Pastor's Corner: A Choice

Father Leo Steinbach

This is a reflection published last week in our local paper.  

A Choice

I have heard it said many times that religion has been responsible for more wars and death than any other social movement in man's history. The people who say these things have a point. However, I believe the people who started the world's major religions were promoting something quite different. Love for one another has always been a major tenet of my Christian faith. Unfortunately, people sometimes misuse and distort the faith to promote violence and their own self interest.

The Christians that I know work very hard to do what they can to show there love for humanity. In our town of Chariton people provide food, clothing, and shelter for those in need. They don't wave religious flags announcing their good deeds. They simply live their faith by doing the things that show their love. These acts of love rarely make headlines but selfless acts of kindness rarely do.

While I was writing this Pastor's Corner I reflected on my uncle Leo Steinbach. He was a Roman Catholic priest who belonged to the religious order Maryknoll. He spent most of his life doing missionary work in Japan. Father Leo was first assigned to Korea in the 1930's to work with the Japanese who lived there. When the war broke out and Japan invaded Korea he was placed in a concentration camp for a time and eventually the Red Cross arranged for his release to return to the states. He had contracted tuberculosis and was near starvation at the time of his release. I remember my Aunt Mary telling me that the Red Cross fattened him up on his return so that when he finally made it to Chariton he weighed all of ninety pounds.

It would have been understandable that Father Leo would have had great resentment for his maltreatment at the hands of the Japanese but that was not his way. He truly believed that his mission was to continue to love his Japanese brothers and sisters. Father Leo had himself assigned to the Japanese internment camp in Manzanar, California. While he was there he did what he could to ease the suffering of people, many of them U.S. Citizens, who had been taken from there homes and had lost everything.

At the end of WWII he was reassigned to Kyoto, Japan where he found many Japanese in desperate circumstances. Starvation was everywhere and so many people were homeless. Father Leo went to work not only spreading the Christian message of love for one another but finding supplies of food, clothing and shelter for those in need regardless of their faith.

Later in life, Father Leo saw another need. The elderly in Japan were not receiving the care that was once a part of the Japanese family culture. So, he set about establishing nursing homes for the elderly and handicapped.

Yes, we have a choice in life. We can focus on the dark and terrible things that have been done in the name of Christianity. Or, we can look at the light that shines from people who are living their faith.

Blessings,

Fr. Fred Steinbach

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church