Priest Finds Peace and Joy Through Surfing

Dennis Mongrain swings his surfboard around in the water, points himself toward shore and starts paddling. As the wave lifts his board, he jumps to his feet and begins to skirt across its smooth, arching surface. His face brightens with a broad smile.

It’s a moment of joy and peace, something akin to a religious experience for Mongrain, who should know about such things because he is a Roman Catholic priest.

“I really look forward to getting out there,” Mongrain said at the rectory of St. Peter Claver’s Church in Simi Valley, where he is the pastor. On the wall of his office is a poster of a breaking wave with the words: “God must have been a surfer.”

“I find it peaceful and actually very contemplative out there watching the sets come in,” he said. “And of course there’s nothing like making a steep drop.”

The 43-year-old Mongrain admits that it is a bit unusual to find a bleach-blond priest with a penchant for throwing surfing analogies into his homilies on Sunday, but this is California, after all, and it’s not unheard of.

There is another surfing priest in San Diego, Mongrain said. But unlike Mongrain, who rides a 9-foot, 6-inch long board, the word is that Father Bruce Osborn rides a high-performance short board and “rips”--surfer jargon for an especially talented surfer.

Mongrain is much more modest in describing his own abilities. Taking a priestly vow of humility to heart, he said he is just happy for the one morning a week he can go surfing. He is not really into radical maneuvers, he just likes the sensation of streaking across the face of a wave.

“It’s a natural high,” he said.

It is also a stress reliever for Mongrain, who heads a parish of about 2,500 families.

A priest for 17 years, Mongrain was sent to the parish two years ago after the assistant pastor, Father David Piroli, was arrested for allegedly stealing money from church coffers and possession of cocaine.

Parish officials testified at the trial that they had found thousands of dollars from the church’s collection plate in Piroli’s room in the rectory.

The drug charge was never filed, however, and the embezzlement charge was dropped after a Ventura County jury deadlocked 9 to 3 in favor of acquittal, ending a two-year criminal prosecution that scandalized the parish.

During the trial, Mongrain went from assisting at the church to becoming pastor after Father James McKeon, who founded the parish in 1972, was transferred to a church in Westlake Village. Mongrain does not like to speak about the case. He only says that it is over, and the church is healing.

More than 1,000 families left the parish during the scandal, said Eileen Slavin, who has worked for St. Peter Claver’s Church since it opened. Since Mongrain took over, she said, attendance has begun to increase again.

The months-long trial left the parish community shattered, she said. Mongrain spent much of his time trying to rebuild the trust of parishioners.

He had a list of all the money collected and how it was spent in the church’s weekly bulletin passed out at every service. Slavin said Mongrain has also done little things that have brought people back, such as repainting the church and installing a lawn where he can often be seen playing catch.

Because he is the only priest serving the close to 10,000 people who attend services at the church, Slavin said she is now worried that Mongrain will get burned out.

He holds two Masses a day during the week, and several more on Saturday and Sunday. Along with that, he watches over the ebb and flow of his flock--deaths, births and marriages--while still finding time to hold pool parties for parish youngsters and their parents, or play on the church’s softball team.

“When people come to me it’s usually about relationships,” he said. “I make myself available and ready to handle what are real tragedies in people’s lives. I try to listen to their struggles and offer my friendship.”

His manner is quiet, controlled and friendly, but he admits that the stresses of the job can throw him. He looks for advice from a friend at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo where he studied, and solace in part from surfing.

The women who work in the church office say he works too much.

“We worry about how hard he works,” Slavin said with concern. “He never lets a call go unreturned. He’s never late for an appointment, and he’s always busy.

“To tell you the truth, I wish he’d go surfing more often. It’s his escape, I think. It’s invigorating for him and I think it prepares him for what he faces every week.”

Mongrain wakes up each day at 3:45 a.m., takes in the quiet of the morning, drinks a big cup of coffee, prays, and then watches news, and, if he gets the chance, highlights from the previous night’s baseball games. He grew up wanting to be a shortstop with the Dodgers and still loves to see them play. At 6:30 a.m., he says Mass.

On a recent Friday, after giving Communion to a handful of early risers at Mass, Mongrain walked into the sacristy--the room where the sacred religious objects and vestments worn by the priest are kept--and slipped out of his priestly robes. Underneath, he wore a colorful T-shirt.

A little later--in shorts, sandals, and the T-shirt--he loaded his surfboard into his white pickup truck and headed toward Surfer’s Point in Ventura. It’s a weekly routine, his chance to spend a few hours in the water.

Once there he met up with his regular surf buddies--a fireman, a jeweler and an oral surgeon. The fact that he is a priest does not come up much when they are surfing. Looking at a tanned, smiling Mongrain, you would never know it, they said.

“Yeah, he looks more like a surfer than a priest,” said Dennis Longwill, 46, the oral surgeon, who has been surfing with Mongrain for five years. Longwill met him when Mongrain worked at Sacred Heart parish in Ventura.

“I think he looks just like anybody else out at Surfer’s Point. I think it surprises people that he’s a priest. Maybe he should get a wet suit with a white collar.”

The small waves, poor conditions and overcast skies at the point Friday morning kept a lot of surfers out of the water. But Mongrain suited up and waxed his board anyway, like he always does.

Along with him was Larry Montag, 42, a Los Angeles firefighter who met Mongrain 15 years ago at Our Lady of Assumption in Ventura.

The pair caught a few of the small waves rolling into the point, and then headed up to Santa Barbara to look for a new surfboard for Mongrain. He was out for something smaller, more maneuverable, looking for a design he calls an “Old Blue,” also know as a “Spoon.”

It is stable and easy to paddle like a long board, Mongrain said, but faster and quicker to turn--more like a short board.

He was “stoked” about getting a new board, he said. And looking forward to getting in the water again next Friday.

“Priests should be men of joy,” he said. “I try to share that with others. . . . Surfing is something that’s exciting for me. It’s where I find my peace and joy.”