Photo by Alan Cogswell, Riverside UMC, Kezar Falls, Maine

William J. Manseau, D.Min. was recently presented with a Distinguished Service Award recognizing his contributions in the field of pastoral counseling.   Emmaus Institute clinician, Reverend Margaret Hess, delivered the following remarks summarizing Manseau’s accomplishments during the American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC) north eastern regional annual meeting and conference held in Williamstown,MA on November 3, 2007.

First impressions reveal a lot but they never tell the whole story about a person.  It usually behooves us to scratch beneath the surface.  When I first met Bill Manseau over 15 years ago, my first impressions of him were that he was a quiet, mild mannered, unassuming, steady as she goes, dutiful, over-functioning first born male child.  “What a nice man,” I thought then, and that first impression has held true.  The first impression about the over-functioning first born male child proved mostly true as well.  In my opinion only a dutiful, first born could love organizations and committee work as much as he does.  For example, Bill has been the President of the Nashua Interfaith Council, Northeast Region Chair of Legal and Legislative Concerns for the AAPC and Chair of its Institutional Accreditation Committee, President of the Massachusetts Association of Pastoral Counselors, and the Treasurer for the NH Association of Pastoral Psychotherapists, President of the International society of the Apostles Peter, Thomas and Mary Magdalene and Vicar Apostolic of the International Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of the Good Shepherd, President, Chairperson and Representative at Large for the Federation of Christian Ministries, Dean of the Global Ministries University M.Div. program.   

But these leadership roles in the AAPC and in his religious community don’t begin to tell the story of Bill’s interesting journey of ministry.   The rest of the story is the stuff that makes for a docudrama.  You see, by day, Bill is an ordinary committee member plodding through meeting after meeting, but by night, Bill is a Rabble Rouser, plotting the overthrow of Life as we know it on Planet Earth, or at least the structures of traditional Christendom.  The life of the Secret Super Hero began when Bill married Mary and they had three children, which may not sound like a big deal.  But their marriage made newspaper headlines because he was a Roman Catholic priest and she a nun.  They were just living out their understanding of Vatican II.  And why not?  This decision to marry led Bill to his work with CORPUS, an organization of married priests that eventually broadened its mission statement to include advocating for the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church.  Last year, Bill told me this amazing story about attending a wildly countercultural event, the ordination of Catholic women priests, on a boat in international waters by secretly ordained women bishops.  OK, so I’m revising my first impression of the dutiful, law abiding first born.  By day, he’s an ordinary worker bee, but by night, he’s speaking the truth to power and challenging the status quo.  By night, he’s blogging.  (Check out Bill’s blog!)

One of Bill’s great loves is the Emmaus Institute, which he founded in 1984 as an expression of his work as a NH licensed Pastoral Psychotherapist and a Fellow with the AAPC.  The work of Emmaus is broader than its Counseling Services, but also encompasses the National Resigned Priests’ Pensions Advocacy Program (more Rabble Rousing), and other ministries Bill is involved in.

Their son, Peter Manseau, has written a remarkable and well received book about Bill’s ministry journey from compliant priest to one who has continually challenged the hierarchy of the Catholic Church from a position of faithful devotion to the church.  The book is entitled: Vows: A Priest, a Nun, and their Son.  My favorite way to tease Bill is to ask: Bill, who’s going to play you in the movie version?  I ask him this at least once a month, just to see him laugh.  At last week’s staff meeting, David Sundell answered my question and said: “Maybe Don Rickles could play you in the movie.”  As for me and my household, I’m waiting for the Broadway version.  Vows: The Musical, starring Richard Geer and Catherina Zeta-Jones. 

What distinguishes Bill’s service is not the wide range of things he has done, or the sheer number of committees he has served on, or the contributions he has made to the field of Pastoral Psychotherapy, or the radical positions he has taken in regard to the institution who ordained him to ministry.  What makes his contribution distinctive is the quality of Self he brings to his ministry.  Bill has a remarkable capacity to compassionately bear witness to the suffering of others.  He takes on some of the most difficult clinical cases I’ve ever heard of, and wades into the dark night of the soul with these people with an unshakable belief in the transforming power of the resurrection as his guide.  Bill is not afraid to walk alongside the poorest of the poor in spirit.  The guiding scriptural image for his ministry is Luke’s story of the Emmaus journey, where the living Christ joins the two disciples fleeing the tragedy of Jerusalem.  This journey is the model for pastoral care and counseling, for though Jesus was at the center of the events in Jerusalem, he doesn’t assume that he knows what their experience has been but calls forth their version of events by asking “What things?”  He then helps these two disciples who were fast on the road to nowhere to revise their story in light of the reality of the resurrection.  Bill is faithful to that model of ministry, and that is what makes his service distinguished.

Thank you for your many contributions to the AAPC, Bill, and may God continue to bless you on your journey alongside those who need to hear the good news.