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By Gretchen Keiser, Staff Writer
ATLANTA—Ron Chandonia sits in a chair in his living room in
the West End, dressed casually but communicating clear, piercing thoughts about
his decision to leave, and to return, to the Catholic Church.
It was 1969, he was a senior at Notre Dame University, completing
his 16th year of Catholic education. He was just married to his wife, Charlene,
a graduate of Nazareth College, who also had been immersed in Catholic school
since childhood.
“I kind of felt like I’d overdosed on it. I felt like I
had enough,” he remembers. “It was the ‘60s. The church was this
big thing that restrained people’s freedom. The whole spirit of the
‘60s was doing everything you wanted to ... All the excitement going on in
the world and here she was having to check in (at the dorm) at night ... Right
about then was when ‘Humanae Vitae’ came out .. The church was just
old-fashioned, ridiculous.”
He smiles wryly, knowing how this story comes out.
“The question was, do we want our kids to grow up with what
we had. We said no.”
That decision set the course for their marriage and family life
for the next 28 years, in which they chose not to baptize their two sons,
John-Marc, now 29, and John-Paul, now 25. Ron taught them a vision of liberal
social activism and, after earning a Ph.D. in black studies at Emory
University, he taught English and writing for over 20 years at Atlanta
Metropolitan College, a school with a predominantly black student body
including many adults.
Charlene, gifted in the computer field, worked for several
companies over the years and frequently traveled in connection with her work.
They always lived in the West End.
His thoughts are penetrating now, at 52, but he says that the
insights came only with the passage of time, observing what the much-touted
freedom of the ‘60s translated into in the lives of his students, his
family and the world around him.
“As you get to middle age, you see what your little project
amounted to — what our children were like, what our careers were like, or
not like, what our marriage was like ... We were very unhappy. We really came
very close to breaking up.”
“When you are in your twenties, you don’t want to say
that this shallow hedonism is something very bad. When you see what it amounts
to in people’s lives, well, we just think it’s a miracle that our
marriage stayed together. So many didn’t.”
It was in the mid-1990s that Ron and Charlene began to experience
the graces that gently shift searching people in the right direction.
When Charlene’s mother died, her Catholic funeral in Indiana
was consoling. Charlene’s sister, who had stayed in the Catholic Church
and raised her children in the faith, and Charlene’s many cousins were a
warm faith and family community, unaware of their impact upon her.
“At my mother’s funeral I remember everyone coming
together. It was a real caring, coming-together time. The church was central to
that.”
A few years later her father suffered an aneurysm and went into a
nursing home, where she sometimes went to Mass with him. When her father died,
they had “a wonderful funeral. I felt kind of like an outsider.”
“The thoughts of your parents dying bring you back to your
roots and what is important,” Charlene Chandonia said. “I started
really wanting to come back (to the church).”
An opportunity connected with her job sent her to California for
an extended period. “There was a Catholic church right around the corner
from where I was living. I started going there and found a real comfort in
going there.”
Since their sons were now young adults, Ron was able to take a
leave from teaching for six months and joined her.
When he arrived, she delicately took him to see the historic
mission church, Mission Dolores, and suggested that they could stay for Mass if
he wanted. Perhaps to her surprise, he did.
“The people there were so welcoming,” Ron Chandonia
recalls. “It seemed like there was a different spirit in the church than
we remembered (from college days). There were a lot of Hispanic people. It was
interesting to see how people greeted us.”
They never went to Communion and even felt it was inappropriate
when they were invited once to bring up the offertory gifts. But they began to
talk about the possibility of coming back fully to the sacraments.
When their time in California came to an end and they returned to
Atlanta, they were attracted to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and the
welcoming hospitality of its pastor at the time, Father John Adamski.
Within a short time, first Ron and then Charlene made appointments
with the pastor so that they could receive the sacrament of reconciliation.
“I felt so good when it was over,” Charlene Chandonia
said, admitting that it was difficult to face up to the moment of confession
after almost 30 years.
They returned to Communion quietly, taking part fully in a Sunday
Mass at the Shrine. “It was wonderful to be back in good standing,”
she said.
That was in 1997. The fruits of their return are evident to them;
their lives have changed a great deal.
“What seemed to matter before was vacation,” Ron
Chandonia said. “Now what seems to matter is how much good we can do and
how much time we have left. We are so much closer to each other. Our marriage
is back together again. We spend a lot of time on activities that are
church-related.”
Father Adamski challenged them each to join a ministry as soon as
they rejoined the Catholic Church.
Charlene, a regular volunteer at St. Francis Table, the Saturday
soup kitchen at the Shrine, is also very active in Habitat for Humanity and has
worked on a number of building projects.
Ron is the current president of Pax Christi Atlanta and heads the
pro-life committee at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Atlanta, where Father Adamski
was transferred and where the couple are active members.
At one time, Ron says, they were both pro-choice.
“We wandered so far in terms of what we believed. The church
remained faithful.”
His years of teaching brought him in contact with the consequences
of abortion in the lives and writings of his students, he said. He also
observed changes in American society. “Society had changed in a variety of
ways that were very significant. What we thought were greater freedoms were
really hurting people. I saw things happening in my own life that were like the
things happening in society.”
He now thinks that “(Pope) John Paul is exactly right ... It
is a culture of death.”
One adult student told him that she chose her work of 30 years
with severely retarded children out of a need to compensate for a decision she
made as a young woman to abort a baby. A male student was severely impacted by
his role in convincing a girlfriend to have an abortion, Chandonia said.
“There were other people who were so jaded in ways that were
abnormal. People were really cold. They would get very defensive and hostile in
a discussion in class (on abortion). Everyone in class knew.”
He has designed a pro-life bumper sticker, using the
“seamless garment” approach of the Catholic Church, which he was
inspired to create while driving to the memorial Mass at the Cathedral of
Christ the King for Mother Teresa. He has given away 6,000-8,000 so far.
In Pax Christi he has found “a group of really kindred
spirits I feel very close to.”
Once they were foster parents through Fulton County. After
returning to active church life, they began to serve as foster parents through
Catholic Social Services.
“That is how we realized that even though we are kind of old,
we were not too old to adopt,” Ron said, with a grin.
Two-year-old Chantel was adopted by the Chandonias in April in an
open adoption process through Catholic Social Services. She was baptized on
Easter Sunday.
“I used to be a real feminist, being a member of NOW,”
Charlene Chandonia said. “Now I think that is a lot of hooey. I think
women are better served doing womanly things. I hate to say that, but I wish I
had taken more time off with my kids instead of being so career-minded. I am
not going to do that with Chantel. I’m going to enjoy her.”
Coming back into the Catholic Church has brought great peace into
their lives, both said, and a new community of friends.
“That is something I have really enjoyed since being back in
the church. We have friends we met at church we really like, people we have a
lot in common with,” Charlene said.
The great change, however, has not been able to undo one lasting
impact of their youthful decision.
Their oldest son is deeply disturbed by their decision, Ron said.
“I feel very, very bad. He really thinks we have lost our minds. We have a
very uneasy relationship.”
Coming back into the church “really seemed too easy,”
Ron said. “When I faced my older son, I realized it was not easy because I
had to face what I had done with my life. When he would say something very
critical to me, I would have to think, ‘I taught him that.’”
He writes to his oldest son. He is grateful his younger son, who
went into the Peace Corps and served alongside Catholic Relief Services, is
more accepting of the changes in his parents’ lives. He plans to raise his
daughter differently.
And when he has the opportunity to speak to young people he hears
who plan to raise their children without the Catholic faith, he tells them,
“Don’t do this to your children. Don’t.” |
