Schumacher's saint: Fr. Les Costello, 1928-2002

Catholic New Times, Feb 9, 2003 by Charlie Angus

Ever since I can remember, telling Fr. Costello stories has been a favourite pastime in the towns of Northeastern Ontario. The culture here has always loved the maverick, the-larger-than-life legend--and Costello, who died on Dec. 10, 2002--was larger than them all. If you could supply one good Costello anecdote, you had to be good for at least 10.

And this is how it would go: people "getting into the talking," trading one wilder tale after another. The novice Costello tale-teller was quickly outed for being in awe of his legend as the Stanley-Cup-playing "flying father."

Veteran Costello storytellers had long moved beyond the hockey stuff, just as they'd moved beyond Costello's legendary ability to curse like an Irish barman. The veterans preferred to relate the hilarious and uproarious things that Costello said at so-and-so's wedding, or the comments he made at Mr. Whatchamacallit's funeral. Best of all were the parish Mass tales, like the heat wave, where Costello stood at the back of the church barechested, welcoming parishioners.

But anyone who knew his life in the tightly knit, working-class neighbourhood of Schumacher liked to tell about Costello's relentless trade in furniture, clothes and goods for the poor. Costello played life like he played hockey--thoroughly enjoying a bodycheck to the pious, the scrimper and the doubter. Rare was the person with the guts to turn down Ft. Costello when he was barrelling towards them, looking for help to supply or to move supplies for the poor. If you found yourself dumped on your ass along the proverbial boards, you could count that Costello was roaring with laughter as he sped by.

Which is one of the reasons, storytellers will muse, why the community came together to buy him a brand new pickup truck. More than one stellar citizen kicked in on this campaign to get Costello off their backs when it came to constantly "volunteering" their own vehicles for pickups and drop-offs.

Costello was having none of it. He sold the truck immediately, used the money for furniture and was back to his gang-pressed volunteers within days. That was another thing about Costello, life wasn't just a contact sport, it was a team effort. He had no interest in being the lone hotshot; everybody had a part to play in scoring the goal.

There is something about the coldness of the written page that doesn't do justice to the best Costello tales. They're better when told around the familiarity of a beer or a coffee in Schumacher and South End. So, I'll stick to one, small story.

I knew this woman with a less-than-stellar reputation. One night, in a loud and chaotic bar in Timmins, Ont., she approached me and said she wanted to shove me something.

"Sure," I shrugged.

She reached into her sweater and pulled out a little medallion. A Saint Martin de Porres medal.

I was immediately disoriented. St. Martin who? As far as 1 knew, this girl wasn't even a Catholic.

"Fr. Costello gave it to me," she said, explaining that Martin De Porres was Costello's main man in heaven. "Father Les said to keep it close to me and St. Martin would always be there."

I looked into her face and saw that she was beaming. She was a child of God because Fr. Les Costello said she was. And she knew as well as I did, that there wasn't anyone in that bar, in that town or in that diocese, for that matter, who would have dared step up with a dissenting opinion.

There were probably thousands of similar tales among folks who gathered for his funeral at the "Mac" (the McIntyre Hockey Arena). The diocese made an unprecedented move to hold Costello's funeral at the arena rather than at his home parish at St. Alphonsus because the parish couldn't hold the overflow crowds expected.

That's because Costello's "parish" was a helluva lot bigger than the building where he said Mass. Costello's church was big enough for everybody. The thousands who stood there on that cold day knew it, too. Rich, poor, Catholic, Protestant, believer, non-believer, immigrant, Native--they were all part of Costello's congregation. Costello said they were. And who would have the guts to argue?