By Kathi Stearns, Staff Writer

SNELLVILLE--A sea of red blazers, ties, handkerchief and boutonnieres warmed St. Oliver Plunkett Church at Father Joseph Beltran’s Mass of the Resurrection Wednesday, May 3.

Two weeks short of his fortieth anniversary as a priest, Father Beltran, whose trademark was a pair of red socks, died Sunday, April 30, at DeKalb Medical Center where he had been hospitalized with malaria. He was 65.

Over 80 priests from the Archdiocese of Atlanta and Oklahoma City and the Dioceses of Tulsa and Savannah joined other mourners at the Snellville parish where Father Beltran served as pastor from 1985-1991. The liturgy was followed by burial at Arlington Memorial Cemetery in Sandy Springs.

His brother, Archbishop Eusebius Beltran of Oklahoma City, was the principal celebrant at the funeral liturgy. The Mass was concelebrated by Archbishop John F. Donoghue, Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa, Father Richard Morrow and Dom Bernard Johnson, OCSO.

During his homily, Archbishop Beltran reflected on his older brother. He recalled that as a youngster Joe liked to go to the movies because when they were growing up there was no television.

“And I didn’t care to go to the movies,” Archbishop Beltran said. “This was a problem because our mother would allow us to go to the movies only if we went together. Joe would come to my on bended knee and beg me to go, but I always told him the only way I would go was if he carried me,” the archbishop said. “Many are the days he carried me blocks to the five-cent show. That was just the beginning...because Joe has carried me and so many others throughout our entire lives.”

The archbishop thanked the “unending chain of people” who greeted him at the rosary the previous evening and before the funeral Mass who shared stories about how Father Beltran had touched each of their lives.

“Your presence here today is a tribute to a good priest; your presence here is a consolation to our family; your presence here is a sign of the faith that we possess in Our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said.

The archbishop recalled his brother’s desire to build houses for the people of God. Father Beltran was the founding pastor of the parishes of All Saints, Dunwoody, Corpus Christi, Stone Mountain and St. Gabriel’s, Fayetteville.

“Not only did he put up buildings; he paid for them,” the archbishop said. “The reason he was so insistent upon paying for these buildings was that he wanted to ensure that there was a secure place for the people of God to worship.” While Father Beltran loved the color red, he had no use for red ink in a parish budget.

Associate pastors who worked with Father Beltran remembered what a thrifty man he was. “He felt very responsible for the money with which people entrusted him,” said Father Richard Lopez, who served under Father Beltran at Corpus Christi.

Sophia Lentini, a member of St. Oliver Plunkett’s parish council, credits Father Beltran with eliminating her parish’s debt. “He was able to pay off the old mortgages and put aside money for the new building,” she said. “This new church wouldn’t have been possible without his leadership and guidance.”

“As the saying goes, he could squeeze the buffalo right off the nickel,” said Father Tom Carroll, MS, pastor of St. Oliver Plunkett, admiring the work of his predecessor. “And we all benefited from it.”

Father Beltran demanded much of himself and his parishioners as they constructed their parish. “His talent to build a very cohesive parish within its (the community’s) means was a great gift to the church in Atlanta,” said Deacon Ray Egan, chairman of the building committee and a member of All Saints Parish from its early days.

“He was sometimes a difficult guy to understand,” Deacon Egan aid, “but he was truly a holy man, very dedicated to his family, very dedicated to the church, very dedicated to the archdiocese and very dedicated to God.”

It was, however, this very reverence for the house of God that sometimes caused misunderstandings with parishioners. “He insisted on reverence and quiet in the church,” said the deacon. “He would snap his fingers when people started talking in the back of church after Mass.”

It was this same dedication, Deacon Egan says, that reawakened his spirituality and led to his vocation to the diaconate. “He’s probably the reason I’m a deacon today,” he said. “He’s the one who brought me back to the serious consideration of the spiritual life.”

One of Father Beltran’s hallmark statements was: “Remember, whatever we do should be for the honor, praise and glory of Jesus Christ,” Deacon Egan recalled. “When Joe left any place, he left a monument to Christ, not himself.”

It is perhaps for that reason that the parishioners at All Saints recently rededicated their refurbished gymnasium (including racquetball courts) and classroom building as the “Reverend Joseph J. Beltran Activities Center.” The Beltran Chapel at St. Gabriel’s and the Beltran Room at Corpus Christi also serve to remind their parishioners of the loving work Father Beltran invested in these parishes.

Ron Schinzel, a founding parishioner at Corpus Christi, recalled Father Beltran putting the finishing touches on the parish. “We were talking about how beautiful the new white church looked when a dump truck backed into a corner of the church,” he said. “Any normal person would have been rather angry, but Father Joe just said, ‘This is God’s way of teaching me patience.’”

Schinzel wore a black suite with a red tie to the funeral Mass because “it (red) was the color of the day.”

“He loved the brilliance of the color,” Angie Cebulski, Father Beltran’s sister, said. “Red captured his high energy level and his zest for life.” In each of his parishes Father Beltran left proof that he had been there; each church showcased his favorite color in carpet, paint or some other form. Parishioners at St. Oliver’s found their building stained red; those at Corpus Christi recalled the red carpet, skylight border and pew upholstery. At All Saints red-orange carpet is still a vivid reminder of Father Beltran’s colorful presence in their parish.

Ben Gross and his wife, Christine, were among the founding parishioners at Corpus Christi with Father Beltran. Like many who credited the pastor with skills at motivating and building a parish from the ground up, Gross said Father Beltran “was a quick thinker. He could make decisions. I think that was one reason he was good at building churches.”

Father Beltran also “had a way of getting people to come out” for the building projects, Gross said. “We would do a lot of work ourselves, leveling the field, the parking lot the driveway, landscaping the grounds.”

“I think he liked the smaller churches where he could keep his hand on everything,” Gross said. “As soon as we got larger, with maybe two associate pastors, you could see it was hard for him. then he moved on to (start) a new parish.”

Christine Gross remembers that Corpus Christi was started by Father Beltran with about 200 families and “then we grew and we grew and we grew. When I quit (as his secretary) in 1977 I think we had 3,300 families.”

Even though he was remembered publicly for his favorite color, privately Father Beltran was a priest who focused on building a personal ministry. Sandy Stanley, a parishioner at St. Oliver Plunkett, recalled how Father Beltran helped her when her husband of 19 years decided that he wanted a divorce. “When someone leaves you after 19 years, your self-esteem plummets,” Mrs. Stanley said. “But Father Joe would go out of his way to reaffirm me; that was such a boost. I was probably at his door once a week for a year, yet he always made time for me.”

Mrs. Stanley remembers that when Father Beltran left St. Oliver’s to become the parochial vicar at Holy Spirit Church, Atlanta, her two sons, who were 17 and 21 at the time, cried. “They really loved him,” she said. “He became for my children, the standard of what a priest should be.”

Father Beltran suffered a debilitating stroke in February 1993 which led to his retirement months later. “It broke his heart that he couldn’t celebrate Mass after his stroke,” Mrs. Cebulski said. Two months after his stroke, Mrs. Cebulski, with whom Father Beltran lived after his stroke, took him to Mass at St. Oliver’s. She recalled that at the end of the Mass Father Beltran’s eyes were full of tears.

“I asked him what was wrong, and he told Father Tom (Carroll) and I that he should be up at the altar celebrating the eucharistic feast.” Father Carroll invited Father Beltran to concelebrate Mass with him whenever “he felt up to it.” From that day on he joined Father Carroll and Father Michael Flanagan, MS, every day for morning Mass.

Mrs. Cebulski remembers how Father Beltran refused to let the stroke break his spirit. “My heart would ache when I saw him struggling so on the altar,” Mrs. Cebulski said. “But if you would ask him how he was doing, he’d say ‘fantastic’ before you could even get the question out of your mouth.

This March Father Beltran accompanied his sister and her husband, Henry Cebulski, to the Ivory Coast in West Africa to see Sister Sponsa Beltran, sister of Father Beltran and Mrs. Cebulski. It was here that he was infected by mosquitos carrying a virulent type of malaria called falciparum. Within several days of their return to Georgia both Father Beltran and his brother-in-law were hospitalized. Cebulski remains hospitalized in serious condition.

Mrs. Cebulski believes that Father Beltran decided to make the trip because he wanted to say goodbye to his sister. “He was really determined to go,” she said. “Throughout the trip he kept telling me, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever see Sister Sponsa again.’ Sister Sponsa was his pride and joy because he loved and admired those who took on the missionary challenge.” Because of the lack of effective communication with West Africa Sister Sponsa is still unaware of her brother’s death.

Ben and Christine Gross visited him the day before he died at DeKalb Medical Center. “We were talking and he said, “I’m ready. I want to go see him,’” Ben Gross said. “I think he was referring to Jesus.”

His brothers and sisters decided that it was most fitting to bury Father Beltran wearing his red socks.

“We couldn’t send him to heaven without those socks,” Mrs. Cebulski said. “He just wouldn’t be at home without them.”