IT’S double-take time for pedestrians and vehicular traffic on Victoria’s busy Blanshard Avenue these Friday mornings.

Camped on the front steps of St. Andrew’s Cathedral, ensconced behind a folding table, Roman collar and all,  is Father Dean  Henderson. A sandwich board proclaims: ‘The Chaplain is available.’ And business is brisk.

“It’s been a pleasant surprise,” says Henderson, who is an assistant priest (see accompanying story). “I came prepared to catch up on my reading; but instead, there’s been a steady stream of people – seven or eight an hour, and occasionally even a lineup.”

If this reminds some people of Lucy in Charles Schultz’s Peanuts cartoon strip – who offered psychiatric advice for five cents a pop from a curbside office, with a  sign reading ‘The doctor is in’ –  it’s no accident. Henderson admits to being a Peanuts reader.

The real inspiration, however, came from Christ’s ministry. “He was so much in the public eye.” The outdoor set-up is “a way of doing evangelism, of taking Christ’s message beyond the doors of our places of worship.”

What Henderson does is more pastoral than doctrinal. While some of his clientele are parishioners who stop by to chat or offer encouragement, others are lapsed Catholics – or people with no formal spiritual beliefs. Many are seeking moral advice.

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“It’s very much a ministry of love,” says Henderson. For many members of sexual minorities, homosexuals or transgendered, the first thing they want to know is whether Catholics condemn them.  

“Others,” he says, “want to tell about a bad incident that happened 30 years ago, that drove them out of the church. I tell them, ‘I’m sorry that happened and that you feel so hurt.’”

They are not all lining up to become Catholics, but Henderson is steering some to his Veritas course, a primer on the faith.

Every Thursday, he sets up shop outside the cafeteria at Camosun College. Many visitors are attracted by his welcoming sign, and, he firmly believes, his clerical attire. He’s had students breaking down at his table while other students sat nearby waiting their turn.

“I was able to arrange an office where we could talk more privately. My being a Catholic, being  a man and being a priest hasn’t been intimidating people at all.”

On the contrary, he says, the eagerness of people to talk speaks to “a lot of curiosity about the church – but more than that, to a real spiritual hunger.”        – Steve Weatherbe

April 2008