Father Doyle's unshakable mission and belief in Camden
"So you're 81 now, Father," I say. "Not yet," smiles Michael Doyle, who was born on a farm in County Longford, Ireland, on Nov. 3, 1934.
"So you're 81 now, Father," I say.
"Not yet," smiles Michael Doyle, who was born on a farm in County Longford, Ireland, on Nov. 3, 1934.
Ordained in 1959 and appointed pastor of Camden's Sacred Heart Church in 1974, Doyle soldiers on amid advancing years and church and parish consolidations throughout the Diocese of Camden.
While other esteemed Catholic priests - Robert McDermott, Jeff Putthoff, and William "Jud" Weiksnar - have retired or left the city in the last year, Doyle continues ministering to the Waterfront South neighborhood.
He's busy nurturing a far-flung flock of parishioners, volunteers, and supporters from across South Jersey (many of whom treasure his monthly letters).
And he hopes to continue working, even though the diocese generally requires pastors to retire at age 75.
"There are no plans to ask Monsignor Doyle to leave," a source familiar with diocesan policy told me Friday.
Doyle, whom I've known and admired for more than three decades, says he still has work to do.
"Of course, I don't know what plans God has," he told me last week at the Sacred Heart rectory.
During our two-hour conversation, he unfurled parablelike tales and reminisced about family and friends, many of them deceased; told more stories; and spoke about his faith.
"God," he said, "helps us get certain things done."
Doyle's living room is decorated with memorabilia sacred and secular, including a note from the poet Seamus Heaney. The pastor also writes verse - Poet of Poverty is the title of an admiring documentary film about him - and his brogue is as gently mesmerizing as ever.
"I've always been happy here," Doyle said. "I always felt that if I ever became a pastor, I wanted to be in Camden. Not anywhere else. I felt that if I were among the poor, maybe I would be saved."
Doyle is credited with helping save the handsome brownstone church - a landmark at Broadway and Ferry since 1886 - as well as the neighborhood.
Under his leadership, the parish established the Heart of Camden, a nonprofit community development organization that has renovated more than 265 houses in Waterfront South.
Heart of Camden transformed the former Star movie theater on Broadway into the Michael J. Doyle Gymnasium and Fieldhouse. It also is preparing to open an arts center in a former city firehouse on the same block, and is renovating a long-vacant building into a "writers' house" in memory of Camden's late haiku master, Nick Virgilio.
Sacred Heart also lent early and essential support (including use of its basement) to the South Camden Theatre Company, which has since built a thriving new home of its own across Jasper Street from the church.
And a decade ago, Doyle's church was the catalyst for creating the Center for Environmental Transformation. The nonprofit center operates an urban agriculture program, farmers market, and retreat center in the neighborhood.
"Without Michael Doyle, they would have knocked down Waterfront South and turned it into an industrial park. An entire part of the city was saved because he wouldn't give up," theater company founder Joseph M. Paprzycki said.
"A lot of things happened around here, but not because I had some great vision," said Doyle, wryness at the ready.
"A reporter from your paper once asked me what I do, and I said, 'Well, my full-time job is noticing and acknowledging miracles.' "
Providence notwithstanding, some of the progress was possible after years of struggle.
In the early 1980s, Camden County's sewage treatment plant two blocks from the church regularly blanketed the neighborhood in a gag-inducing stench.
"It was a terrible suffering. There was no compassion, no caring. It was as if the people who lived here weren't worth anything," Doyle said, his voice rising for the first and only time during our conversation.
"That was the worst time ever in the city, in what the people had to endure."
Doyle credits Andrew Kricun, executive director of the Camden County Utilities Authority, with the technological and operational changes that have vastly improved the odor problem.
"We have a treasure in Andy," he said. "He's a saint."
("His saying that is really a reflection of how kind he is," Kricun said. "He's an amazing person.")
Waterfront South remains a work in progress, of course. But the repainting of the interior of the church - a magnificent vaulted space - is nearly complete. And Doyle expects to publish his second book early next year.
He says it will showcase 144 of the letters he has written to friends of Sacred Heart.
The title is When You Were Coming, You Didn't Know Where You Were Going.
But that's another story.
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