The LuLac Edition #387, Jan. 6th, 2008

PHOTO INDEX: REV. JOSEPH SICA, POPE BENEDICT XVITH AND MY DAD, THE LATE STEPHEN "JAKE" YONKI IN A PHOTO TAKEN IN THE EARLY 1940s.

IL BUON PADRE

"The Good Father"

FATHER SICA

A Roman Catholic priest is accused of lying to a Pennsylvania grand jury about his relationship with a mobster. The Reverend Joseph Sica was arrested outside his Scranton home today. He's facing perjury charges based on his testimony to a grand jury investigating a casino owner's possible mob ties. Sica is an adviser to the Mount Airy Casino Resort owner. Prosecutors believe Sica lied when he said he only met organized crime boss Russell Bufalino by chance. They're pointing to two photographs as evidence: one of Sica and the late mobster arm-in-arm, the other of him with the mobster's reputed replacement as the head of the crime family. They also have a 1982 letter they say Sica wrote to the then-governor's wife asking for her help to free Bufalino from his prison sentence.
This story has been making the rounds and it seems like everyone has an opinion. Here’s mine. Loyalty is a funny thing. It is transparent. A person will become loyal to an entity as long as that person is in their life. When those photos of Father Sica were taken with Russ Bufalino, I have no doubt in my mind that the good father would never deny the Kingston man. But when Mr. Bufalino died, Father Sica, for better or worse transferred his loyalty to Louis DeNaples. When Father Sica allegedly lied on the stand, I believe that in his mind and heart Russell Bufalino was no more. His allegiance and friendship was no longer to the past memory and friendship of Mr. Bufalino but to the present day relationship with Mr. DeNaples. Father Sica has had a reputation of protecting his parishioners and people close to him fiercely. My opinion is that Father Sica’s testimony reflected his desire to protect Mr. DeNaples at any cost, even his own freedom. Many question whether Mr. DeNaples deserved that protection and loyalty from Father Sica. Well, again, and this is only my opinion, Louie DeNaples has helped thousands of people through his charitable works. He has given money to causes and institutions to make life better for people in Northeastern Pennsylvania. They say he has a checkered past, but really, who doesn't? You cannot take a whole person's body of work and judge it by a smudge or solitary dent in the record. Personally, I have never met Mr. DeNaples but I know people he has personally pulled out of bankruptcy and people he has helped without great fanfare. He has done these things because there was a need. Now there are some who will tell you Mr. DeNaples is trying to buy respectability. Why? He doesn’t need to do that. He can buy and sell all of the other rich kids ten times over. Take a look at the number of wealthy people living here in Northeastern Pennsylvania. What is the difference between them and Mr. DeNaples? Well, look at the contributions made by Mr. DeNaples vs. some of the “well to do”. Why is it that when a Back Mountain or Abington blueblood makes a contribution they are lauded and hailed while an Italian American with no pedigree is a mobster? Look at the number of celebreties who spend 1 million dollars on a birthday party or a few cars! We think that's so cool to see on Entertainment Tonight the dough they paid for a lavish, self serving gift to themselves. We celebrate Donald Trump with all of the houses yet we question the integrity of a man like DeNaples. I just can't figure it out. To my way of thinking, the Grand Jury investigation is a very, very long stretch. A priest lies about his ties to the late Russell Bufalino. But has he denied his friendship with Mr. DeNaples? You don’t stand on the top steps of a Casino opening and want to remain incognito with the guy standing next to you. The crux of the matter is this, I feel the Grand Jury is reaching and using the oldest prosecution trick in the book.
Legal analysts say prosecutors might have charged Sica as a way to pressure him into testifying against DeNaples.
``Sometimes it requires pressure to get people to cooperate, and sometimes that pressure is an indictment,'' said Edwin H. Stier, a former federal and New Jersey state prosecutor who specialized in corruption and organized crime cases.
``Prosecutors do that all the time,'' added Temple University law professor Maureen McCartney, a former assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. One thing more troubling to me as a Catholic is the enormous debt Father Sica ran up. He cites the bills as “family expenses”. I’d love to know what they were but isn’t it interesting that the Grand Jury stayed away from that and concentrated on the perjury. Father Sica defended his current friend by denying the existence and memory of his old, deceased one. It was not a moral thing to do but my heavens was it ever expedient!! That commodity, expediency is the stock and trade of the legal and business profession today. And while I can’t read into the good father’s mind and motives, my bet was that like he was trying to protect Mr. DeNaples honor at the Casino opening, he was doing the same in the Grand Jury testimony. Perjury is a crime to be sure but in the great scheme of things in the Catholic Church recently, it’s not something I, as a Roman Catholic will lose sleep over.
Father Joe’s link: Father Joe has a website and here’s what it said today. Here’s the link:

http://www.appleinspirations.com/.

"JAKE"

Twenty eight years ago to this day, my father collapsed and died on the kitchen floor in my boyhood home in Pittston at 12:30PM. He had just called into me in the living room asking when the NFL Championship games were going to begin. It would be the last time I’d hear his voice. My father was a child of the depression. He literally had an eighth grade education. When I’d ask him about high school, he’d say sarcastically “If I finished high school I’d be a Philadelphia lawyer”. As a father, like many depression era people who came of age he sometimes had a very hard shell to penetrate. But once you got in, you were golden. He was careful not to brag about my accomplishments in front of me, but I knew that he’d be very proud of an achievement, minor or major. My father never had a driver’s license but taught me how to drive behind the Midway Shopping Center in Wyoming. Taught my mother too. He did things quietly. Christmas was always a time of great anticipation and guessing in our home. There were times when he had no work. It always happened around the Holidays. But despite the uncertainty, we always had remarkable yuletide seasons. My father’s vocabulary was colorful too. You know the scene in “A Christmas Story” where Ralphie’s father’s let fly with expletives trying to fix the fuse box? That was my dad. Fuse boxes were his mortal enemy. Then there were the terms, “whatamahcallit” and “thingamajig”. If my father were alive today, a parental block would have to be put on the Home Shopping Network. He was the only man I knew that could order a new Living Room set over the phone or an appliance, not adequately describe it and get what he wanted. There were times after he retired that my mother would leave the house seeing one kitchen set or piece of furniture and have a new one in place when she got back home. As a young boy, there were times I was ashamed of my father. I was 7 and he’d insist on walking me to the bus stop. God, that mortified me because I wanted to be a tough guy. I grew out of that one. My father was the oldest of 7 children and in every picture I saw of him as a youth, he looked like he had the weight of the world on him. I never saw a smile. That came when he met and courted my mother, 9 years his junior in the forties. He had a nickname, it was “Jake”. The legend goes he got it by working in a butcher store called “Jake’s”, others have said that he got the name from the phrase of the era, “everything is jake”. Every year on Dec. 26th, he put aside the nickname “Jake” and attended Mass on St. Stephen’s day, his patron saint. He worked on the railroads and cigar factories. I remember him bringing home the seconds of cigars from the factory. On the railroad he was one of the track guys who in the dead of winter were driven on a truck to White Haven to clean the tracks all the way back to Pittston. During snowstorms, he be gone for days working triple overtime. Toward the end of his railroad career, he did some welding. He never took me to the tracks to see what he did, he told me later he wanted me to get an education. I tried to help him with household tasks but was rebuffed with the words, “don’t touch that”. And for good reason because I never was the handiest of men. He took great delight in helping his kids. When my sister was away at school, he sold chances to help raise money for a new building the institution needed. He was the top seller, not because he had the salesman’s gift of gab but because it was for my sister. And as for me, his stock phrase was “learn and obey” after I did something stupid. I have no idea how he physically did his job on the railroad. Dog tired, he’d always have the time to throw a few baseballs to me as I tried to imitate the mediocre players of my day. I think the fact that I was drawn to them instead of the stars amused him to no end. He was a St. Louis Cardinals fan in both baseball and football and watched the games with intensity. He met most of the women I dated and called the single ones “petunias” and the divorced ones with kids “widows” never quite reconciling the fact that anyone could ever get a divorce. My interest in politics and perhaps this very site itself was inspired by some of his actions. In October of 1960, he walked me down Ormsbey Alley in Pittston to wait for John F. Kennedy to ride by in an open car. He kept on saying, “get a good look, this is history”. Not bad for a guy with no high school behind him. In 1962, we went to a few Richardson Dillworth rallies when the Philadelphia Mayor was running against local favorite William W. Scranton. When John Kennedy died, my stunned father was more shocked at the power of TV to deliver him events as they unfolded. He encouraged my political interest and writing. A staunch Democrat who voted the straight ticket, one year, 1974, I thought I’d persuade him to vote for a Republican. That year, incumbent Richard Schweiker was running against Pittsburgh Mayor Pete Flaherty. I harangued my father about Schweiker’s liberal and pro union voting record and he relented. Two years later when Ronald Reagan picked Schweiker to be his running mate, my father said, “See, I told you he was no good”. To my knowledge, until he died, I think he voted straight Democratic. I lost him 28 years ago today. And the key word here is “lost” There have been many situations, decisions and choices that I wish, in hindsight, I can take back or do over. I’d like to think that if he were around, I might be a better person and a better man today. Twenty eight years is a virtual lifetime and I can honestly say it would’ve been nice to have his guidance. He was buried on January 9th (Richard Nixon’s birthday, he would’ve loved the irony) on a cold, overcast day. Just as the cemetery service ended, the sun came out for the entire day. In my darkest days, (and thank God there have only been a very few in my life), I consoled myself with the fact that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel. Kind of like that bit of sunshine put there strategically in place, nearly three decades ago, when it was most needed. My dad might be dead, but his light is still shining.

BENNIE AT BAT



Pope Benedict XVIth is set to arrive at the big ballpark in the Bronx on April 20th for a Papal Mass. It will be the last day of his visit to the U.S. The man has a tough act to follow with John Paul II. His visit will be a wonderful thing for Catholics in the U.S. and it’ll be interesting to see how many Presidential candidates try to get face time with the Pontiff.