This is the new, exciting program where two contestants go head-to-head to see who can best make sense of Jesus' command to "feed my sheep."
The winner of our contest gets a free, all-expenses-paid trip to Paradise upon reaching his expiration date. And our loser on Who's the Shepherd? gets the opportunity to rely heavily upon the mercy of God.
Let's meet our two contestants.
This Catholic prelate of Omaha gained notoriety in early 2002 for protecting a priest with a child-porn Jones and berating the kindergarten teacher who ratted Father out to the cops. Expecting an "Imitation of Christ" award for his clericalist diligence, Archbishop Elden Francis Curtiss instead nearly got himself charged with witness tampering by a Nebraska district attorney.
Meanwhile, in a civil suit against the archdiocese that spring, Curtiss admitted to inadequate supervision of a priest convicted on child-pornography and sexual-abuse counts.
The next year, the archbishop followed that admittedly hard-to-follow act by picking a fight with the Boys Town board over hiring a new director, then quitting the board in a snit and making various threats against the institution of Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney film lore.
For such outstanding service to the Catholic faithful of northeast Nebraska, his excellency -- once the pope accepts his resignation (which is required upon turning 75) and gets around to picking a replacement -- will spend his retirement in a 3,100-square-foot house, replete with four bedrooms, three baths, a whirlpool, a fireplace and granite countertops.A lot of sumptuous room for an old gent to ramble about in during his waning years. Purchase price: $389,000.
Now let's meet our second contestant on Who's the Shepherd?, right here on Revolution 21.
A THOUSAND-ODD MILES to the east of our Omaha prelate, Steven A. Brigham in 2003 was starting a ministry to the homeless of Ocean County, N.J. A couple of years after that, the laborer quit his $65,000-a-year job with an electrical-contracting firm so he could run his ministry full time.
For no pay.
Last winter, The New York Times highlighted Minister Steve's effort to keep homeless encampments stocked with propane heat, nutritious food and brotherly love:
In the back of the bus, the minister carried bulging gray metal cans filled with gallons of relief. For the homeless who have settled here, by mucky streams or in thickets of scrub pine, in sight of cellphone towers and gas stations but on the edges of survival, his gift of propane is all that prevents them from falling off.
The propane is little salve for most of their problems, like the loneliness and the boredom, the mental disorders and the substance abuse. Yet when the minister, Steven A. Brigham, called out, “Are you home?” a tent flap quickly unzipped to reveal a man with a teardrop tattoo next to one eye.
“I need propane,” said the man, Brett Bartholomew, after they caught up for a minute. “I’m down to my last two tanks. I’m using them now.”
It is a ritual Mr. Brigham performs several times a week — more when the temperature drops — in a kind of propane ministry he has built since 2003 that now serves 44 homeless men and women scattered in nine encampments in the Ocean County communities of Lakewood and two neighboring towns on the Jersey Shore.
Advocates for the homeless say there is only one men’s shelter with a few beds in Ocean County, which has a population of about 550,000, plus other places for children and victims of domestic violence. The county government also rents rooms in motels for hundreds of homeless people. A census in 2005 found 556 local homeless, 41 of them who have been unable to find any emergency housing; advocates say that number has grown, though a count conducted in January has not yet been released.
They live outside without plumbing or electricity, save a generator or two. So they count on Minister Steve, as Mr. Brigham calls himself, for propane to power their heaters and stoves — which he also supplied — to fill the tents he gave them with enough warmth to sleep. To survive.
The propane, in 20-pound metal jugs Mr. Brigham fills at gas stations, costs about $2,000 a month; some of the propane is provided by a pantry, and the rest is subsidized by donations. He runs through about 40 tanks a week in winter.
In the bracing cold that draped the Northeast last week, Minister Steve went about his work urgently, his already long days crammed with crucial tasks.
Old mattresses waited to be picked up at a local church, and there were boxes of food to collect from various pantries. Someone staying in a motel needed a razor. In one tent city, a dozen Mexican day laborers, unable to find work in the cold weather, needed more sugar.
In another, Nachelle Walker and Nathaniel Joyner asked for more propane and praised the packaged chili Mr. Brigham had delivered. “You can turn the heat down and eat chili,” Ms. Walker said. “It sticks to your insides.”
Everybody needed propane. Everybody always needs propane.
“I can empathize with these people living out there in the woods the whole night long,” said Mr. Brigham, 46, who has done a lot of camping and describes himself as a “free spirit” untethered from traditional society.
WHERE DOES Minister Steve live? He lives in his bus, the old blue one with "God Is Love" painted above the windshield.
If you'd like to see Steve Brigham's spacious and luxurious quarters, there's this video report on the NBC Nightly News web page.
So, before we pick our winner, let's put a few simple questions to our celebrity panel. Here we go:
* Who is the better imitation of Christ . . . Elden Francis Curtiss and the Archdiocese of Omaha or "Minister Steve" Brigham in Lakewood, N.J.?
* What would Jesus do? Protect perverted priests and bully teachers who don't? Or would he deliver blankets, food and propane to "the least of these" on the margins of society?
* Where would Jesus live? All by Himself in a big, fancy house in a nice neighborhood? Or would Christ live in the back of the bus He used in tending to His flock?
* What would Jesus do with $389,000? Buy a house or buy propane for the poor?
Finally, just one more question for our panel of judges: Do you reckon Omaha and northeast Nebraska might be a little better off if it had a Catholic archdiocese run by a "Minister Steve" instead of an Archbishop Curtiss?
Now let's play our game! Good luck to both of our contestants.
Stay tuned, folks. We'll be back with the winner of Who's the Shepherd? after these important messages.
