Diplomatic Corps - Tracy Moran

Bella Abzug Didn't Like Her,
But We Sure Do
When it comes to her Catholic Faith, Dolores Bernadette Grier loves it, lives it and defends it.

Dolores Bernadette Grier vividly remembers her first Holy Communion. A teenage convert to the Catholic Faith, she "knelt in reverence and received Jesus" at Harlem's St. Aloysius Church. "I felt like St. Thomas when he realized it was truly Jesus Christ in front of him," Grier says of that day nearly 50 years ago. "He didn't say, 'You are Jesus.' He said, 'My Lord and my God.' And that's what I said when I came back from my first Holy Communion. It was the most beautiful thing in my life."

Today, the Eucharist remains central to Grier, who says she has "a devotion to Jesus in the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar." As vice-chancellor for community relations in the Archdiocese of New York, she says she's an ambassador for Cardinal John O'Connor to the people, and from the people to the Cardinal.

"I'm with my brothers and sisters in the mystical body of Christ," she says of her work. "This is my whole life. I communicate well with people."

As Cardinal O'Connor noted when he chose her for the vice-chancellor job in 1985: "She has a clear understanding of Church teaching. In any kind of forum or debate, she remains calm, balanced and straightforward on Church teaching, and she's able to articulate even the most complicated positions." That ability has stood her in good stead, especially when she's had to go to the United Nations to lobby on a particular issue.

"Bella Abzug is gone now, but she didn't like me, because I wore bigger and prettier hats than her," Grier says with a hearty chuckle, knowing full-well the animosity Abzug felt had less to do with millinery envy than with Grier's pro-life beliefs. (A lawyer-turned politician, Abzug was notorious for her strident feminist rhetoric and left-wing opinions on most social issues, including abortion.)

Grier, who holds a master's in social work from Fordham University, doesn't seek worldly accolades, but holds firm to her Catholic beliefs.

When the New York city branch of the NAACP selected her to receive its Women's History Month award in 1993, she declined because the organization's national board is pro-abortion. "As president of the Association of Black Catholics," she wrote them, "I believe abortion to be a racist weapon of genocide against black people. It has been thrust upon black women as a solution to their economic crises, confusion and concern."

She credits a "persuasive, dynamic speech in defense of all human life from conception" by the Rev. Jesse Jackson as bringing her into the pro-life movement in 1980.

"Regrettably," she notes in her book Death by Abortion: The Basic Facts, "Rev. Jackson joined the Democratic political party and adopted its pro-abortion/pro-choice platform. Too many legislators, Republican and Democratic, have chosen to walk on the 'comfort zone' bridge of pro-choice, thus turning their backs on the unborn human beings, perhaps because they are not yet voters or members of a political action group."

Grier never married, though she's had offers. About 10 years ago, while in Turkey with a tour group, a shopkeeper offered three camels and five sheep for her hand in marriage.

She laughs at the recollection, then grows serious as she talks about her role model, St. Bernadette, to whom the Blessed Mother appeared at Lourdes.

"Nobody would believe that she saw Mary and talked to her," says Grier of her namesake. "She didn't care what the world said. That's what's wrong with too many Catholics today — they're concerned with what the world says. St. Peter had that problem. He denied Jesus three times, he was so concerned with the world. He wanted to be accepted by these people. Many of us have made this choice."

Grier herself says she works to make sure her relationship with Jesus is stronger than her relationship with the world.

In addition, for 15 minutes each day, she prays that the Lord will help her "continue to communicate with love and affection."

"I pray that my love will not be diluted by the people who oppose Church teachings," she says. "To be a true Catholic, you must obey Church teachings and follow the directions of the Holy Father. That's being with the Church and not with the world."

In her candid style, Grier also rebukes lukewarm Catholics as well as priests who are afraid to preach against the sin of abortion.

"Some priests want to say it but aren't sure how their parishioners are going to take it," says Grier. "I don't care how you take it. I speak the truth. I've never tiptoed through the tulips. I've always walked through the blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Some priests want to keep people in the local parish church and in so doing, do not keep them in the Roman Catholic Faith. To keep me in the Faith, you've got to tell me abortion is a sin. You've got to tell me if I don't come to church one Sunday, I have to go to confession before going to Communion the next Sunday." "Catholics," she says, "have to become more aware, involved and in love with the Faith. We've got to love it, live it and defend it."

She has a prescription for doing just that: "We need to bring the Roman Catholics back to the Faith, back to basics, back to Holy Communion, back to the rosary, back to benediction. We all have purchased the new Catechism, but how many of us have looked at it?" Moreover, she asks families to join hands each morning and pray an Our Father.

"When you do that," she says, "each member of the family knows that there is a God watching over them and that they belong to the family. The devil is going to have a difficult time taking you down when you start that way."

And if he knows what's good for him, the devil won't be messing with Dolores Bernadette Grier.