(OSV News) — Days after July 4 flash floods ravaged the state of Texas’ Hill Country — killing at least 121, with more than 170 people still missing as of July 10 — OSV News spoke with Father Joshua Whitfield, pastoral administrator of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas.
A married former Episcopal priest and the father of five children, Father Whitfield joined the Catholic Church along with his family and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 2012, through St. John Paul II’s provision for the reception of Episcopal clergy into full communion with the Catholic Church.
Father Whitfield shared how the floods have impacted his parish community, which counts several victims — including 13-year-old Blair Harber and 11-year-old Brooke Harber, sisters who were vacationing with their parents and grandparents along the Guadalupe River, and whose bodies were found with their hands clasped.
Also killed was their grandfather, whose body has been located, according to Father Whitfield, while their grandmother is presumed dead. Parents RJ and Annie Harber, who is a teacher at St. Rita Catholic School, survived.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
OSV News: The Harber family’s loss has made international headlines. How are RJ, Annie and their family holding up at this moment?
Father Whitfield: The Harbers are just holding each other day by day and getting through it. I saw them last night, and I’ll check on them here in a little bit. I see them every day. Everybody knows them and loves them. They’re part of the parish family.
The tragedy is hard to measure. It’s impossible to measure, hard to even think about comprehending, and its scale is part of what makes it so overwhelming. You’re just in a twist of emotions, from sadness to anger to cold numbness; all of it. What I sense in Annie and RJ with great intensity is just a tragedy which has left us without words.
And when that’s your reality, you have to go back to basics and rely on the very simple, strong truths of the faith, and that’s love of God and love of neighbor.
Annie and RJ and the girls, Brooke and Blair — they’re people of real faith. They were at Mass, they prayed, the girls loved the rosary. They always had a rosary on them at bedtime. Both Brooke and Blair were servers at Mass. And so their Catholic faith was just a real and ordinary and constant part of their lives. So, being hit by this tragedy, they have been forced to rely on that, and faith has been kind of like muscle memory.
And we’ve talked about this — the brain goes in a thousand different directions and asks a thousand different questions as to why. But honestly, there are no answers to why.
There’s only Easter. And so the faith that they have in Christ’s presence, in Christ’s resurrection and in the reality of heaven is that sort of central, simple, strong truth that I was talking about. It’s in moments like this that you realize that all of that is true, and real. And that’s where they are.
OSV News: How many other families in your parish were impacted by the flooding, since this area of the state is a traditional vacation destination?
Father Whitfield: At least four or five families in our parish. We’ve got two boys in our school who lost their cousin, and their cousin Lila was always up here (to visit). She went to Camp Mystic (the girls Christian camp that saw at least 27 campers and counselors killed) for the first time. This was her first camp.
We had another parishioner who had just graduated St. Rita and then Ursuline (Academy of Dallas), which is the girls’ school just a mile down the road. She was a camp counselor there and had to be rescued herself after saving kids.
And we had one of our second graders who was rescued from a tree from Camp Mystic. She was in a tree with other girls and some girls didn’t make it. Her cousin was found three miles down the river, alive, miraculously, but imagine that experience for a little girl.
That’s what we’re dealing with. We’ve got multiple families we’re having to care for, and we need to give everybody the right space and care that they need.
It’ll be a long, long haul, because we’re dealing with a lot of trauma and there’s gonna be a lot of kids with trauma that we’re gonna have to help (them navigate).
This is a multi-casualty event spiritually, psychologically.
OSV News: You’re not only a priest; you’re also a husband and father. Do you feel these losses even more deeply as a result?
Father Whitfield: I’ve asked myself that question. I don’t know if it’s a strength or a weakness, depending on how you catch me at any given moment.
The priest has the heart of a priest, and that’s the heart of a shepherd. And then, in my sort of strange existence, which I’m grateful for, I’m a dad. Brooke is in the same grade as one of my girls. Annie Harber taught one of my girls. And so I’m right there with all the other dads. There’s just that communion that we know what each other, what the other person’s going through as a dad and as a parent, because so much of who you are is defined by your kids.
It’s hard, because I’ve got to battle through that to be the priest. I can’t collapse as a dad in front of them. And I don’t mean that in any sort of performative way. It’s certainly something to feel.
That’s something I’ve learned as a married Catholic priest. It’s just sort of the beauty of the thing. And it’s not, it’s not better, it’s not worse, it’s just different. But it is a reality that being a husband and a father — certainly, there’s an inflection to your priesthood.
OSV News: As a priest, when you’re confronted with that question of why does God allow bad things to happen — especially at the hands of nature that he created, especially to good people of faith, and especially children — what do you say? Or do you say anything at this point?
Father Whitfield: I stay away from scholastic discussion. As anybody who’s spent time with theology, I’ve been in the weeds of (St.) Thomas Aquinas and all his discussion of the purpose of divine will and all that stuff. And I’m not refuting it or opposing it in the slightest. However, I can say that pastorally speaking, that’s not helpful in the discussion, to say the least.
And to be honest, for me to speak as simply as I can theologically and philosophically and biblically on the matter is this — when the question comes, and when the conversation is possible, (I say): Look, God created a beautiful universe, a beautiful world in radical freedom and contingency. And it’s also a world that is broken by sin.
And what that means is bad things happen. In a certain sense, the universe owes us no favors. The universe doesn’t care who we are. No one is exempt from tragedy. And that’s just the cold, hard fact of the matter, right?
So when you ask the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do you have a flood that kills over 200 people, many of them children?” — there is no answer to that question.
The only experience that awaits the person who asked that question is the experience of Job, who asked God the same question. And God basically says, “I’m God.” And Job ends in silence.
The answer is Easter. Because the core of the Gospel is not an explanation for why things happen. The core of the Gospel is the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, suffered as one of us, died as one of us, and rose again as one of us.
This is where there is so much strength in the Catholic faith and the church, and that is we know how to be in communion with the entire church. We know how to pray for each other and care for each other. We know how to pray for our dead. We know how to pray to the saints and ask for their prayers. We know how to go hear the Word of God and come into contact with Christ and the sacraments.
We are not going to forget people, and that’s what the liturgy does, and that’s what Catholic memory does. I couldn’t imagine trying to navigate this without our Catholic faith.
I do know that Christ is present in those girls (the Harber sisters), in baptism and in Eucharist and in faith, in heart and soul.
And as Christ rose again and trampled down death by death, so did those girls.
