By Danny Bloom
CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — Daniel Ford was born in a Catholic hospital in
Boston and grew up Catholic in the city area. Now in his 60s, the book
author and New Yorker magazine writer has penned a humorous look at
Catholicism, but without rancor or bitterness. Titled ”The Lapsed
Catholic Catechism: The old rules and how to bend them,” the book is
available on Amazon as an ebook, although you can read on any
computer, not just via Amazon.
Being a bit of Jewish humorist at times, myself, I recently reached
out to this Ford and asked him a few questions about the book, its
genesis and its targetted audience, and the similarities between
Jewish humor and Catholic humor. Since he grew up Catholic in eastern
Massachusetts and I grew up Jewish in western Massachusetts and pretty
much at the same time in the 1950s and 1960s, I was looking forward to
this online interview, and Ford was kind enough to answer my
trans-Pacific questions in Internet time.
When I asked him how he became a lapsed yet still-compassionate
Catholic, Ford explained his background, and the background to his
humor book, this way: “I grew up in the cocoon/Catholic ghetto of West
Roxbury, Masschusetts — born in Catholic hospital, went to Catholic
grammar and high school. Within a few months of arriving at Harvard,
however, I met kids from different backgrounds, and my eyes were
opened. If Catholicism was the ‘one true faith,’ how come only
Catholics knew it?”
When asked about his relationships as a young boy and as an adult with
Jewish people, Ford told me: “At summer Boy Scout camp, Catholic and
Jewish scouts — from Brookline, Massachusetets, mixed — I recall a
Jewish camp counselor putting a hiking staff behind his neck and
draping his arms over it, pretending to be crucified — to goad me. I
think I wrote home in tears to my parents that our religion was being
mocked. At Harvard, however, I had two Jewish roommates, nice guys,
and we became lifelong friends (with one now my lawyer, and the other
my doctor). I’ve worked professionally all my life with Jewish
collaborators; My sister married a Jewish man and she converted to
Judaism.”
Speaking more about his relationships with Jewish people, Ford said:
“In our Catholic family, there was no ill feelings toward Jews. When
my sister announced that she was marrying a Jewish guy she met at
graduate school, my father’s response was to go out and buy a
paperback on how to speak Yiddish! And later, when he met his future
son-in-law, he proudly showed him the Yiddish book to him, to which my
brother-in-law responded the he actually didn’t speak Yiddish but only
English and French since he grew up on Montreal.”
Ford’s book is a compendium of Catholic humor of the lapsed kind. When
I asked him what his favoriate joke in the book is, he pointed me to
this one, noting:.
“It’s the joke that comes after a description of how God abandoned his
creation right after he set off the Big Bang.”
Question: Did God leave someone in charge during His absence?
Answer: [Yes,] Dick Cheney.
Ford added that when he submitted the manuscript of his book to his
agent, the agent said he cracked up at that one.
When asked if he knew any good jokes that he could tell here, Ford said:
“I liked the one about the definition of chutzpah — with the kid who
killed his parents asking for sympathy because he was an orphan. And I
[also] like Jewish Princess jokes.
As for the afterlife or what comes after death, Ford had a humorous
response as the ready, noting: “I hope I’ll be in a comfortable chair
next to the sea with a Kindle reader that has infinite battery life
with downloads to the latest books still available.
I was curious what motivated Ford to write his book of Catholic humor,
from the viewpoint of a lapsed Catholic American. Like many authors
with a quirky book inside them just waiting to come out, he said: “I
just got the bug in my head to do it — it’s quite different from the
serious books I’ve written on nuclear energy and nuclear weapons —
and I thought it might appeal to high-school or college-age Catholics
or lapsing Catholics as well as to nostalgic Catholics who hadn’t had a
poke in the ribs for years about their old religion.”
And there you have it. Daniel Ford, author of ”The Lapsed Catholic
Catechism: The old rules and how to bend them.” His book won’t appeal
to everyone, but certainly Catholics and others with a sense of humor
about religion, be they Jews or Moslems or Buddhusts, just might like
it. I did. As an equal-opportunity humorist, it ticked my funny bones,
but in a loving, compassionate way, which is the kind of humor I like.
And maybe Ford’s book would make a nice gift you could give to cheer
up any Catholic or lapsed Catholic friends you have.
*
Bloom is Taiwan bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World and an inveterate
web surfer. He may be contacted at dan.bloom@sdjewishworld.com