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Sharing the gift of Ministry
At Easter, Monsignor Ben Kasteel's thoughts drifted back to those early childhood years and the arrival of the Americans in the occupied Netherlands. A middle child in a farm family of 12, he had not known anything but war, and he did not know that liberation was near on that Holy Saturday morning in 1945. Fear, not joy, was the emotion of the moment.
On Palm Sunday, Kasteel's father had told the family that he would no longer work for the Nazis. That was no small announcement. The family had seen neighbors shot for resistance or disobedience. Meanwhile, the family bomb shelter was a dirt cellar. They were told it would be safer if the cellar was dug in a zigzag pattern, so an older brother was sent to cut branches from a tree to help stabilize the cellar walls. The brother returned, indignant, saying, "The Americans shot me out of the tree," Kasteel recalled. "Then we saw the American tanks coming at noon." He remembers the arrival of the Americans on tanks and the rounding up of German soldiers, who were held together in a pasture. There were Germans in their farm buildings, Kasteel said. "We were afraid because the Americans were doing the bombing," he said. Citizens in Holland during the occupation fell into one of three groups, Kasteel said. "One group supported the Nazis, one group was in the resistance movement and a lot were in the middle," he said. "We children had to do the farm work because it was forced labor for two of my older brothers and my dad. I saw one of our neighbors shot by the Nazis for disobedience."
In military doublespeak today, civilian casualties are called collateral damage. The joke then was that to be safe, "we should lay down between the rails and (the bombers) will miss it, Kasteel said. Taxed heavily by the Nazis, "we learned to steal and hide things," he said. Once when he was sent to the woodshed for firewood, Kasteel heard a calf. Investigating, as any boy would do, he found there was a calf under the woodpile. He was stunned to find his father angry at him when he went running back to the house to announce that there was a calf under the wood. n the cities hunger was a serious problem during the war. "We never had hunger because we had our own garden, but we had a procession of people coming (to ask for food)," he said. A few years later when Kasteel was in sixth grade, a missionary visited his class and showed slides of the mission work in Indonesia. The missionary told the children he needed some help and asked who would be willing to help. "I put up my hand," Kasteel said. "I was the only one." In 1950, he entered the minor seminary of the Marist Fathers in Hulst, Holland. A minor seminary is a junior high and high school program for those planning to go into the priesthood. He joined the Marist Fathers in 1958 and entered their major seminary in Lievelde. He was ordained Feb. 22, 1964. After teaching a year at the minor seminary, he went to the South Pacific Islands as a missionary in Western Samoa, which was much more primitive than American Samoa - no electricity or water system. He was there seven years, with a two-year break spent in the United States. Learning the culture is more difficult than learning the language, he said.
"As Dutch, we learn six languages," Kasteel said. In addition to his native language, he learned English, French, German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and then Polynesian. Since coming to West Texas, he has become fluent in Spanish, having begun his work in the diocese in small churches that were predominately Hispanic. He spent three weeks in Cuernavaca, Mexico, to become familiar with Spanish before he arrived in 1989 at the Diocese of Lubbock, where he was assigned with Monsignor Eugene Driscoll at Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic churches in Plainview. Kasteel became a diocesan priest, responsible to the diocese rather than an order, in 1997, as fellow Marist priest Driscoll had done in 1991. Kasteel has served as vicar general of the diocese since June 1, 1994, making him an ex officio member of the presbyterial council, personnel board, finance council, building committee and the bishop's pastoral team. He has served as rector of Christ the King Cathedral since June 1998. Although patrician in appearance, with a certain European reserve, Kasteel is approachable, with a friendly awareness, Driscoll said. "The people can talk to him," Driscoll said. "He's great for counseling and taking care of people's needs. He takes care of the school (Christ the King) and has done a lot of renovations in the school. He's a good administrator, and he is good to the people who work for him." A missionary at heart, Kasteel found it painful to leave Our Lady of Guadalupe in Plainview. He admits a preference for the Spanish language. Madison Sowder, attorney for the Catholic Diocese of Lubbock, described Kasteel as "a very intelligent, perceptive person. I have served on his committees. He cuts away the fat and gets to the meat of the problem when discussing some kind of issue. He has been very good at raising money for the parish, both in Plainview and at Christ the King." When Kasteel first came to Plainview, he lived in a bank vault downstairs in the building that had been converted into a church. "He lived in it until they got the building paid off before he would let them build a rectory," Sowder said. "Very dedicated is what I would call him." Driscoll and Kasteel have been friends 34 years. They met in Cleveland when Kasteel came on the priest exchange program from Samoa to the United States. Since then, their paths have crossed several times. "He is an all-around person, very energetic and pastoral, always in tune with helping the people and (asking) what we can best do to serve the church," Driscoll said. "As a priest, he was a missionary, and that is still a part of his blood. He has an energy about people, always thinking of new ways to help them, always reading. "He is a big help to the bishop as vicar general. Ben is a keen listener, too, and a good friend." Soon after becoming the diocese's second bishop, Bishop Plácido Rodriguez appointed Kasteel as vicar general, second in command to the bishop. "He is very knowledgeable, a man who has had a lot of experience in missions," Rodriguez said. "He is very insightful on many issues and also very pastoral - all qualities I needed. "He's a humble man who is not going to push himself on you, but is very approachable and friendly to everybody." 766-8724 |