Jesuit brother renaissance man

Photo by Don Doll, S.J.

This is a story I did recently on a new Jesuit brother who is moving to our reservation. I wrote the story, took the photos (not the one above, unfortunately) and shot and edited a video. I'm finally doing what all my journalism teachers are telling me to do and trying to become more versatile.

Jesuit brother joins Mission

By Molly Mullen

Brother Patrick Douglas, S.J. walked into the Body Mind and Soul summer camp in St. Francis and automatically started making conversation with one of the first graders sitting at a table with his friends.

Rubbing his bald head Douglas joked, “Hey, I like your haircut, but I think you need it a little shorter like mine.”

The boy laughed with some of the others at his table. This is just one example of what the people who know Douglas say about him: that he’s good-natured and can make anyone feel comfortable.

But the hair-do, or lack thereof, is just the half of it. He’s a young man, by the Jesuits’ standards, in his early 30s, sports a tattoo, a goatee, makes chain-link rosaries in his spare time and can juggle just about anything from bowling pins to knives.

“What can I say, I’m a Renaissance man,” he said. “You don’t have to be a specific type of person to be called to the Jesuits. God calls all sorts of people to different vocations: religious life, marriage, anything.”

Douglas is the newest addition to the Jesuit community at the Saint Francis Mission, who will be working on the reservation for the next two or three years. He previously worked for Holy Rosary on the Pine Ridge reservation before joining the Jesuits, but never lived on the Rosebud.

“I’m excited to get started, I think I can lean a lot from living out here,” he said. “I have found the most helpful thing is to just ask questions. Most people don’t like it when you come in and start telling them what’s what. I don’t know what it’s like to be a Native man, so I plan on being a Jesuit brother, learning the culture, respecting the culture and letting people teach me.”

While Douglas is one of four Jesuits on Rosebud, he is the only Jesuit brother. This means, while he takes the same vows as Jesuit priests, he does not perform sacramental ministry such as saying Mass or performing the rite of baptism.

Douglas, who has a master’s degree in counseling from Loyola Chicago and a background in working in juvenile detention centers and, more recently, with drug and alcohol recovery, plans on working with the Betty Ford program and with local youth. Because he is just now arriving, he doesn’t have concrete plans on where his ministry will lead him.

The Rev. John Hatcher, S.J., president of Saint Francis Mission, said he heard about Douglas two years ago and was automatically interested in having him work for the Mission. Hatcher wants him to work with the juvenile court judge to start talking circles in the juvenile detention center and aftercare for young people coming out of the JDC. On top of that, Douglas will be working with counseling, alcohol and drug recovery and youth programming in Parmelee.

Hatcher said he went to the JDC last summer to do some work with the youth, but wasn’t able to follow up because of lack of personnel.

“The reports we got back is that they were really excited we were there,” Hatcher said, “so it’s important to have something more regularly for spiritual direction, counseling talking circles, recovery, anything.”

Douglas first learned about the Jesuits at Creighton Prepatory High School in Omaha, where he grew up, but didn’t think seriously about joining until he was 28 and working as a social worker in St. Paul, Minn.

“I didn’t have some sort of ‘ah ha’ moment, but I did have this emptiness deep down and this call just kept getting louder and louder,” he said. “Joining the Jesuits was for me what falling in love is for other people. You spend all day thinking about this person, wondering what it’s like to be with this person… well that’s what the Jesuits was for me. I just couldn’t get it out of my head.”

Brother Mike Wilmot, S.J., knew Douglas at Creighton Prep when he was the dean of students and Douglas was a student.

“To tell you the truth, I knew his brother much better back in high school,” Wilmot said, chuckling. “His brother was in my office so often I knew his ID number by heart. I guess that means Brother Douglas wasn’t getting into too much trouble back then.”

Wilmot said he got to know Douglas better when he visited Porcupine.

“He told me he was seriously considering the Jesuits,” he said. “He’ll make a good Jesuit. He’s a good guy, easy to like and friendly to everyone. I’m sure he’ll do a lot of different things because that’s just the way he is, good at anything.”