What's Your Accent?

I had to leave Pittsburgh before I learned I had an accent.  I grew up listening to Bill Burns on the KDKA-TV noon news saying, Getta load of dis! and Myron Cope and his Double Yoi! as he announced Steelers football.  At age 20 after college I was assigned to St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimroe, Maryland, to study theology.  I was the only student in my class from the diocese of Pittsburgh.  And immediately the seminarians ribbed me for the "funny way" I talked.

The kidded me:  "Say again I'm goin' dahntahn to git a pahnd of grahnd rahnd."  They were puzzled when I called my classmates yinz guys.  They didn't know what gumband or stil mill or Arn City Beer or jumbo sammich or pop meant.  I told them they were nebby and they laughed, but they didn't catch I just insulted them.

So I began to listen more intently.  I heard the men from New England drop their r's ("Let's drive in my cah to Hahvahd.")  The natives of Bawlmer (Baltimore) made fun of the politicians in Warrshngton (Washington).  The guys from upstate New York would tawk (talk) and wawk (walk) funny, ayeh.  (Like the Canadians who ended each sentence with eh!)  Southerners from Loovul (Louisville, Kentucky) and Nawlins (New Orleans, Louisiana) obviously had a distinctive dialect.

Then it hit me--EVERYONE has an accent, every person has a "funny way" of talking to someone not from their 'burgh.  Listening to NPR radio, I heard interviews with English-speakers and their distinctive accents from Britain, Scotland, Ireland, South Korea, India, South Africa, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Australia.  On CNN were diplomats, movie stars and athletes from every corner of the globe for whom English was a second or third language.  Their pronunciations were very different from mine, yet still able to be understood, and sometimes downright charming.  In his first address to the world after his election as pope in 1978, Saint John Paul II poked fun of his faulty Italian grammar, delivered with a Polish accent.

In my assignments over the years I have lived with priests from Nigeria, India, France, Canada, and South Korea.  Parishes throughout our diocese have hosted priests from a dozen countries, who were studying at Duquesne University or Pitt, or sharing their stories about their missionary needs.  I will admit some were easier to understand than others.  But from time to time I also wondered, could they comprehend my Pittsburghese?

This is a long way of asking for everyone's patience when a visiting priest celebrates the Mass in one of our churches.  You may think, "He speaks funny."  The priest is probably too polite to say he thinks the same about you.

When you think about it, the Eucharist is a structured back-and-forth between priest presider and people responders.  All of the dialog, and the great Eucharistic Prayer, is familiar ritual.  The only real problem at Mass with a priest who has a nonnative accent is the sermon.  This is a good time to reflect for ten minutes that the Mass is primarily about our worship of God through Jesus Christ our Savior, not about how eloquent (or lengthy) the preacher is.

Over the previous three decades, western Pennsylvania has grown more diverse again with immigrants.  In the period from 1880 to 1915, immigrants (and their "broken English") were from Germany, Italy, Poland and Ireland.  Since 1980 we have welcomed folks from the Carribbean, Mexico, Japan, the Phillipines and China.  Walk the campuses of CMU or Pitt and you will overhear many versions of English-speakers.  

In New Castle we are blessed to have Father Joe Pudichery reside at St. Vincent de Paul Rectory in his retirement.  Father Joe, a native of India, has been a priest for 52 years, almost all as a member of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.  The parishes where he has served sing his praises for his compassionate ministry and love of them.  I know that Father Joe retains a particular lilt and inflection from his native country.  Yet he prays the Mass with us and for us with the same fervor and spirit.

Jesus understood what it meant to be a preacher in a foreign land.  Early in his public ministry Jesus left his home town and moved to Capernaum in Galilee.  Philip was one of the first to accept Jesus's invitation to be a disciple.  Philip then invited Nathanael to listen to Christ.  Nathanael's snarky response was, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"  (John 1:46)  In effect, Nathanael called Jesus a "country bumpkin."  But after a personal conversation Jesus won him over.

When Jesus was arrested in Jerusalem, the apostle Peter followed him into the high priest's courtyard.  Here Peter denied knowing Jesus three times.  Bystanders from Judea knew Peter was a disciple of Jesus, because his Galilean-accented Hebrew gave him away.  (Matt 27:73)  Yet the Holy Spirit had the last laugh.  After Christ's resurrection and ascension, Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and preached to Jews from twelve communities around the Mediterranean Sea.  Despite their varied languages, all understood Peter.  (Acts 2:7)  May our every word, conversation and prayer--in a world brimming with languages and accents --give praise to God.