Memories of Mater Dei’s Father Michael Harris

Yes, of COURSE I remember Father Harris from my time at Mater Dei High School, 1974-8. You couldn’t miss him. He cut quite a swath across campus, elevated from charismatic religion teacher to principal by my senior year. “Father Hollywood” they called him, and “the surfing priest.” I remember him prancing around in short shorts and tee-shirt showing off his physique, bounding like a stag, always being followed around by the high school girls, knowing the latest popular songs and jokes. He reportedly came from Brea money, had his own place in Newport, and for a time there he drove a Corvette. I found him creepy and inappropriate, and I don’t think he liked me either, but I was in the minority – most of the other kids thought he was hell of cool, or, in the parlance of those times, “bitchin’.”

Some of my old school friends remember things I don’t. They say he gave stirring, memorable sermons or “homilies.” They say that it was at his urging that we all watched the Paul Newman film “Cool Hand Luke.” I remember seeing that in high school, and not a bad film or anything, but I wasn’t sure why we were seeing it. Apparently it was Fr. Harris’ favorite. Some of the kids thought he looked like Paul Newman or Robert Redford, I always thought more Roger Daltrey with a hip haircut.

Anyway, Father Harris was in the news AGAIN last week as the Diocese of Orange had to pay out another $3.5 million to another of his molestation victims. So sad when the contributions of the faithful, which you’d think could go to helping the poor or whatever, have to be squandered over clergy’s sexual abuse. (Like when cities have to pay out millions for the actions of their bad cops but keep them on anyway.) And sad that there’s no public trial or punishment. Apparently nobody even knows where (ex-)Father Harris is now – how is that possible?

So like I said, I never trusted the guy and he didn’t seem to like me. Bill Maher once darkly joked, “I went to Catholic school and nobody tried to molest me, and I have to say I’m a little offended – am I chopped liver?” (Actually yes Bill, you are chopped liver.) I just kept my head down, and, like many creative people, ran the underground magazine – part satirical, part Monty Python-ish surrealism. Good preparation for running a blog! I liked assigning different people’s concepts to different talented people. This is where I discovered that the kids we all thought were gay (because they certainly were) were all great caricature artists, and they could capture the essence of every teacher! And yes, they did draw great caricatures of Father Harris, and like me they thought he was creepy.

But most of the students loved him. Around 2001-3, before social media was big, I was part of an e-mail group with some of my fellow Class of 78’ers, where we’d argue about 9/11, Bush/Cheney, and the Iraq War. And even back then abuse stories about Father Harris were coming out, and they would all seem real sad about it all, it seemed like they were sad for Fr. Harris! (I only just discovered that one of the members of the group, Jim Ingram, who I got along with good even though he was very right-wing, was an attorney defending him. That’s … strange – one of Father Harris’ students. Jim died tragically of a heart attack a little later.)

It looks like Father Hollywood had a habit of taking troubled boys, with family and economic problems, under his wing. He would “counsel” them in the privacy of his office, and sometimes invite them to his place in Newport. He’d get closer and closer to them, then when it seemed safe he would take out their dick and suck it. This, he’d assure them, was part of the “counseling,” and they should never tell anybody. And mostly they didn’t, for years, till they couldn’t keep it to themselves any more. (And then for the longest time they got called liars.)

Didn’t trust Father Harris, but none of us imagined THAT kind of stuff happening. We were naive, I was naive. For example, when Melinda disagreed with English teacher Sister Lorraine about what a certain Shakespeare line meant, Sister Lorraine spat, “I don’t have to take that from you, you little GUTTERSNIPE!” We all gasped and laughed, marveled at Sister Lorraine’s orneriness, and comforted tearful Melinda. But it wasn’t till years later, thinking about it, that I realized Sister Lorraine called Melinda a “guttersnipe” because she was Mexican! Didn’t occur to us kids at the time.

(On the other hand, Sister Lorraine would believe anything I’d say. Assigned to write a factual essay on how people can overcome their handicaps, I focused on “the great Egyptian hurdler Moshe Dayan” and how, after being tragically paralyzed from the neck down, he “discovered that he could now see through walls.” Sister Lorraine wrote, “Really?? Is this true!?!?” in her red ink, and I got an A.)

What was it like to be this guy, anyway, this Father Michael Harris, and the many many abusive priests like him? Did he believe all the religious stuff he preached so compellingly? Did all of that cohabit secretly in his mind with the conviction that he was also part of a misunderstood but venerable, centuries-old tradition of Man-Boy-Love Christianity, a tradition tragically now frowned upon by earthly governments and society, and even (publicly) the Church itself?

Apparently he had plenty of company, as even the Diocese admits “at least 13 child predators” worked at Mater Dei over the years. Maybe they all knew each other. Did they share notes, tips? Are there still some keeping their heads down saying “Thank God nobody’s mentioned ME yet!” In this picture from the Register, I recognize my old cross-country coach, Coach Richardson. All most of us knew about him was he was cranky, drank beer, and lived with his mom at the age of 40-something. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

When Harris became principal, his place as religion teacher was taken by CARL KARCHER’S SON Gerome. Gerome seemed obsessed with the evil of ORAL SEX – especially if it “leads to CLIMAX” in which case it’s a MORTAL SIN, because the divine SEED is squandered, don’tchya see? This made most of us laugh uncontrollably, at which point he would furiously hand out detention slips. (I ran into Fr. Gerome decades later, when I played at a church where he was pastor – a church with the most S&M crucifix I know of, Jesus writhing in agony over the altar.)

Not all the teachers sucked at Mater Dei. There were two I especially liked, who seemed like founts of information and humor – Fr. Burnett who was red-faced, hungover and unshaven most mornings and always ready with a sarcastic quip, and the history teacher Mr. Burson who was CLEARLY gay (wasn’t that supposed to be a sin?) and full of fun and culture. (Now *I* would be sad if he turned out to be one of the abusers – he seemed honest and good.)

WAIT – I just remembered something – Father Harris did give me permission to play the organ in the chapel during lunch with my friends. We were supposed to just be doing hymns, but once he was gone we played the latest rock songs, and made up silly songs about each other and the teachers. The only reason this is interesting to OJB readers is that, among the younger students hanging out in the corners and watching, unbeknownst to me, was the future GOD OF RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA AND THE TOLL ROADS, the charter-loving “reformer” of CAPO USD, foe of district elections and term limits, and darling of the OC GOP, TONY BEALL! (I only know this because 30 years later he introduced himself to me at Todd Spitzer’s house, starting with “When did you become so mean???”)

One of my best friends from the Class of ’78, a quarterback, is now the Dean at Mater Dei, so I hope this piece doesn’t embarrass him or make him mad or sad. He used to sit behind me in Mr. Katnick’s English class, and, during vocabulary tests, ask me the words he didn’t know, and I’d tell him wrong. For example I told him a “fiasco” was “a goat with four horns.” He got that one wrong. See? You too could become a dean, with hard work, even if you don’t know what a fiasco is!

But seriously. If there’s gonna be a fucking Catholic Church (and can I can a great “Amen?”) it needs to

1. let women be priests,
2. let married people be priests,
3. let priests get married and that includes GAY-married, and
4. have zero tolerance for the sort of things Father Harris did. And that means turning them over to the law and America’s justice system, for a fair trial, not shipping ’em off and hiding ’em and then paying out millions to make up for it. Otherwise, everybody’s gonna think Louis C-K was being straight with us here:

Well that’s it for my Memories of Father Michael Harris. Anyone else out there have something to add?