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more about Father John Doe-Ralph
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Father John Doe Photos of Records
Father
Ralph Pfau Author of Sobriety & Beyond & Golden books
Fr. Ralph Pfau, aka Fr. John Doe
Author of Sobriety Without End and
Sobriety and Beyond
By Nancy O.
Tue Feb 19,
2002
Today is the
anniversary of Fr. Ralph Pfau's death. He is believed to have been the
first Roman Catholic priest to enter Alcoholics Anonymous.
Fr. Pfau was
born on November 10, 1904, and died on February 19, 1967.
He was a
priest in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, ordained at St. Meinrad
Seminary, and received an MA in Education at Fordham University.
In the opening
paragraph of his autobiography, Prodigal Shepherd, Father Pfau wrote:
All my life, I will carry three indelible marks. I am a Roman Catholic
priest. I am an alcoholic. And I am a neurotic.
I will address
these in reverse order:
HE WAS A
NEUROTIC
He admits to
having nervous breakdowns, and spending time in sanitariums. He was
twice relieved of his parish. Even after achieving sobriety, he
continued to be plagued by depressions, which were sometimes severe and
long-lasting.
HE WAS AN
ALCOHOLIC
He never had a
drink until about a year after his ordination. But by 1943 he was
sufficiently worried about his drinking to investigate A.A. While
responding to a call from a woman who said her husband was dying, he
learned from the doctor that the man was not dying, but merely passed
out from a combination of alcohol and barbital. As Fr. Pfau was leaving
the house he noticed a book on a shelf and asked if he could borrow it.
It was Alcoholics Anonymous.
When he
arrived home it was past 3 a.m., and he was longing for a drink. But he
could not take a drink. He had to say Mass at 6 a.m., so could neither
eat nor drink. But he knew he couldn't sleep, so he sat down in a chair
and started reading the book. And he couldn't take his hands off that
book.
Day after day
for three or four weeks, whenever he had a spare hour or two he would
sit in his room reading, studying and thinking. He didn't miss a day
reading the book through at least once. It became seared in his brain,
word for word, comma for comma, question mark for question mark. He
knew it from cover to cover. And to his amazement, during that entire
period he did not take a drink.
One evening he
noticed some AA pamphlets on a side table in the vestibule of the
rectory. At supper he asked who had left the pamphlets and learned that
they were left by Doherty Dohr Sheerin, described by the pastor as
the president or something of A.A. here in Indianapolis.
Fr. Pfau
studied the pamphlets as thoroughly as he had studied the Big Book, but
he couldn't believe they applied to him. He was not an alcoholic, or so
he thought.
During this
period of not drinking he stepped up the medication the doctor had
prescribed, a combination of barbital and Dexedrine.
He was
frightened and he needed help. So one night he telephoned Dohr Sheerin
and asked I was just wondering -- could I possibly see you some time?
I'd like to talk to you about -- something. There's no hurry.
I'll be right
over, was the reply, and Dohr Sheerin hung up the phone before Fr. Pfau
could reply. Sheerin invited him to attend the meeting the following
Thursday. He agreed to attend just as a spectator. They talked for a
few minutes more and Dohr left. That was November 10, 1941, Fr. Pfau's
39th birthday.
For the next
25 years, despite severe problems with depressions, he never took
another drink. For a short time he continued to take medications
prescribed by his doctor and by Mayo Clinic. But after seeing a friend
who had overdosed on seconal he hurried to a doctor in charge of the
local drying out facility and told him that he was frightened. I just
got back from Mayo, where they gave me a couple hundred pills to take
for my nervousness. But now I don't know what to do with them.
Well, said
the doctor, those people know what they're doing up there. Did you tell
them you are an alcoholic? He then explained that if the doctors at
Mayo Clinic had known he was an alcoholic they would never have given
him the pills. So he went home and threw away the pills.
With the
approval of his Archbishop, he devoted himself to helping other
alcoholics, particularly alcoholic priests. He traveled more than 50,000
miles a year to address meetings, conduct retreats and help individuals.
His retreats
were attended by thousands of Catholics and by many more thousands who
were not Catholics. His retreat talks were eventually published in a
series of Golden Books. They were so named because when he held the
second annual retreat in June of 1947, at the request of some of the
people who had attended the first retreat his talks were printed in a
fifty-six page booklet with a gold cover, and distributed as a souvenir,
through the generosity of the owner of the archdiocesan newspaper in
Indianapolis. People began requesting copies of the golden book of your
retreat.
His books
Sobriety Without End, and Sobriety and Beyond, have been read by
thousands.
In 1948 he
founded the National Clergy Conference on Alcoholism, an organization
devoted to the problems of priests, and directed it for many years. Its
publications, especially Alcoholism Source Book for Priests, and the
annual Blue Book, made a deep impact on the American Catholic
Hierarchy.
Fr. John C.
Ford, S. J., in an Epilogue to a new edition of Pfau's autobiography,
published after his death but planned by him, says that the whole
career of Father Pfau can only be understood in the light of the fact
that he was a pioneer. He broke new ground. ... Like any pioneer he met
opposition and had to have fortitude. Like any Christian innovator he
had to have deep faith. It was faith and fortitude that sustained his
zeal for the salvation of the countless souls he helped.
Bill Wilson
had warned Fr, Pfau that he would receive opposition:
Bill, a fine
gentleman, taught me something I've never forgotten. 'Father,' he said,
'you will do a great deal of good in a great many places. As a Catholic
priest and an alcoholic, you can be instrumental in helping alcoholics
wherever you go. But remember this -- no matter how well you do, no
matter how much you help others or how many you help, no matter what you
say or how you say it, no matter what happens -- you can't and won't
please everyone. Wherever you go and whatever you do, someone will find
a way to criticize you.
'You must
take the criticism, no matter how unjustified, with tolerance and
forbearance. Remember that resentments can lead to trouble, so you must
work doubly hard not to harbor them. Don't ever let anything bother you.
I have taken criticism from unexpected sources many times since we began
this program, and so will you. Just let it roll off your back like water
off a duck's, and you'll be all right.
While Father
Pfau obviously had great affection for Bill Wilson, he apparently did
not always agree with him. Four o'clock on Sunday afternoon July 3,
1955, at the International A.A. Convention in St. Louis, was a watershed
moment in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. The fifth General Service
Conference met during the Convention. This marked the end of the
five-year trial period for the Conference. Bill Wilson had campaigned
for the Conference vigorously.
But Father
Pfau, who was influential, though controversial, had announced he was
going to rise and speak against it. When Bill presented his resolution
and a vote of approval was requested, reported Nell Wing, We from the
office sat with baited breath. But Father Pfau did not object and the
resolution passed.
Tex Brown, who
died October 5, 2000, told me this story at the International Convention
in Minneapolis a few months before his death. I asked him to write it
for the AA History Buffs.
Tex attended
the first International A.A. Convention in Cleveland in 1950. He told me
At the 'Spiritual Meeting' on Sunday morning the main speaker's topic
dealt with the idea that the alcoholic was to be the instrument that God
would use to regenerate and save the world. He expounded the idea that
alcoholics were God's Chosen People and he was starting to talk about AA
being 'The Third Covenant,' when he was interrupted by shouted
objections from the back of the room. The objector, who turned out to be
a small Catholic priest, would not be hushed up. There was chaos and
embarrassment as the meeting was quickly adjourned. I was upset and in
full sympathy with the poor speaker. I did not realize it at the time,
but I had seen Father Pfau in action and Father Pfau was right. I had
heard the group conscience and I rejected it.
Bill told the
story like this:
On Sunday
morning we listened to a panel of four A.A.s who portrayed the spiritual
side of Alcoholics Anonymous -- as they understood it. ... A hush fell
upon the crowd as we paused for a moment of silence. Then came the
speakers, earnest and carefully prepared, all of them. I cannot recall
an A.A. gathering where the attention was more complete, or the devotion
deeper.
Yet some
thought that those truly excellent speakers had, in their enthusiasm,
unintentionally created a bit of a problem. It was felt the meeting had
gone over far in the direction of religious comparison, philosophy and
interpretation, when by firm long standing tradition we A.A.'s had
always left such questions strictly to the chosen faith of each
individual.
One member
rose with a word of caution. [Apparently he was referring to Fr. Pfau.]
As I heard him, I thought, 'What a fortunate occurrence.' How well we
shall always remember that A.A. is never to be thought of as a religion.
How firmly we shall insist that A.A. membership cannot depend upon any
particular belief whatever; that our twelve steps contain no article of
religious faith except faith in God -- as each of us understands Him.
How carefully we shall henceforth avoid any situation which could
possibly lead us to debate matters of personal religious belief.
HE WAS A ROMAN
CATHOLIC PRIEST
For many years
he doubted the validity of his priesthood. He had not chosen it. His
mother wanted him to be a priest from the day he was born and would
frequently introduce her little boy by saying This is Ralph. He's going
to be a priest. He was unsure he wanted to be a priest, and for many
years, especially during his periods in sanitariums, and during the
worst periods of his alcoholism, he continued to doubt the validity of
his ordination. But he eventually came to believe that, though he had
not chosen the priesthood, he was chosen for it.
Father Ford
wrote at this end of his Epilogue: Those who knew Father Ralph best,
those who knew him when he was sick and when he was well, those who saw
at first hand the evidence of his devotion to the cause of Christ, and
to the sick alcoholic in whom he always saw Christ -- and this despite
the severest trials that depression can inflict -- are the only ones who
have a right to estimate the accomplishments of his life's work.
Fortunately these accomplishments live on in the organization he founded
and in the countless lives of those who found sobriety and peace, under
God, through Ralph Pfau.
May his
courageous soul rest in peace.
SOURCES:
Prodigal
Shepherd, by Father Ralph Pfau and Al Hirshberg. [Father Pfau had
planned that this new edition of his autobiography be published, as had
his previous works, under his pen name Fr. John Doe. But since he died
prior to its publication it was decided to use his name. Apart from the
author, whenever a person is mentioned who is a member of A.A. only the
first name is used. The sole exception is in the case of Doherty Sheerin
who was the founder of A.A. in Indianapolis. The name of Doherty Sheerin,
deceased at the time of publication, was used with the permission of his
widow, Mrs. Dorothy Sheerin.]
Unpublished
manuscript on the history of A.A. by Bob P.
Talk by Bill
Wilson on 1950 Convention, date unknown.
Conversations
with Tex Brown in July 2000
Ralph Pfau (Father John Doe)
& the Golden Books
Born Nov. 10, 1904; joined A.A. Nov. 10, 1943; died
Feb. 19, 1967
Short Outline of Life & Work
Sixth National Archives Workshop at Louisville KY, Sept. 27-30,
2001. Handout for the 10:30-11:45 a.m. Saturday session presentation by
Glenn F. Chesnut (Prof. of History & Religious Studies, Indiana
University South Bend), home address 316 Parkovash Ave., South Bend IN
46617; phone 219 233-7211; e-mail gfchesnut@msn.com; web page
www.iusb.edu/~gchesnut.
The three most-published A.A. authors during the
course of A.A.'s first sixty years have been Bill W., Richmond Walker
(who wrote the Twenty-Four Hours a Day book), and Ralph Pfau,
author of the fourteen Golden Books.
Father Ralph Pfau (November 10, 1904-February 19, 1967), who was a
Roman Catholic priest, is our local hero in this part of the country: He
spent years serving parishes in Indianapolis and southern Indiana, some
of them quite near where we are having this workshop (like
Jeffersonville, which is literally right next door, from 1935-1937). He
gave the keynote address at the first Kentucky A.A. Conference in
Louisville, Kentucky right across the river, almost exactly fifty years
ago--that in particular adds a nice anniversary touch to this particular
workshop session.
In my part of the country, the spirituality of everyone in the early
A.A. groups was shaped at a deep level by Richmond Walker's
Twenty-Four Hour book, which was read from during the formal
meetings themselves. But many of the most dedicated also held meetings
after the meetings, in people's homes, to study Father Ralph's latest
Golden Book. One old-timer from my area says that when he first came in,
he soon began to notice that all the old-timers who had really quality
sobriety and serenity were fans of Father Ralph. They read his books
over and over, and travelled hundreds of miles to hear him speak or just
to talk with him privately. Something special about him and his message
was communicated to them in this fashion, which inspired them in turn to
become more and more deeply spiritual in their own everyday lives.
Ralph and Richmond Walker played a complementary role in early A.A.
Rich wrote about the inner life of the spirit, and taught recovering
people how to make genuine contact with a higher power, down in the
depths of their hearts and souls. Ralph wrote about the active life in
the world, and taught recovering people how to rise up from their
meditations and begin taking concrete action, so that they could serve
as channels of God's grace to this outside world. Rich taught us how to
be silent and listen, while Ralph taught us how to make authentic
decisions and then make a real commitment. Between the two of them,
early A.A.'s had a marvellous pair of teachers, who taught them how to
deal with the two halves of their lives, the inner and the outer.
Ralph was the first Roman Catholic priest to get sober in Alcoholics
Anonymous (he came in on November 10, 1943), and under the pen name
which he chose to use, Father John Doe, he wrote his fourteen Golden
Books back in the 1940's and 50's and early 60's. They are still being
read and used by A.A.'s today:
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1947Spiritual Side
1948Tolerance
1949Attitudes
1950Action
1951Happiness
1952Excuses
1953Sponsorship
1954Principles
1955Resentments
1957Decisions
1960Passion
1963Sanity
1964Sanctity
1964Living
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They were coming out once a year at the beginning, but then he was
slowed down as he also published three much longer books: Sobriety
and Beyond (1955), Sobriety Without End (1957), and an
autobiography, which he entitled Prodigal Shepherd, in 1958 (a
shorter version of this ran as a three-part series in Look
magazine).
He also issued a set of thirty recordings in which he spoke on
various issues, including No. 11 Father John Doe--Alcoholic, No. 22
The Lord's Prayer, No. 2 Alcoholism--Sin or Disease, and Nos. 23-26
The Twelve Steps. He spoke on these recordings with a flamboyant
oldtime preacher's style: his high voice, with its sharp- toned southern
Indiana accent, could belt through to the back of a church without
benefit of microphone, and knock any drowsy parishioners on the back
pews out of their slow drift into sleep! His four-recording series on
the Twelve Steps, in particular, is still as useful today for groups
doing step studies as when he first gave them.
He invented the A.A. weekend spiritual retreat, and held the first
one ever given at St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana in June
1946. It was repeated the next year at the same location on the weekend
of June 6-8, 1947, and a small booklet was printed to give the
participants as a souvenir of their time together. He wanted a fancy
cover for it, so his printer came up with some card stock covered with
gold foil. This was why they came to be called the Golden Books. This
first one was the Spiritual Side, which was so successful that
people began asking for additional copies in large numbers. From then
until 1955, in each subsequent year, he produced another booklet on that
year's retreat theme, and so the Golden Book series came into being.
Ralph criss-crossed the United States and Canada from one side to
the other, leading similar weekend spiritual retreats, and giving talks
as an A.A. conference speaker. His cross-country journeys began as what
was intended to be a simple, relaxing vacation in the Spring of 1948,
driving from Indianapolis to southern California by the Texas route, but
mushroomed from there, as A.A. groups, desperate for good, solid
spiritual teaching, began asking him to speak, and then come back the
next year and speak again. In his autobiography he talks about his
extensive journeys from 1948 to 1958:
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I have traveled nearly 750,000 miles in ten years of
working with alcoholics. I have spoken before nearly two hundred
thousand members of A.A. at retreats, meetings and conventions, and
personally discussed problems with more than ten thousand
alcoholics.
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At the point when he was beginning these travels (in 1948-49) he also
founded the Catholic Clergy Conference on Alcoholism, which served a
variety of useful purposes. It brought the message to priests and nuns
who were themselves suffering from alcoholism, it helped to draw the
benefits of the program to the attention of parish priests who could
recommend it to parishioners who were alcoholics, and most important of
all, it helped to keep the Roman Catholic bishops all over the United
States favorably disposed towards A.A.
November 10, 1904: Ralph Pfau born in Indianapolis,
youngest of five brothers.
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His father died when he was four. His Uncle George was a
priest and his Uncle Al was the bishop of Nashville, Tennessee. His
older brother Jerry became a priest, earned a doctorate from Rome,
and then taught at St. Mary-of-the-Woods college near Terre Haute, a
medium-sized city over in extreme western Indiana, along the Wabash
river. From a very early age, Ralph's mother referred to him as her
other son who was going to become a priest, which created enormous
pressures on him growing up. |
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1922: Graduated from Cathedral High School in Indianapolis, and in
September began studying for the priesthood at St. Meinrad Seminary down
in Spencer county, Indiana, about twelve miles north of the great Ohio
river.
1928-29: First total breakdown. In the fifth year at seminary, the
students who remained had to make an irrevocable decision. They were
ordained as subdeacons and then as deacons on successive days. If you
left seminary after that point, the normal rules were that you could
never marry, and there was a deep cloud over you as far as good lay
Catholics were concerned. Then one year later, they were ordained as
priests.
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Ralph began moving towards his first total psychological
breakdown at that point. He could not eat, he could not sleep, he
could not think straight, and torrents of thoughts circled around
and around in his mind as he grew ever more frantic. His obsessive
perfectionism was so great that he did not feel morally worthy to be
a priest. The summer after the first two ordinations was a
nightmare. He spent most of it with his older brother Jerry, who was
now teaching at St. Mary-of-the- Woods, a Catholic women's college
near Terre Haute, Indiana. The inability to eat or sleep continued,
and the constantly churning thoughts continued to drive him frantic.
Ralph got permission to see a doctor in Indianapolis, who prescribed
Nembutal (a barbituate) and then later doubled the dose. That was to
prove the other half of his downfall. Ralph was to have as much
trouble with drugs as he did with alcohol--all legal script of
course, prescribed by licensed physicians--and he actually got
started on his drug habit well before he had ever touched alcohol at
all. At the end of summer he returned to Indianapolis, where a
different doctor took him off the barbituates and put him on
bromides instead, which were also strong sedatives, and could
sometimes produce hallucinogenic reactions. |
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May 20, 1929: The night before his ordination to the priesthood, he came
down with a 104 temperature and had a complete nervous and physical
breakdown, but was ordained priest anyway the next morning, sitting on a
chair instead of standing and kneeling like the rest.
1929-33: Assistant pastor at the Old Cathedral in Vincennes IN, also
taught Latin at Gibault High School which was connected with the
cathedral. Vincennes is a very old town with a history, located along
the Wabash river on the southwestern border of Indiana. The oldest
building is a French log home from 1790, and there is also a Territorial
Capital building which was used for territorial assemblies from 1800 to
1813.
Summer 1930: Went to Fordham University, run by the Jesuits, in New York
city, to begin working on his masters degree.
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While there he met David B____ , a New Yorker now, but
originally from Indianapolis. They lived in a large apartment on
Riverside Drive. David invited young Ralph to a party at their
apartment. Although Prohibition was still in effect (1920-33), David
offered the young priest a drink and he took it--his first taste of
alcohol. Ralph liked it, and kept coming back all summer long for a
drink or two. In Summer 1932, he got to come back to New York,
continued to visit David for drinks in the evenings, and brought a
whole case of illegal bourbon back home with him to Indiana.
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Fall 1932: The head pastor at the Old Cathedral decided to use brothers
instead of priests to do all the teaching at Gibault High School; Ralph
was now out of his teaching job, which he loved. He developed a massive
resentment, and began drinking every evening.
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He developed a source of illegal alcohol in Jasper IN,
the bootleg headquarters of southern Indiana. Jasper is an old
German town, with an interesting old church and a very good German
restaurant which serves huge helpings of sauerbraten and
wienerschnitzel and other traditional dishes, sixty-five miles due
west of where we are meeting here in Clarksville, through some
beautiful southern Indiana hill country. But in those days, there
was little law and order among the hill people south of town. Ralph
figured later that he was putting down at least a quart of this
local moonshine a day, which came out of the still at 190 proof,
close to absolute alcohol. |
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Summer 1933: The second total breakdown. Sent first to St. Vincent's,
the big hospital in Indianapolis, and then to a sani tarium in St.
Louis.
1933-34: Finally sent to New York for a full year, as a kind of rest
cure, to finish his masters degree.
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He stayed off alcohol, but only because he was afraid
someone would see him drinking and turn him in to the church
authorities. He could not sleep at night. Within a week of arriving
there, he went to a drugstore and started taking bromides again, and
quickly started increasing the dosage of these powerful downers to
massive proportions. He stayed off the booze until he received his
M.A. from Fordham on Wednesday, June 13, 1934. The very next day, he
was back at David B____ 's apartment, and started drinking again.
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1934-35: Assistant pastor at St. Anthony's in Indianapolis.
1935-37: Assistant pastor at St. Augustine's in Jeffersonville IN, the
river town immediately to the east of Clarksville, where we are holding
our workshop. He often crossed the river to visit the big city of
Louisville, where he had strong connections from this point to the end
of his life.
The Great 1937 Flood: Submerged much of downtown Louisville, and also
the towns on the Indiana side.
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A boat came and got Ralph out of the second floor of the
parish house, and he eventually made it back to Indianapolis. The
bishop immediately sent him back south, to New Albany IN (the river
city immediately to the west of Clarksville, where we are holding
our workshop). He was to say masses for the refugees, and help in
the clean-up work. Ralph kept going by drinking through large parts
of every day. He kept a bottle in the car, and whenever he felt like
it, would down a slug straight from the bottle as he drove along,
and chase it with a Coke. |
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1937-39: St. Bernard's in Snake Run, in Gibson County, over in the
extreme southwestern corner of Indiana. A country church, with a house
for the priest next door, with peeling paint, no electricity, and no
running water.
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Ralph spent a lot of his time in Evansville IN down on
the river, twenty-three miles southwest, or driving east to
Louisville and spending two or three days there. Now he was taking
his bourbon straight with a beer for a chaser. Blackouts, morning
shakes, and finally bleeding gums from trenchmouth. |
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1939: The third total breakdown. Some of his parishioners complained to
the bishop about his drinking, and he was removed from his pastorate.
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He went first to St. Vincent's, the big hospital in
Indianapolis, and then to a sanitarium in Milwaukee. Again he lied
about his drinking, the doctor there misdiagnosed him as manic
depressive, and they started giving him the cold water treatment.
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1939-42: Assistant pastor at Holy Rosary in Indianapolis. In late 1940
he started drinking again.
December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor, many priests began being shifted to
different posts.
1942-3: Appointed pastor of St. Anne's in Indianapolis, but
self-destructed within a year.
1943: The fourth total breakdown. In May, the bishop removed him from
this parish and sent him to a sanitarium in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
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He drove there in a blackout, and then tried to smuggle
twelve bottles of liquor into the sanitarium. But he lied about why
it was in his suitcase, again lied about his drinking, and was
misdiagnosed this time as schizophrenic. Shock treatments with
110-volt AC current, enough to light up a 100-watt light bulb.
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1943-5: Asst. pastor at St. Joan of Arc's in Indianapolis.
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Began drinking again a week after he arrived, then began
having frightening experiences with drugs (Benzedrine and barbital),
including LSD-like hallucinations at one point. |
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Fall 1943: Became the first Roman Catholic priest to get sober in A.A.
Discovered a copy of the Big Book, began reading and re-reading it, and
for some reason he could not understand, was able to stop drinking.
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A small A.A. group had been started in Indianapolis only
three years earlier by a retired manufacturer named Doherty Sheerin,
a good Irish Catholic; he became Ralph's sponsor. |
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November 10, 1943 (thirty-ninth birthday):
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He phoned Doherty Sheerin, who came to the rectory and
arranged for Ralph to go to an A.A. meeting at the Rauh Library on
Thursday night. There were only seven people there, but Ralph kept
coming back, and never drank again. |
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The four major A.A. groups in Indiana at that time:
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April or May 1940: Evansville (southwest)
October 28, 1940: Indianapolis (central)
December, 1941: Fort Wayne (northeast)
February 22, 1943: South Bend (north central) |
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1945-7: Assistant pastor at Holy Cross in Indianapolis.
June 1946: The first weekend A.A. spiritual retreat, at St. Joseph's
College at Rensselaer IN, up in the northwestern corner of Indiana, a
rousing success.
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His theme was The Spiritual Side of Alcoholics
Anonymous, which went over so well that he gave the same talk at
all the retreats he conducted over the next year, and finally put it
out on a recording. This was the first of what was eventually a set
of thirty phonograph records which took his voice to A.A. people all
over the United States. |
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June 6-8, 1947: The second weekend A.A. spiritual retreat at St.
Joseph's College in Rensselaer. The first of Ralph's fourteen Golden
Books was printed as a memento for those who attended that retreat.
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It was a 56-page saddle-stitched booklet, six by nine
inches, with a cover of shiny gold-foil cardstock: the Golden Book
of the Spiritual Side. Requests came in for more and more extra
copies to pass around, and it was necessary to do a second printing
almost immediately. Within ten years, 200,000 copies of the Golden
Books had been sent out to A.A. people all over the country.
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October 1947: The bishop of Indianapolis offered Ralph the opportunity
to make A.A. his full-time work, if he could figure out how to support
himself.
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One of Doherty Sheerin's closest friends was A. Kiefer
Mayer, who was at that time the vice-president of the Kiefer-Steward
wholesale drug supply house in Indianapolis. Mayer called Ralph in
and wrote him a check for $600 on the spot--Ralph's annual salary as
a priest. |
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Christmas Day, 1947: Ralph moved to St. Bridget's rectory in Indianpolis,
where he paid room and board.
Spring 1948: Dohr persuaded Ralph to take a vacation before trying
anything major, and Ralph decided to drive out to Los Angeles on the
west coast and back.
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The dust storm that put him off his route, in Wichita
Falls, Texas. Speaking to the A.A. meeting there, and the thunder of
warm, appreciative applause afterwards. The same thing several days
later, when he finally arrived in California, at an A.A. meeting in
North Hollywood. The Texas A.A. Convention in Austin in June 1948,
and the Southeastern A.A. Convention in Jacksonville, Florida in
September. |
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Nov. 1948-April 1949: Five months travelling constantly.
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Spoke to A.A. conferences and groups in California,
Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, North and South Carolina,
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. An audience
of six hundred in Rome, Georgia. The A.A. anniversary dinner on St.
Patrick's day in Miami, Florida.
Then summer 1949: Montreal, Canada, and the Southeastern A.A.
convention in Richmond VA. |
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1950-his death in 1967: Chaplain of the Good Shepherd Convent in
Indianapolis (where he was the prodigal shepherd in the title to his
autobiography). A three-room suite for offices and printing equipment,
and three nuns to serve as full- time secretaries, clerks, and printers.
1958: Wrote his autobiography, Ralph Pfau and Al Hirshberg, Prodigal
Shepherd.
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Dohr had died in 1953, and his older brother Jerry in
June 1957, which left him in a deeply retrospective mood.
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1964: The last two Golden Books, Sanctity and Living.
Feb. 19, 1967: On the road again, died on a Sunday in Our Lady of Mercy
hospital in Owensboro, Kentucky, over on the south bank of the Ohio
river, separated by just the river's width from his own beloved Indiana.
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Ralph's closest friends and supporters in Indianapolis
reprinted his autobiography shortly after his death. They put a
brief note at the beginning which said simply that they were
fulfilling his wish for a new edition in the hope that those who
read it will receive the courage to live and die as he did. A sober
alcoholic. Father John C. Ford, S.J., who taught at Weston College
in Massachusetts, wrote the equally simple epitaph at the end:
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May his courageous soul rest in peace
Memories of
Father Ralph No. 1
February 23, 2001: This is an ongoing collection of memories and
reminiscences of Ralph Pfau (Father John Doe), from people who knew him
or heard him during his long career of speaking and leading A.A.
spiritual retreats. Additional items will be added as they are
discovered. Please help us add more to this if you can. These are
materials which will eventually aid us in writing a detailed biography.
Materials from Nancy O.
G.C.This valuable material was sent on Feb. 19, 2002 as an
e-mail by Nancy O. to aahistorybuffs@yahoogroups.com, subject: Fr.
Ralph Pfau, AKA Fr. John Doe. Nancy is the moderator of that web
group and maintains the site. Her material was forwarded to me by Rick
T. (Algonquin IL) from Northern Illinois Area 20, who has also been
quite active in archival work. I give the material here exactly as it
was sent to me, adding only a few background comments (in smaller
type) for those who do not know as much about the overall story.
______________________________________
The vote on continuing the General Service Conference
at the 1955 St. Louis Convention
G.C.For background here, we need to know that when Ralph was
starting his first great speaking tour in 1948, he met Bill W. for the
first time in California, and the two immediately became good friends.
Ralph accompanied Bill on his trip to Mexico, and received a large
amount of good advice from him during their extensive time together.
At a later point, however, Ralph and Bill fell into a disagreement
over one or more issues. We are still trying to work out exactly what
they were arguing over; there are letters from Bill W. to Ralph in the
New York Archives however which make it clear that they were of
opposite minds on how to deal with some important problem, or set of
problems.
Nancy O.'s contribution here is to show that one of the issues was
apparently the way the General Service Conference had been set up in
1950-51, for its initial five-year trial period. When the
International A.A. Convention was held in St. Louis in 1955, a
decision had to be made as to whether to continue to use this method
of governing A.A. and make it permanent. Ralph did not like the
experimental system, and the people at the New York headquarters were
well aware of his opposition, so this was clearly one of the issues
which divided Ralph and Bill W. at that point.
Nancy O.While Father Pfau obviously had great affection
for Bill Wilson, he apparently did not always agree with him. Four
o'clock on Sunday afternoon July 3, 1955, at the International A.A.
Convention in St. Louis, was a watershed moment in the history of
Alcoholics Anonymous. The fifth General Service Conference met during
the Convention. This marked the end of the five-year trial period for
the Conference. Bill Wilson had campaigned for the Conference
vigorously. But Father Pfau, who was influential, though controversial,
had announced he was going to rise and speak against it. When Bill
presented his resolution and a vote of approval was requested, reported
Nell Wing, We from the office sat with baited breath. But Father Pfau
did not object and the resolution passed.
G.C.I think it is important to note that the dissent between
the two men did not last forever, and that there was a happy ending to
this story. I spoke over the telephone a few months ago with Father
Pete W., a Roman Catholic priest in Canada who was present when Ralph
and Bill W. met at the International A.A. Convention in Toronto,
Canada, in July of 1965 and once more made their peace with one
another. Pete (who was a relative newcomer to A.A. at that time, and
had not become a priest yet) was one of the A.A. people posted on
guard duty in the hotel hallway on the floor where Bill W. had his
hotel room. His instructions were to let no one disturb Bill, with one
exception: if Father Ralph Pfau came up, he was to immediately take
him to see Bill. Ralph did in fact come, and went into Bill's hotel
room, where the two of them talked for a long time, an hour and a half
or two. Pete says that it was very clear from the expressions on their
faces when Ralph came back out, and they way the two men said good-by
to one another, that they parted the best of friends once again. Both
these great A.A. leaders were near the ends of their lives by that
point: Ralph died only a year and a half later on February 19, 1967,
and Bill passed away on January 24, 1971.
______________________________________
The Third Covenant Controversy at
the 1950 Cleveland Convention
G.C.There was a genuinely major issue at stake here in this
Third Covenant controversy. A.A. was just embarking on its five-year
trial period of using the General Service Conference as its central
governing body, the Twelve Traditions were approved there in
Cleveland, and in various other ways the basic rules and
understandings were being worked out there at that convention for
giving A.A. its longterm permanent organization. Any major statements
or positions taken there in Cleveland would have shaped the course of
the twelve step movement from that time on.
The speaker who raised this particular issue was apparently trying to
set up a theological scheme where the first convenant was the one
received by Moses on Mt. Sinai, the second covenant came through Jesus
Christ, and the third covenant had Bill W. and Dr. Bob as its
co-messiahs. If this had become A.A. policy, all Jewish and Christian
religious groups would of course have immediately denounced the
twelve-step movement, and have forbidden their members to join it. All
Muslims would have been equally outraged -- it was Mohammed who was
the third great prophet, not Bill W. and Dr. Bob! It is hard to
imagine good Hindus or Buddhists or people who practiced Native
American religions (and so on) being willing to join A.A. groups
either, if this crackpot scheme had been accepted.
On the other hand, it should be remembered that many A.A.'s were
already rejecting the use of any kind of literature that made
references to Jesus Christ. When Richmond Walker (only two years
earlier) took the Oxford Group work, God Calling by Two
Listeners, and replaced all the prayers to Jesus with prayers simply
to God, and (quite significantly) stuck a proverb from the Hindu
religious tradition very prominently at the front, the little black
book which he produced, called Twenty-Four Hours a Day, started
spreading like wildfire across American A.A. as the standard A.A.
meditational book. Even in the United States, the majority of A.A.'s
did not want prayers to Jesus as part of their group's regular
literature.
And there were at least some other A.A.'s back in 1950 who, like the
Third Covenant man, would have gone much further than Richmond Walker
did -- we do not know how many, but they clearly did exist. Instead of
regarding A.A. as a totally spiritual program which could be embraced
by people of all sorts of religious backgrounds, these people wanted
to save the world by preaching the twelve step movement as a new
world religion which would attack and attempt to supplant all its
rivals. In fact, even someone like Tex Brown, a very sensible man,
admitted that he was at first attracted by this Third Covenant, Chosen
People, Save the World message, and was angry at Pfau for opposing it.
I also believe this is why A.A. Number Three, in his tape recorded
lead, felt he had to insist so strongly (at several different points
in his lead) that I'm not here to save the world. He wanted to
totally disassociate himself from fanatics like these who were trying
to lead A.A. in that direction. A.A. was about spirituality, not
creating a new world religion.
But let me give Nancy's account of her conversations with Tex Brown in
July 2000. Tex was one of the really great old-timers from the Chicago
area, who could tell many fascinating stories about early A.A.
Nancy O.Tex Brown, who died October 5, 2000, told me
this story at the International Convention in Minneapolis a few months
before his death. I asked him to write it for the AA History Buffs. Tex
attended the first International A.A. Convention in Cleveland in 1950.
He told me At the 'Spiritual Meeting' on Sunday morning the main
speaker's topic dealt with the idea that the alcoholic was to be the
instrument that God would use to regenerate and save the world. He
expounded the idea that alcoholics were God's Chosen People and he was
starting to talk about AA being 'The Third Covenant,' when he was
interrupted by shouted objections from the back of the room. The
objector, who turned out to be a small Catholic priest, would not be
hushed up. There was chaos and embarrassment as the meeting was quickly
adjourned. I was upset and in full sympathy with the poor speaker. I did
not realize it at the time, but I had seen Father Pfau in action and
Father Pfau was right. I had heard the group conscience and I rejected
it.
G.C.Tex told me that story once too, but more briefly, at the
National Archives Workshop in Chicago, and said that every time the
speaker tried to start his speech once more, Ralph would instantly be
on his feet, shouting him down once again and telling the speaker that
this was sheer rubbish, and shouldn't be on an A.A. program. It was
when it finally became clear that Ralph was not going to stop, and was
simply not going to let the man say another connected set of words,
that the meeting broke up in chaos. Incidentally, Tex was a very tall
and big man, so Ralph may have seemed to him to be a small fellow by
comparison, but everyone I have asked says that Ralph was of at least
average height, if not taller. When talking to him one on one, his
voice was very soft and pleasant, but he did have a very high-pitched,
almost screeching preaching voice. He had had to develop that in order
to be heard in the back rows of the American churches of that period,
which did not have microphones and amplified public address systems to
aid the preacher. It would not have been hard for him to have shouted
down most ordinary people!
______________________________________
Bill W. on the Third Covenant Controversy
G.C.Nancy O. says that the following is from a talk by Bill
Wilson on the 1950 Convention, date unknown. Bill W., ever the
diplomat, downplayed the furious shouting and the chaotic breakup of
the Third Covenant meeting. But he did make it clear that he was in
fact very glad and extremely thankful that Ralph had attacked the
speaker in that fashion, because somebody had to have the guts to
confront anyone who attempted to get A.A. into the religion business,
or otherwise the twelve step program was going to destroy itself very
quickly. Nancy says she got some of her information on this from an
unpublished manuscript on the history of A.A. by Bob P., who should
also get some credit here.
Nancy O.Bill told the story like this: On Sunday
morning we listened to a panel of four A.A.s who portrayed the spiritual
side of Alcoholics Anonymous -- as they understood it . . . . A hush
fell upon the crowd as we paused for a moment of silence. Then came the
speakers, earnest and carefully prepared, all of them. I cannot recall
an A.A. gathering where the attention was more complete, or the devotion
deeper.
Yet some thought that those truly excellent speakers had, in
their enthusiasm, unintentionally created a bit of a problem. It was
felt the meeting had gone over far in the direction of religious
comparison, philosophy and interpretation, when by firm long-standing
tradition we A.A.'s had always left such questions strictly to the
chosen faith of each individual. One member rose with a word of
caution. [Apparently he was referring to Fr. Pfau.] As I heard him, I
thought, 'What a fortunate occurrence.' How well we shall always
remember that A.A. is never to be thought of as a religion. How firmly
we shall insist that A.A. membership cannot depend upon any particular
belief whatever; that our twelve steps contain no article of religious
faith except faith in God -- as each of us understands Him. How
carefully we shall henceforth avoid any situation which could possibly
lead us to debate matters of personal religious belief.
Some Other Brief Memories
Ralph's patience and calm and ability to listen to people
From an old-timer, a woman at an A.A. conference in Spring
1999: When I learned how long she had been in the program, I asked her
if she had ever heard Ralph speak. Her face immediately lit up with
pleasure as she remembered the occasion. There was an enormous crowd of
people around him after his talk, she said, but there was no sense of
impatience, because everyone seemed to just sense that Ralph would spend
as much time talking with each person as that person needed, and would
not leave until everyone who wanted to talk with him had had an
opportunity. There was a deep feeling of profound serenity and peace in
the crowd, and that was what Ralph was especially able to teach people
and communicate to them.
When I told this story to another old-timer who had known Ralph
and attended his spiritual retreats, he said that what the woman said
was basically right on target. But, he said, if on rare occasions
someone who was an over-aggressive fool started trying to harass Ralph
or attack him, or there was an angry person with an axe to grind, who
wanted to keep preaching at Ralph about some particularly ignorant and
opinionated belief of his own, Ralph could and would put fools of that
sort down quickly and decisively.
Ralph's sense of humor
From a conversation which Frank N. and Glenn C. had with an old-timer
named Bob M. at Frank's place on the lake at Syracuse IN on May 10,
2000: When Bob was asked if he had ever heard Father Ralph speak, he
said of course, and described Ralph as a really funny guy, great
sense of humor.
This of course comes across clearly in the tape recordings which we
have of Ralph's public talks in front of large audiences, but the same
ready wit also came out when people were talking to him one on one.
Red K. for example, tells the following story.
Red is an old-timer who originally got sober in South Bend IN, where
Brownie and Nick Kowalski (two of the best-known leaders there) were
his sponsors. Red himself later formed or inspired a number of A.A.
groups himself in various other parts of the United States. He told
this story to Glenn C. on October 13, 2001 in Bloomington IN, at a
meeting of the group he founded there.
Red said that when he himself was very new in the program, he went to
one of Father Ralph's weekend spiritual retreats at Gethsemani Abbey,
and in the question-and-answer period at the end, asked this question:
R.K.I have this deep resentment against my
mother-in-law.
Father RalphPray for her.
R.K. (angrily)My sponsor already told me that! I had to
travel two hundred miles and pay $35 to hear that?
Father RalphSo pray for her to get to heaven . . . right
now!
At that point, everyone broke up laughing.
From John Shaifer, a major black
leader in early Indiana A.A.
Beth M., chair of the Northern Indiana Area 22 Archives Committee,
tape recorded a lead given by John William Shaifer (Gary IN) in
Lafayette IN on Aug. 26, 1999. Born on June 19, 1923, John had gotten
sober on Sept. 15, 1960, and was at this point thirty-eight (almost
thirty-nine) years sober, with an incredible amount of A.A. experience
under his belt: for many years he had travelled every single weekend,
working with alcoholics in prisons all across the state of Indiana.
John had been a steel worker there in the steel mills in Gary for all
his life. In his lead, John told his story, and then began talking
about the steps and how he had worked them:
And then the inventory step: I was rather fortunate, I took steps
four and five with Father John Doe. I made about fifteen of his retreats
down at Gethsemane in Kentucky. A wonderful priest.
After John died on November 13, 2000, his wife invited Frank N.
(Syracuse IN) and Glenn C. to a memorial service at their home, and
showed them John's photo scrapbooks. There amongst the pictures of his
beloved children, and some mementos of his army experiences back in
1943-46, were photos and souvenirs of the many visits he made to
Gethsemane Abbey, year after year, to learn more about the spiritual
life and to bare his soul to Father Ralph. Another old-timer, Larry
W., commented once that all the A.A. people he knew in Michigan and
Indiana from that period, who were real leaders and had a genuinely
deep serenity, were devoted fans of Father Ralph. And someone like
John, a black steelworker from Gary, Indiana could have the same warm,
intimate relationship with Ralph as anyone else. Anyone who knew John
S. knows that he was a man of great dignity who had no patience with
white racists, and would never have worked with a spiritual teacher on
any grounds other than a spirit of deep mutual love and respect and
kindness. You can often tell an incredible amount about someone's real
character by just looking at the kind of people who admired him, and
to say that John S. admired a person that much was an extraordinary
compliment to that person, because John was one of the finest and most
dedicated workers in Indiana A.A.
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- The Golden Tapes
(Father Ralph Pfau)
- #7701 Action - $5.50
- #7702 Alcoholism - Sin or Disease? - $5.50
- #7703 Anonymity - $5.50
- #7704 Attitudes - $5.50
- #7705 Death - A Meditation - $5.50
- #7706 Decisions - $5.50
- #7707 Easy Does It - $5.50
- #7708 Excuses - $5.50
- #7709 Honesty - $5.50
- #7710 Humility - $5.50
- #7711 Fr. John Doe Alcoholic - $5.50
- #7712 Life is a Selfish Program - $5.50
- #7713 Live and Let Live - $5.50
- #7714 Myth of Perfection - $5.50
- #7715 Paradox of Giving - $5.50
- #7716 Principles - $5.50
- #7717 Resentments - $5.50
- #7718 Restore Us to Sanity - $5.50
- #7719 A Sense of Humor - $5.50
- #7720 Serenity - $5.50
- #7721 Spiritual Side - $5.50
- #7722 The Lord's Prayer - $5.50
- #7723 Steps 1, 2 & 3 (of the 12 Steps) - $5.50
- #7724 Steps 4, 5, & 6 (of the 12 Steps) - $5.50
- #7725 Steps 7, 8, 9, & 10 (of the 12 Steps) -
$5.50
- #7726 Steps 11 & 12 (of the 12 Steps) - $5.50
- #7727 Tolerance - $5.50
- #7728 Weakness in Strength - $5.50
- #7729 We're Not Different - $5.50
- #7730 The Will of God - $5.50
- #7731 Complete Set of 30 Tapes Encased in an
Album - $140.00
- #7732 Album containing the tapes of Humility,
Will of God, Honesty, Steps 1-3, Resentments, and Attitudes - $30.00
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