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JAMES MARTIN GRAHAM
James Martin Graham (February 10, 1956 – July 1, 1997) American Roman-Catholic priest, born in Lee, Massachusetts, founder of The Sts. Martin & James Respite in Waterbury, Connecticut. As a child, he had a part-time job working for the painter Norman Rockwell, tidying up his studio. He graduated from Lee High School in 1974 and became the youngest elected official of Lee on the town's Board of Education. He pursued a short career as a licensed electrician until deciding to enter the seminary.

Father Graham attended St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield, Connecticut, and St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland, and was ordained in Springfield, Massachusetts on May 12, 1985. He served as assistant pastor at Our Lady of Sacred Heart in Springfield, Massachusetts, and St. Patrick's Church in Hadley, Massachusetts. In 1989, he won support of then Archbishop of Hartford, John Francis Whealon, to establish the Archdiocese of Hartford's Office of AIDS Ministry (OAM), headquartered in Waterbury, the first in the nation set up with a Roman Catholic priest as its full-time director. He started with a $4,000 grant from the archdiocese and spent then raised funds through private donations, grants and bequests as the operation expanded. The goal was to provide long-term housing for the terminally ill persons with AIDS, as well as HIV-infected individuals, who otherwise might live on the streets or be shuttled between hospitals as their disease progressed. It was at this time, when the ministry was just beginning, that CBS Sunday Morning did a feature story about Father Graham and his work.

Father Graham canvassed Connecticut hospitals administering the sacraments to AIDS patients and offering bereavement counseling to family members. He visited parishes throughout the archdiocese to raise AIDS awareness and to teach tolerance, compassion and caring towards people with HIV-disease and AIDS. In at least two instances, Father Graham assumed legal guardianship over individuals who were too ill and without kin, to make decisions on their behalf for their care. Through his ministry, Father Graham was able to recruit countless volunteers to help realize the goal of creating and operating the hospice that grew out of the OAM and became '''The Sts. Martin & James Respite'''. The tagline of Father Graham's ministry was "Celebrate the Living Years". At the time, hope for living normal lives with HIV-disease was almost unheard of. AZT treatment was still in its infancy and the disease was still a virtual death sentence. "Celebrate the Living Years" became Father Graham's rallying cry of encouragement to people living with HIV-disease and AIDS. On his appointment as the Archdiocese's director of the OAM in January 1989, Father Graham set up his office in the Farrington Building on the Waterbury Green with a secretary, whose husband, incidentally, had recently died of AIDS.

Between the summer of 1989 and the end of 1990, the Respite took occupancy of a compound of former mansions of old Waterbury's Chase family, known as Rose Hill, and other proximate buildings that had previously been medical offices, on Prospect and Pine Streets in Waterbury, Connecticut. Considering the space now made available on the Chase estate, the plan for the Respite evolved into a model multi-stage facility, including independent-living apartments, a 24-hour staffed hospice, a clinic for testing and walk-in medical care, a communal dining hall and professional kitchen, offices and staff quarters, a chapel, and assured dignity in death with a church funeral and burial in a cemetery of the Archdiocese of Hartford.

In November 1989, Father Graham traveled to the Vatican to attend an international conference on AIDS, the first ever, hosted by the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers under the direction of then Archbishop Fiorenzo Angelini. At the conference, Father Graham gained notoriety for speaking up for a British former-priest who had not been allowed to speak because he had AIDS himself. Out of Father Graham's efforts to have the man heard, he was appointed by Archbishop Angelini as the director of the International Christian AIDS Network (ICAN), which ideally was envisioned to be a funnel through which efforts in AIDS research, care, and other news would be shared with concerned medical, hospitaler, nursing, scientific, and religious parties throughout the world. An ICAN Newsletter was published in four languages and distributed around the globe twice in 1990-91.

The Sts. Martin & James Chapel was fashioned out of the basement of one of the old mansions which over the years had degraded to becoming a shooting gallery for area heroin addicts. Father Graham and a team of workers transformed the space into a chapel with a slate floor and exposed brick walls. The pastor of an area church donated an unused pulpit and tabernacle, Father Graham found a solid hickory pedestal and marble top for the altar at an architectural refuse company, and the secretary's piano (a gift to her from her late husband)—all were incorporated into the design. Interestingly, the kneeling angel sculpture which stood sentinel at the tabernacle holding aloft the sanctuary lamp, would much later be reassigned as Father Graham's own grave monument. The Sts. Martin & James Chapel, named after St. James the Greater (James, son of Zebedee) and St. Martin de Porres was consecrated by Archbishop Whealon on January 3, 1990. For the occasion, Father Graham had recruited the help of a well-known Waterbury church organist and choirmaster to arrange for musical accompaniment for the consecration Mass. Every Sunday from then on Mass would be celebrated in the Chapel in memory of all persons who had died of AIDS around the world, accompanied by the Sts. Martin & James Respite Choir, a dozen hand-selected voices from area choirs and choruses.

Dozens of physicians, nurses and others volunteered their time, and Father Graham lived at the Respite with the patients. The Respite was a corporation with a board of directors which included prominent members of Waterbury professional society. Other members of the live-in staff, besides Father Graham and his secretary, were a lifelong friend of Father Graham's, Navy veteran and world traveler, who was the cook, and a seminarian who worked at the Respite on weekends and summers while preparing for the priesthood. In June 1990, Archbishop Angelini paid a visit to the Respite from Rome during which the main hospice residence was christened and named "The Archbishop +Fiorenzo Angelini Residence" after him. Local television covered the event and the Archbishop was quoted as saying that the Respite had become a model to follow for offering shelter and physical and spiritual care "for all". To mark the occasion, David Grover, the Berkshire songwriter and a friend of Father Graham's, wrote and dedicated a new song called "When Heaven Gets the Blues", which he performed at the luncheon in the Archbishop's honor. The song was publicly premiered at a concert to benefit the Respite at the Mohawk Theatre in North Adams, Massachusetts, with Arlo Guthrie headlining, in July.

In November 1990, Father Graham returned to Rome for the Pontifical Council's conference on The Human Mind, where he was presented to Pope John Paul II and commended for his work. He also attended meetings at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

Unfortunately, after investing much money to renovate the buildings, a financial dispute with the owners of the Rose Hill properties, a real estate firm, forced the Respite to find other accommodations. A Waterbury industrialist offered the Elton Hotel on the Green, which was listed for sale through his agency. A lease agreement was reached to retain the Angelini Residence and all else was moved to the historic Elton Hotel by March 1991. Weekly Masses would henceforth be held at Our Lady of Lourdes Church nearby on South Main Street. The Respite offices occupied the second floor suite of rooms overlooking the Green and the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Its balcony, over the hotel's main entrance, was the same from which President Kennedy spoke to thank thousands of well wishers who waited through to the early morning hours to welcome a very late President. Across the hall from the offices was a conference room and a small office where the resident seminarian, a former draftsman, worked with an area architectural firm to draw plans of the hotel's renovation. But the plans did not go far. The Respite divested its interest in the Elton by the Summer of 1991 and Father Graham, his secretary, and the cook all moved into the Angelini Residence. Financially, the organization was struggling to stay afloat.

While all of this was happening, through it all, Father Graham had secretly been battling his own medical nightmare—HIV-disease and MS (multiple sclerosis). No one knew, but his own illness is what drove him to establish the Respite with the passion he had, for he knew that "time was of the essence", and often made use of that phrase in his speeches and letters. But, the strain of his own medical condition and the financial and physical demands of the Respite forced Father Graham to close it in late 1992. All told, some fifty-some-odd people passed through the Respite's doors and called it home for the last days of their lives.

Father Graham retired to Baltimore to live with his secretary, and in his last years lobbied the U.S. Congress to increase Medicaid assistance to needy AIDS patients. He died on July 1, 1997 in Baltimore, ultimately of advanced MS deterioration, but after suffering complications of an infection related to the injection port he had been incorrectly fitted with. His funeral was held on July 9 at St. Peter's Church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts and he was buried at nearby St. Peter's Cemetery, with the kneeling angel.

In retrospect, Father Graham is to be remembered as a pioneer in the war against AIDS, answering the call and filling the need for love and compassion towards persons with HIV/AIDS at a time when they were discriminated against and had little but their own demise to look forward to.

Twin Lion Press 03:35, 14 March 2015 (UTC)TwinlionpressTwin Lion Press 03:35, 14 March 2015 (UTC)