ARTICLES

A Fool for Christ

THE TRAVAILS OF A PRO-LIFE BROTHER

By Lesley Payne

Brother Martin Temple hardly seems like a threat to the state. But, according to Oakland municipal judge Jack Gifford, the frail 74-year-old Redemptorist brother, is one. In October of last year, Judge Gifford convicted Temple of assault and battery of abortion clinic escorts, fining him $100 and ordering him to stay away from the clinic, Family Planning Specialists on Webster Street in Oakland, for 60 months. What exactly had Temple done?

As Brother Martin explained to the Faith, he poured blessed salt on the abortion clinic escorts. "I heard a lady at a conference say use Holy Water and sprinkle it on these [people]...I was doing that. But then I got blessed salt -- I wonder if they got a good blessing on that salt. That day at the clinic, the escorts were getting out of a car and right away I heard this blasphemy. I said, 'Stop the blasphemy.' As soon as they got out of the car -- I'm already mad because of the blasphemy -- I reached inside my little coffee bag of blessed salt and threw it on them. That didn't work well. I got put in jail for battery. They trumped up the charges. One of the gals says I got it down her neck and in her face. That's not what I tried to do, although I can't say for sure. I may have gotten a couple grains down the neck. I had a Jesuit for a lawyer (Jesuit-educated, that is) who thinks that I really did trespass, so I had to plead guilty to keep out of jail."

For Brother Martin, the restraining order is an attack on a pro-life apostolate he has carried on since abortion's legalization 25 years ago. "When abortion came to California, my sister was worried about it and asked what to do. I didn't have any answers for her. I wrote to the catholic eye in New York. They said I should say my rosary and pray. I was already doing that. I was stationed in Fresno in 1972. That would mean that I was here in Fresno when the Bloody Monday 1973 -- the abortion decision was made. I would present the problem to the liberal leaders of the parish and my Redemptorist superiors. They would say at this parish (St. Alfonsus Ligouri) people are of an older age and they couldn't be bothered with abortion."

Transferred to Picture Rocks Retreat house in Tucson, Arizona in the 1980s, Brother Martin commited himself more deeply to the pro-life cause after reading a newspaper article about an organization called Operation Jericho in Arizona, which picketed and counseled in front of abortion clinics. "I figured, well, maybe I would run across this if I just went to the parking lot where they were supposed to be in. I saw this big trailer with the pro-life banner on it, 'STOP ABORTION.' I met Dr. Ada Ryan, a retired physician, and her husband. They put me right to work. I followed the baby carriage that one woman was rolling. We rolled up to the abortionist's door and advised people not to go in and kill their unborn children."

But Brother Martin's zeal for the pro-life cause didn't exactly make him a favorite in his own religious community. His superiors frowned on his eagerness to join Operation Rescue.

"I said to them, well, Fr. Jones here at the chancery is going to be there. Can I go too? Fr. Jones was there, but he wasn't doing any sitting. He wasn't blocking the clinic. But I was." One superior even told Brother Martin directly not to picket abortion clinics, saying he feared the abortionists would sue the Redemptorists. "But they kept changing the superior," notes Brother Martin. "I was there seven years. I outlasted them."

"The [Redemptorists] didn't have any enthusiasm, [for] what seemed to take hold across the country for Operation Rescue. And once we had a visit from a doctor and his wife from Phoenix, who talked to the community about abortion. The others seemed to be losing interest as soon as they opened their mouths."

Eventually, Brother Martin was transferred back to Fresno, where he kept up his unpopular but effective pro-life work. "I picketed before the Clark Street abortion clinic, the Family Planning Associates, Dr. Allred's place...I think I was fortunate on the being arrested part. I thought I could discourage people at the first opening of the door when I got up real early. They would call the cops, but I would say, well, I have to go back for prayers. We're due for prayers in 30 minutes and I can get on my bike and go. They'd say, we're warning you not to come back and don't block the door. So, I didn't get arrested there at all."

"I didn't find any Operation Rescue at that place," says Brother Martin. "I was looking for allies and I invited my friend, Rodney Rivas. He said he couldn't because of work, but his wife might. I got her to come with me on one or two occasions. She would speak to the women in Spanish while I would be praying the Rosary. On one gal, we tried to speak to her in Spanish, but she didn't seem to understand, and responded in broken English. We offered her help to pay for her baby. We found out that she was Iranian -- we had mistaken her for Hispanic -- and had migrated recently. She said, 'I have to have an abortion because my fellow Iranians don't want me to bear a child here in this country and my husband does not have a job, so we can't pay for it.' Somehow, thank God, we prevailed upon this gal, who wasn't even a Christian. She said if we could help get her husband a job, then she wouldn't go in. We agreed on that. We phoned up the pastors of St. Mary's in Fresno and kind of twisted his arm a little, saying maybe we could have this man park his ice cream wagon there. The mother went on to have a healthy little girl."

In May of 1992, the Redemptorists transferred Brother Martin again, after what he describes as a successful stint in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. "I wasn't supposed to be wearing my habit at the abortion clinic up there, so the superior in Coeur D'Alene says, 'Well, you're being transferred,' because I had gone off the property with my habit on. I received a call approximately December from a fellow pro-lifer in Coeur D'Alene. She says, the doctor at the Ironwood Clinic told her he has stopped performing abortions and he did it because of me. Almost six months later, after leaving Coeur D'Alene, I get this letter from the doctor. It says right there in black and white that we no longer perform abortions here." (Brother Martin has kept the letter, written by Dr. William Tarnasky of the Women's Clinic of Northern Idaho, dated March 25, 1993. Wrote Dr. Tarnasky: "I thought that you would be pleased to know that your efforts and prayers have been rewarded.")

Now at the Redemptorists' Mission House in Oakland, Brother Martin is still viewed as a troublemaker. This February, Brother Martin received a letter from his provincial, instructing him not to go within 100 yards of Family Planning Specialists on Webster Street "or any other clinic of the same name in Alameda County."

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