Lady of Mount Carmel under a single new pastor, groups of disgruntled parishioners from St Joe’s and St. Mike’s began quietly showing up at St. Mary’s on a regular basis.
“You know,” I said to stalwart fellow Irish-Catholic Joe Purtell, “we need to let these people know they’re welcome here and that our church is their church. I’ve got a great idea.”
“What’s that?” the perennial basket-passer asked.
“We’ll rename St. Mary’s after you. We’ll call it ‘St. Joseph Michael Purtell.’”
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Even then, Joe would have been the first to tell you that he’d be an unlikely candidate for santo subito. He was born into the rough and tumble world of old-style democratic politics in Troy, NY. His father died when he was eight years old, at which time his mother placed him at the head of the table, informing him that he was now the man in the family. They scraped their way through the Great Depression. He saw death enough for a hundred lifetimes at Anzio.
A butcher by trade, he supplemented his income at the A&P with purloined cuts of meat to feed his rapidly-growing family and then would run to confession. Somehow they survived, because Joe was nothing if not a survivor.
The family peaked at seven kids. For a while. That’s when Theresa had her last pregnancy. Twins.
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In the late 60’s a “Christian Family Movement” began here in Amsterdam, and groups of Catholic adults would meet in each other’s homes to discuss how they could utilize the message of Christ to strengthen their families and communities. At one of these gatherings Joe Purtell heard the call from God to run for Alderman of the Eighth Ward.
The ward included a pretty solidly Republican “Mustang DIstrict” where many of the residents were Scots-Irish Ulster Protestants of the deeply entrenched variety. The Irish-Catholic Erin go Bragh Democrat candidate did not receive the warmest of receptions, but he earned their respect with his tenacity. He confronted their prejudices with an in-your-face attitude and found himself elected, and re-elected and re-elected and re-elected. Then they threw him out for good.
My local political career began as a Young Republican thorn in Joe Purtell’s side. The administration he served reeked of corruption in the old-fashioned political way. Joe later admitted to systematic kick-backs from contractors (5% was the going rate). If a cable television company wanted a franchise, it seemed to him only natural that the regulators should have free service including the fledgling Home Box Office.
Joe was not happy when Dave Pietrusza and I exposed this.
“Listen, you Young Turks! Someday you guys are gonna be in charge and when you are, some kid who’s in diapers now will come here and bust your balls just like you’re busting mine, and you won’t like it any more than I do!”
But I liked Joe Purtell.
And, eventually, he liked me. After his forced retirement from politics, we began having lunch together regularly as part of a larger group, and by the time I ran for Family Court Judge, far from seeking revenge, he threw a couple of fund raisers for me, calling in chips from long-distant vendors for whom he could not possibly deliver any more favors. But they remembered him.
Fact is, Joe may have been a rogue, but self-interest was the farthest thing from his mind. He took care of his family, he took care of his friends. He took care of strangers and he took care of anyone who came to him. He got people jobs and he put food on their tables.
I can’t recall a single time when anyone who fled to his protection, implored his help or sought his intercession was left unaided.
And if that’s not enough to be a saint, well, I don’t know what is.
God grant him rest, and blessings to his family.
