.

Facing a Famine of Fatherhood

in memory of Father Peter Carota

They say a country road or city street,
The pavement, stones, and dirt pressed by his feet,
Recall a holy man who passed thereby,
But what of paths where bytes of data fly,
The fibers, wires, or airwaves that conveyed
Good counsel from a father unafraid
To fish for outcasts on the internet,
Bringing them light by night, after he met
The needs of poorest worshippers by day.

These were the starving faithful pushed away
By novelties and wreckage in the murk
Of church renewal celebrating hurt,
While godly health was left for emptiness
In crisis, with scarce a guide to holiness.

O fathers whom your children never knew!
You bureaucrats with nicknames—Father Who?

How beautiful this one who led them home,
Who taught true glories of eternal Rome,
Brought back each day’s refreshment worshipful,
Insisted on strict morals purposeful,
But gently treated those whose vice had been
Ignored or laughed at, and declared no sin.

How faithful to his highest work of prayer,
How wise in fatherly upbuilding care
As champion of orthodox tradition,
Uncompromising in the priestly mission
Impressed by sacrament upon his clay
And manifest in clerical array.
The cassock was his constant pilgrim dress,
In which he crossed a desert of distress
With only heaven’s manna for his food,
Enough for him to bring a multitude
From hungry helplessness to dedication.

When his own end approached, assimilation
Of earthly fare was strength his body lacked.
Though he had nourished others, his last act
Was agonized starvation for the Church
He served—whose failing fathers were his scourge.

He had forgiven all, but died aware
Of double judgment as a father’s share
In errors made by those he ought to lead.
Still, there was solace for his spirit’s need
In younger priests he purely loved and saved
As fathers for the famine not yet braved.

traditionalcatholicpriest.com no longer
Survives to make the famished faithful stronger;
Security now deems the site a threat
To seekers on the strangled internet.

Eternal Father, let his closed lips sing,
Broadcasting whisperings encouraging.

.

.

Margaret Coats lives in California.  She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University.  She has retired from a career of teaching literature, languages, and writing that included considerable work in homeschooling for her own family and others.

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55 Responses

  1. David Hollywood

    Clearly a man of great conviction and dedication. This is a wonderful, almost prayer like testament in honour of his great work.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, David, for your appreciation of Father Carota and of my poem.

      Reply
      • Sally Martin

        Father Carota is truly missed and loved by our family. Would you happen to know if any of his past posts are available for reading on the internet? Thank you, Margaret for your poem.

      • Margaret Coats

        Sally Martin, thank you for your comment, which I just noticed. To find Father Carota’s postings on the internet at present, take a look at what I said below to jd in August 2023. traditionalcatholicpriest.com is available among archived websites at Internet Archive–but usually it shows only his homepage on random days. If you do a search on YouTube, there are a very few videos of him speaking to a group or teaching a class. Best wishes to you and your family.

  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    What a beautiful and substantive requiem for one who truly served God, not bowing to peer pressures or worldly avarice, or modernism in the clerical ranks and laity, all while upholding Christian duties and beliefs. This is a touching tribute to one who fought the good fight!

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Roy. You are correct to note the modernism and other pressures in clerical ranks, which make it very difficult for priests to fight the good fight. And of course, the failures of too many have the most devastating of all results, the loss of souls. What are meetings and protocols in relation to that?

      Reply
  3. Joseph S. Salemi

    Father Carota was not only a devout priest who was dedicated to the Latin mass. He was also an astute businessman (his original work was in real estate) who made shrewd financial moves to help his parish.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Joe, I didn’t know about the skill at parish finance, although I’d heard of the success in real estate. It was interesting to see photos showing Father kept the flashy red car purchased while he was a realtor all through seminary, and into his career as a priest. In business he probably would have traded up for a new one three times during that period. Do you happen to know anything about the website demise, as I described it to jd below?

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        No, sorry. I have no idea what happened to it. But when a webmaster dies and has left no directions concerning his website, it often simply goes into oblivion in the cloud-ether.

  4. Mary Gardner

    Margaret, thank you for your moving tribute to Father Carota. He sounds like a true man of God. I love the line “How beautiful this one who led them home.”

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Mary, the “how beautiful” line is based on Isaiah 52:7, itself quoted in Romans 10:15. A priest is called to be “another Christ,” and nothing could be more beautiful. Thanks for your comment!

      Reply
  5. rohini

    This is a beautiful and moving tribute, I love the cadence of the verse as someone Roy Peterson mentioned it has that beautiful nostalgic feeling of a requiem.

    Reply
  6. jd

    What a beautiful tribute to Father Carota, Margaret. He was one of a kind and I dearly miss his earthly presence. At the same time I’m so happy for him because I know he is where he deserves to be.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, jd, and may he rest in peace. We know he would say prayers are never wasted, even when God has already granted what we ask.

      As you knew Father and his website while he was living (I didn’t have that privilege), I’d like to ask you if you noticed the site’s strange disappearance. I would have thought it vanished because finances to keep it up ended. But that doesn’t explain why I used the site this very year (several years after Father’s death), then began to receive security warnings against it although I could still get there, and sometime later couldn’t find it at all. Evan Mantyk (with more technical skill than I) looked for it and could find no trace of its existence.

      Reply
      • jd

        I know that someone named Jonathan ? who used to help him with the site took over for a year or two but after Father Carota “left” I didn’t visit the site often enough to be able to give you any information. Another Catholic blogger I follow, https://mundabor.wordpress.com wrote about him occasionally so he might know something but I don’t think Mundabor is easy to reach.

    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, jd, and here I tell about DEFUNCT WEBSITES ON INTERNET ARCHIVE. One worthy mission of The Archive is to preserve whatever has been on the internet, and not let it fall into utter oblivion. But Internet Archive does not have technology and resources to preserve everything. It takes webpage photos of active sites on random days, more often if there is more activity. One can, therefore, see Father Carota’s homepage on several days of any month when it was active. But the homepage usually featured Bible readings for the day, not the unique fatherly counsel and information available by scrolling down or clicking to go elsewhere on the site. Most of the signature material is thus lost. Just think if our Society of Classical Poets site should appear with only the photo and titles of two or three posts (with the first line or two of a poem in each) on a few random days each month!

      And thanks very much, jd, for informing me of Mundabor, a straightforward, thoroughly Traditional Catholic blog expressing the Church’s old-fashioned views of issues that concern us today. I’ll ask him about Father Carota’s site. The blogger says to have patience with his one-man operation, and please say a Hail Mary for him. I did.

      Reply
      • jd

        Wondered if you ever heard back from Mundabor, Margaret. I hope you sent him the poem.

      • Margaret Coats

        I’ve not heard back from Mundabor (what a wonderful pseudonym, “I shall be cleansed”). I went back to the site just now and found a different (more distanced) method for contacting him. I wasn’t able to send the poem using the previous method. Maybe I should start over, saying another Hail Mary! Thanks for your inquiry; I’m happy to know your thoughts are with me.

      • jd

        My thoughts are with you often, Margaret, especially if I happen to be attending St. Vitus virtually. I always wonder if one of the veiled heads might be yours.

      • Margaret Coats

        Especially today, jd, I need that faithful companionship to deal with great distress. I thank God that He inspired you to be here, and I will say a Hail Mary for you!

  7. Cynthia Erlandson

    How wonderful that he was a fisher men — “outcasts”, no less — “on the internet.” And the connection you make between the spiritually starving faithful, and his own tragic form of physical death, is insightful and moving. “In which he crossed a desert of distress / With only heaven’s manna for his food” may be my favorite line, with its insightful allusion to the Exodus; but the way you worked the internet address metrically into the penultimate verse was also ingenious.

    Reply
    • James Sale

      Yes, I agree with Cynthia here: an impressive poem, and that working of the internet address in is extremely ingenious and impressive – as I read down I saw in peripheral vision the non-capital letter blaring at me as if some mistake had been made; only to discover another mode of reality had been entered into by God’s priest. A beautiful tribute.

      Reply
      • Margaret Coats

        Thanks, James. With vast numbers of human souls swimming in this other mode of reality, it only makes sense that God’s priests go fishing here on the internet. Father Carota’s address was the bait clearly telling seekers what they would find, and many felt the need of exactly what he could provide. We need many more like him. I hope this portrait can encourage those wanting spiritual help to keep looking for such an authentic guide.

    • Margaret Coats

      Cynthia, thanks for your very careful reading that brings up so many details. There is a real connection here between starvation for faith and sacraments that Father Carota could alleviate for others, and his own death by physical starvation. I don’t know all the details, but reports are that he suffered a great deal. This shouldn’t be the case when bodies can no longer assimilate food. More than 40 years ago, I typed a paper for a nursing student which said that all end-of-life physical pain could be relieved by drugs known at that time. Cancer patients can choose to fast at the end and die painlessly. But recently I was horrified to discover that hospice care is refusing water by IV to patients who cannot assimilate food. Why? I cannot judge motives, but the policy of dehydration brings death more quickly with considerable suffering of thirst. I hope this didn’t happen to Father Carota. But then I recall that one of Christ’s Seven Last Words was “I thirst.” It’s often interpreted to mean “I thirst for souls.” That would have been Father Carota. Again, thanks for your attention to the poem that allowed me this sobering reflection.

      Reply
  8. Brian A. Yapko

    Dear Margaret, this marvelous tribute poem to Father Carota has served double duty – it is both a beautifully moving poem and it is also an educational piece which has introduced me to an important Church figure of whom I was previously unaware. Your piece inspired to do some online research (of course!) to learn more about Father Carota and I walk away very impressed by his devotion to the traditions of the Church, his integrity and his ministry.

    Your poem contrasts and blends imagery of venerable tradition with images of the modern computer age and it works beautifully. The “strangled internet” indeed. And your description “how wise in fatherly upbuilding care” in particular struck me as a distillation of who this priest was. The title itself “Facing a Famine of Fatherhood” took on multiple meanings for me by the end because of the fact that good father figures – whether biological fathers or priests – seem to be in increasingly short supply. And the “famine” metaphor introduces a biblical quality to the poem which is reinforced by the image of the pilgrim on the road and the manna.

    As is sometimes the case with your poems, I feel there must be some numerological significant to the varying lengths of your stanzas. The poem, presented in couplets, could have been structured in any number of ways. Would you be willing to share the thought that went into this particular division of stanzas?

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Brian, thank you for noticing several main points in this poem. Fatherhood is one. As you say, good father figures of every sort are in short supply. In fact, I read an essay declaring, “Bring back the fathers and the shootings will stop.” Fathers protect everyone by exercising their indispensable role in the family. Priests who exercise spiritual fatherhood, as their role in Church and society, enable fathers of families and indeed all men to be examples of godly masculinity.

      When men as fathers both protect and provide, there is far less danger of any famine producing spiritual and social degradation. In publishing this poem now, I think of the challenges to the Church arising from the worldwide Synod to conclude in October. Priests need to be strong fathers in order to guide us through outright evil and murky ambiguity.

      To answer your question about numerology in the poem, there isn’t much. I chose heroic couplets to picture a hero. The stanza divisions make paragraphs, with line-space breaks that are easier for readers than long blocks of verse in which heroic couplets could be presented. But I am thinking of Father Carota as one of many unknown and unexpected men of God who are to be found among us if we look. You may recall the prophet Elijah being discouraged enough to tell God that he was the only faithful person left in a country with a wicked and overbearing king. God said, “No, I have 700 left who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Think of this poem as introducing one faithful father you didn’t know, and have courage! There may be 700 times as many as you thought.

      Reply
  9. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    What a beautiful soul. And what a wonderful poetic nod to his memory. I especially like the plea in the final couplet. Thank you, Margaret.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Susan. I have a touch of yours in that final couplet. You’ve concluded more than one poem, I think, with “sing” or the idea of singing. All I needed to do was echo it with internal rhymes!

      Reply
  10. Julian D. Woodruff

    Indeed a beautiful tribute, Margaret. I had to look up Fr. Carota; and found that our paths nearly crossed: his 2nd assignment after ordination in 1997 was at Our Lady of Fatima in Modesto, my parish church for 14 years before I moved to Sacramento that year. At that, I do remember the gifted linguist Fr. Wagner (mentioned in the the tribute posted by Deagan Funeral Chapels), whom Fr. Carota succeeded at St. Patrick’s in Ripon: Fr. Wagner also had had an earlier stint at OLF. I’m truly grateful Fr. Carota did so much good during his priesthood.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Julian. Father Carota had an excellent instinct (or maybe we should term it, guidance of the Holy Spirit received in prayer) for seeing where the good he could do was most needed. He knew that the poorest needed faith working in their lives just as much as they needed food. And that computer aficionados might be starving for the same faith.

      I did notice your discussion questions on LONG POEMS. Your thought on the matter is definitely worth pursuing. I’ll outline an answer at your Siegfriend Idyll post as soon as I have time. Notice that this poem of mine is exactly 50 lines, and thus within contemporary attention spans, but would be rejected by all the places that say “up to 40 lines.”

      Reply
      • Julian D. Woodruff

        Thanks, Margaret. I hope others will pile onto that thread, before or after you, especially in the wake of your 50-liner and Paul Freeman’s 200-line narrative.

  11. Laura Deagon

    This is a beautiful summary of a life dedicated to the salvation of many. I’m curious how you came to know of Father Carota. I enjoyed the flow of the work.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Laura. Many months ago, one internet search led to another, and I found Father Carota. His website was up but not recently updated, and next I discovered the tribute paid him by Father Nix. That was what made me want to write this poem. I’m glad you find it to flow smoothly.

      Reply
  12. John Deagon

    A beautiful, moving tribute to a true “man of God”. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this work and getting a glimpse into the soul of a true, holy priest. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      This great priest is a beautiful subject for poetry. Thank you, Father Nix, for providing the substance and inspiration for the poem with the prose tribute you wrote concerning Father Carota. And thank you for being one of those whom he saved to be a father to the faithful when his own work on earth was done. Requiescat in pace.

      Reply
  14. Paul Martin Freeman

    This is really wonderful, Margaret. The depth of sincere feeling is remarkable. A truly touching tribute worthy of a truly holy man.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you for that wonderful praise, Paul. I am very happy to think I wrote something worthy of Father Carota.

      Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      May we meet merrily in heaven, as Thomas More said. Thanks for your response, Gregory.

      Reply
  17. Angelica Rodriguez

    Margaret,
    Such a beautiful poem for a wonderful example of what a true father must be.
    God rest his soul.
    Angelica

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Angelica. I’m glad I was able to convey a picture of true holy fatherhood–inspired by an excellent example. And he would want prayerful remembrance.

      Reply
  18. Joshua C. Frank

    What a beautiful tribute to such a wonderful priest! I especially love the imagery of the first stanza describing his online apostolate. It’s reminiscent of what we do here at the SCP with our poetry.

    Priests who even believe all the Church’s teachings, let alone devoted priests like that, are extremely rare. It’s a shame that he was shut down for preaching the truth… it makes me wonder how long before the same happens to the SCP.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Josh, thanks for your comment. Glad you liked my small touch of computer imagery. Isn’t it absurd that good priests who devote themselves entirely to their high calling should be found “difficult” by bishops and other priests? But I know one of Father Carota’s disciples at this moment (when we are desperately short of priests) lacks an assignment and thus has no place to live.

      As you may know more than I about the internet, I wonder if you can tell why a website is perceived as a threat by standard security such as I have. This did not happen to Father Carota’s site while he was alive, but could it be that the site itself malfunctioned when it was no longer cared for? Could a hostile hacker have caused problems, or did my activity there generate suspicion? Just wondering if you can guess.

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        I don’t know the specifics behind that website, but I know the FBI has recently classified traditionalist Catholic groups as “domestic terrorists:” https://americanmilitarynews.com/2023/08/fbi-targeted-catholics-as-domestic-extremists-nationwide-house-gop-reveals/

        Meanwhile, if anyone dares to say the same about the Muslim equivalent, even though there are over a hundred verses in the Koran commanding the killing of infidels while there are none in the Bible or Church teaching, he’s branded a racist.

      • Margaret Coats

        Thanks, Josh. That does add something specific to the reason a Traditional Catholic site might be deemed a security threat. As Maura Harrison spoke in her August 5 poem, the FBI in general lets private companies know what they think, and then lets the companies (including both platforms and security providers) act as they see fit. That gives us multiple layers of oversight, any one of which might interfere with access in varied ways. I notice the Congressional oversight of the FBI (to which you refer) is barely beginning an undoubtedly deep investigation that will take a very long time. We are still in the second round of demands for information. And even if the FBI pulls back or publicly amends its position, the private companies can still do as they like in hopes of pleasing higher authority. All of this, as you say, without any evidence that Traditional Catholic belief and practice promote “domestic terrorism.”

  19. Janice Canerdy

    Such an impassioned, sincere, vividly descriptive tribute to one who served God and mankind devotedly!

    Reply
  20. RoseAnn Trujillo

    Dearest Margaret, this is yet another beautifully, written masterpiece that conveys the incredible, holy life of a very devout traditional Catholic priest, Fr. Peter Carota. A few months ago, Joe and I met a priest, Fr. David Nix, who shared an incredible story about how Fr. Carota save him from leaving his priestly vocation. During a pilgrimage, we witnessed Fr. Nix’s devotion to the traditional Catholic faith. It was so inspiring, healing and very much needed, we took heart when Fr. Nix spoke. This is living proof of the sacrificial love Fr. Carota had in saving souls and it is so clearly echoed in your poem.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, RoseAnn, for giving a testimony of how Father Carota’s work is being continued and immensely appreciated. We so much need this kind of healing and inspiration. And thank you again, Father Nix and others who carry on sacred Tradition as priestly fathers. It is our very life!

      Reply

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