Giorgio “George” Castoria was born in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Nicola Castoria, immigrated from Arienzo, Italy, as a young boy to Ellis Island. Nicola grew up, married and opened a small Brooklyn grocery store. He was forced to sell it when the “Black Hand,” as it was then called, threatened to kidnap and kill his only daughter. Nicola died of pneumonia when Giorgio was 16 years old.
So far, not a real laugh riot, I admit, but it gets better.
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One of Pop’s most overused yet endearing one-liners came out whenever someone else would complain, “I’m tired,” or, “I’m hungry.” He’d interject, “I’m George,” faster than anyone else could reply. It wasn’t particularly funny, but it so familiar that its very predictability made it funny.
Pop was, in fact, George. Though his birth certificate clearly reads “Giorgio,” all of Nicola and Angelina’s kids dropped their Italian names to fit in. Luigi became Louis (usually called Louie); Antonella became Dolly, Salvatore became Steve, and Nunzio became “Happy.” Giorgio was George, and always, 100 percent authentically so. There was no pretense, no B.S. with Pop. A Marine staff sergeant and sharpshooter in the South Pacific in World War II, he never lost his irreverence, even when, after the war and 18 years of selling furniture, his career took a more reverential path.
Pop sold everything we owned and moved the family to San Francisco in 1964 so that he could be trained to do the Lord’s work at the Institute of Lay Theology, which was then at the University of San Francisco. In the Catholic Church at that time, a “lay theologian” was an oxymoron, a term to which Pop will take great and misplaced offense when he reads this in the Celestial Chronicle. Pop became one of the first ordained permanent deacons after Vatican 2, sometimes treating Church doctrine with the same deference that he treated proper English. (When he baptized our two daughters, he dismissed the whole idea that an innocent baby could be born into Original Sin with a simple, “God don’t create junk!”)
Pop never asked the question that seems to vex philosophers and most of the rest of us: “Who am I?” He did have a burning question, one that he often voiced in the middle of his sermons, “Who is this Jesus?” Pop’s belief in a loving god was hard to reconcile with his experience. Sixty million people had died in World War II. Segregation and injustice were accepted parts of the world he knew. “Who is this Jesus,” this guy who tells us that god loves us, when we can’t seem to love each other?
Today, Pop knows the answer. Regardless of our beliefs or lack of them, we should ask ourselves Pop’s question: If love is the answer, why do we find it so hard to accept?
Louie Castoria lives south of Half Moon Bay and can be reached at louie@hmbreview.com .
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