Gerry Cox

Gerry Cox

            I was scared of Gerry Cox the first time I saw him.  

            Leo Maher, bishop of the newly created Santa Rosa Diocese, had come down to St. Pat’s for a triumphal visit. Flanking him was this big burly guy who looked like either a fullback or a bodyguard. “That’s Gerry Cox, Leo’s new chancellor,” Len Duggan whispered to me.  I didn’t know much about chancellors back then, but this guy looked pretty ominous.

            I didn’t see Gerry again until I was in Third Theology, about two years later. One spring afternoon there was a knock on my door and, when I opened it, Gerry was looming there in his black clerics. He told me the bishop had sent him down because he was upset about the reports he was getting about me.  I seemed to be having a problem with authority, and the bishop was wondering if I really wanted to be a priest.  

            “Actually, I don’t really know,” I said. “That’s why I‘d like to be ordained a deacon – so I can work in a parish and see if it works for me.”  I told him I knew this was a bizarre request and I’d totally understand if the bishop turned me down.  (I was secretly hoping he would.)

            Gerry looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Hey, I’ll run it past him.  See what he says.”

            Then he moved in a little closer and lowered his voice.  “Listen, Greg, maybe you can help me with something.  I’m really having trouble understanding this new breed of seminarians.  Hell, when I was in the seminary, we went out with girls, but we knew it was wrong!!  Today guys go out with girls and they don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. I just don’t understand that!”

            Gerry got the full brunt of my rant about the double standard and hypocrisy in the Church, but he listened patiently, and seemed to get what I was saying. 

            Then he stood up.  “Okay, let me talk to the bishop.” 

            A couple months later Leo ordained me to the deaconate. 

            Twenty years later, long after Gerry had left the priesthood, gotten married, and become the director of Catholic Charities in San Francisco, I ran into him outside his office.  

            “Do you remember the time Leo sent you down to St. Pat’s to vet me?  ” I asked.  “Do you remember what you said?”

            He shook his head, drawing a blank.

            I told him the whole story.  His big eyes gradually got even bigger, and he got a horrified look on his face.  “I? . . .  said that??

            We both laughed really hard.