I remember, as a junior high student, reading the book, “Deliver Us From Evil,” written by Dr. Tom Dooley. The book was an account of Dooley’s ministry as a naval doctor to the refugees fleeing the Communists of North Vietnam. Within the book, Dooley cited numerous atrocities committed by Communists upon Catholic Vietnamese. Dooley left the Navy and later created medical clinics in the nation of Laos, teaching hygiene and treating the many illnesses and injuries suffered by the people of Laos. He almost died from malaria on four occasions, and suffered from a variety of intestinal parasites. He threw himself into his work as a doctor and dangerously lost over 60 pounds (from 180 pounds to 120 pounds) in his zealous work as a physician. He wrote two more books about his ministry as a physician to the Laotian people before being diagnosed with melanoma, later succumbing to that cancer at the age of 31 years in 1961.
John F Kennedy based his creation of the Peace Corps on the work of Dr Tom Dooley, and posthumously bestowed the Congressional Gold Medal upon Dooley.
A Cause for Canonization to Sainthood that Soured Over Time
Following his death, people were quick to take up his cause for canonization as a saint in the Catholic Church (Dooley was a devout Catholic). However, as year passed and more information about Dooley surfaced, that cause was abandoned.
As government records became declassified, it was revealed that in addition to his work as a doctor, Dooley was also an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, who made frequent reports about the activity and movement of Communists in Laos and Vietnam. It was also revealed that some of the atrocities Dooley cited about Communist treatment of North Vietnam Catholics and Laotians in his book, were largely fabricated by the CIA. The CIA used the stories of Dooley to influence the federal government to step up its involvement in the politics of South East Asia that led to the United States being mired in the Vietnam War for many years at a great cost of life not only to Americans but to the Vietnamese.
It was also revealed that Dooley left his commission as a Naval doctor because he was a homosexual. Some of his homosexual liaisons with people, reportedly including celebrities like Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors, got back to his superiors in the Navy. Rather than disgracing Dooley by dishonorable discharging him from the Navy, to preserve his honor and their own, they allowed him to resign his naval commission.
Why I Celebrate This Day as his Feast Day
So often in the Catholic Calendar, the Church officially assigns feast days of Saints. In the early Church, persecuted by the Roman Empire, Mass was often celebrated in secret in the Catacombs of Rome upon the sarcophagus of dead Christians. The early intent about remembering dead Christians, many of them martyrs, was to prevent them from haunting those Christians still alive. However, that rather primitive and superstitious intent was replaced with that of honoring those who gave their lives in love and service to God and to others.
I have long created my own “Calendar of Saints” that may include those officially recognized by the Catholic Church, but often includes many who would never pass the rigorous and, I believe, corrupted process to official status of Saint in Roman Catholicism (I am sure much money passed hands and influenced the canonization of such people as Pius IX, Pius X, and most recently John Paul II), while many other people more deserving the title of Saint have been passed over. My calendar of saints include Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Brother Roger Shutz (who created the religious community of Taize), many of my friends, colleagues, and, of course, my family members.
Saints are Incredibly Flawed People
We often think of saints as people whose lives were never flawed, people who lived perfect lives. When we really look at the lives of saints, we find many of them extremely flawed human beings who struggled with their own set of weaknesses. Lets face it, St Paul of Tarsus, was a religious zealot who engineered a religious genocide of Christians before his own conversion to Christianity. Francis of Assisi, whose image occupies many a garden, was a bit of a sexual reprobate prior to his conversion. Ignatius of Loyola was a soldier of fortune whose morality was incredibly flawed prior to his conversion. Lets not even begin to broach the subject of Augustine of Hippos sexual addiction and perversity prior to his conversion. It is rare for an official canonized saint to NOT have a dark side in his or her life.
The Power of God’s Love, Compassion, and Mercy
In each life of a saint, the power, the love and the compassion of God exerts change in the life of a saint. It is not like that after a saint’s conversion, his or her dark side disappeared never to assault them again. Far from it. St Paul complains and begs God in his Second Letter to the Corinthians to remove the thorn in his side that plagues him daily. God responds to Paul that God’s grace is enough to save him, for that thorn, that acknowledgement of his weakness and vulnerability allows God to grow all the more in his life. In short, God’s lover, mercy, and strength overwhelms the weaknesses and the sins in our lives.
Saint Judas Iscariot?
One of the most reviled people in the history of Christianity is Judas Iscariot, whose betrayal led to the torture and execution of Jesus of Nazareth. The Florentine poet, Dante, reviled him so greatly that he places Judas Iscariot on the lowest and most horrific level of Hell, with a three faced Satan gnawing on the body of Judas for eternity. Yet, could the mercy, the compassion, and love of Jesus not even save the eternal life of his own betrayer. If we believe what Jesus taught in the Gospels, we would have to answer, yes.
The American poet, James Wright, wrote a most moving poem, he entitled, “Saint Judas.” Here is the poem in its entirety.
“When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.”
Saint Tom Dooley
And, so, we return to the subject of Dr Tom Dooley as a saint. It is true that Tom Dooley had an immense ego. It is true that Tom Dooley self-promoted and initially exaggerated what he did for his own gain. It is true that Tom Dooley, along with the CIA, fabricated Communist atrocities to push a political agenda that engaged the United States into a war in Vietnam in which the United States would eventually be defeated. It is true that Tom Dooley was a homosexual but, in my mind and the belief that God created him a homosexual, that is anything but sinful. What God creates cannot be sinful, for God only creates that which is only good, including our gay brothers and lesbian sisters and all in the LGBTQ+ community. This is a pillar of faith.
What stands out for me in the life of Dr Tom Dooley, is that in spite of all the facts that would cast doubt on his being a saint, his work and his ministry to improve the lives and the health of Vietnamese refugees and Laotians overwhelmed his false ego. What arose in his life was a driving desire to sacrifice himself and his own health in order to serve the needs of others. Whatever might have been his initial incentive to do the work he did in Laos, self-promotion, being a tool of the CIA etc, he ended up being driven to continue to serve the people of Laos until he was no longer able to medically treat them because of the failure of his own health.
And, so, in my calendar of Saints, today is the feast day of Saint Tom Dooley. He enters the number of so many saints that have walked this earth. I figure that if James the Greater and John, who were willing to throw all the other apostles “under the bus” in order to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand, are still honored and revered as saints, Tom Dooley is right there to be honored and revered as a saint. And, if Tom Dooley can be saint, perhaps, I might have a chance to be a saint, too.
