Priest of the Party Circuit : Fund-Raising Father Chase Uses His Ins With High Society to Help the Down and Out on Skid Row

Father Maurice Chase calls the cramped, two-room apartment, an annex of the chapel at Notre Dame Academy, his home. His desk is littered with papers and sheets of postage stamps, and on a small table he has neatly arranged a plate of cookies for a visitor.

The walls are covered with snapshots, haphazardly stuck on the wall with Scotch tape, of himself with Gov. George Deukmejian, actresses Loretta Young and Irene Dunne, former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr. Chase considers most of those pictured to be friends.

For it is among the rich and famous that he spends much of his time as fund-raiser for and special assistant to the president of Loyola Marymount University. His frequent appearances on the Los Angeles party circuit have earned him the not-altogether-admiring tag of “The Society Priest.” His name routinely creeps into local society columns; his face regularly smiles out from photos alongside Hollywood celebrities.

To some, his careful cultivation of the canape crowd smacks of star-gazing that is, at the least, undignified for a priest. Others are less charitable, calling him a blatant self-promoter.

“Some people think a priest shouldn’t be out in society,” he says. “And I’m often kind of hurt by that because those people can’t see my heart. They see me superficially, and think I’m only out there trying to butter people up. And they really don’t want an answer. They really don’t want to hear that I spend hours each day praying.”

The furrows in his brow disappear and he smiles broadly. “That’s why it’s so wonderful that only God can see our hearts.”

This morning he is not headed for another society outing, but for Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. This is his other milieu, for if he is well-known among members of the Reagan “Kitchen Cabinet,” he is also a familiar face to the down and outers at the missions.

On Sundays he can be found at the Midnight Mission and the Union Rescue Mission with $1,000 in crisp dollar bills, donated by friends and fresh from Bank of America, stashed in the pockets of his cuffed black trousers. He doles them out to most anyone he encounters and doesn’t really care what they’re used for. “Some will use them for a drink,” he says with a shrug. “That’s OK.”

To Chase, there is no great division between his two worlds, no great gap between the Skid Row drug addicts and the wealthy party-goers.

Everyone Has Heartaches

“You think people that are famous have everything,” he says, “but they’re hungry for all kinds of love and needs. I used to think that those people always lived in another world. But they have their heartaches, and I discovered that I can minister to people whether they’re on Skid Row or the wealthiest people in the world.

“Before I go out to a (society) dinner, I go into the chapel and kneel down and ask God to help me listen good tonight. . . . You know, I’d have more fun staying home and having my own little meal, watching TV or reading. I’d like to think that as a priest I’m trying to help people. I believe that as human beings we’re all aching and hurting; we’re all wounded.”

At Loyola Marymount, he acts as a public relations liaison and drums up funds for scholarships. He also recruits people to the school’s fine-arts council. The friends who know of his work at the missions routinely donate hundreds of dollars.

“I do feel this is my niche,” he says. “It’s not other priests’, but it’s mine.”

Chase drives to Skid Row, starting at the Midnight Mission where men are lining up for lunch. He approaches a few familiar faces, shaking hands, handing out a dollar, asking how things are.

“You got a job?” he says to one man. “That’s great. Well, congratulations.” Out comes the dollar.

“Everybody knows Father,” says a man. “Nobody messes with him. He does this ‘cause it comes from his heart. The men don’t just come to him for dollars. They can use it, sure, but he’s a good guy.”

“He puts a lot of confidence in people,” says Milton Enoex. “He gives you encouragement. He gives me something to think about.”

“A dollar is like a trophy sometimes,” says another man who sits on rolled-up bedding.

The priest spots a young woman walking down an alley with her young son in tow. “Here’s someone I see all the time,” he says. He talks to her, asks if she has a place to stay. Before the woman gets a chance to answer, he pulls out a weathered black wallet and hands her a $100 bill.

She stares at it unbelieving, thanks him, hugs him and continues down the alley.

“It’s the children,” he says. “I just worry about the children.”

Sleeping on Chairs

He suggests going to the Union Rescue Mission a few blocks away to show how the men there sleep at night, sitting up on folding chairs. He pauses to talk to a few, but his money is gone, more than $300 spent at the Midnight Mission.

Jill Halverson, director of the Downtown Women’s Center, says she has known Chase for 10 years. He visits the center every few months, bringing candy, shaking hands, listening to problems, praying for them. He also snaps pictures of the women with his Canon Sure Shot and sends them the prints.

“It means a lot when you’re all by yourself,” says Halverson. “Can you imagine if you’re poor and living on the street, and someone sends you a color picture of yourself? I see him here and at society parties, and he treats our women the same way he treats the wives of the ‘Kitchen Cabinet.’ ”

Chase has asked to see the Union Rescue Mission’s kitchen, and he chats with the cook about the day’s menu. But for lunch with a reporter he suggests Primi, the chichi Westside Italian restaurant favored by studio executives at nearby Twentieth Century Fox. The maitre d’, happy to see a regular client, seats him immediately.

Over Caesar salad and risotto, he describes how he joined the priesthood after discovering that law school wasn’t for him. As cliched as it sounds, he says, he felt a calling and dropped out of school to join a seminary in Washington. He says he hated to disappoint his father, a judge from Dinuba (a small town in the San Joaquin Valley) who always wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.

After seminary, he moved to El Centro to be close to his ailing mother, then to the Sacred Heart Church in Palm Desert, where he became friends with the Eisenhowers and other famous retirees. He came to Notre Dame and Loyola in the mid-1960s, drawn, he says, by the cosmopolitan life.

Breaking Into Society

It was through actress Irene Dunne, Chase says, that he got his entree into L.A. society. His longtime friendship with her was through the late Hernando Courtright, who owned the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

“She gives parties at her home, and through that I’ve met the social set,” he says. “I can’t afford to be paying for those (charity) parties, but I’ve gotten to know all those people, and they invite me.

“And I go to a lot of Jewish parties. Those people have been so nice to me. I really feel happy in that group. They’ve embraced me. I really love them. They are some of the most sensitive, brilliant, compassionate people I have met. They even jokingly refer to me as Rabbi Chase.”

Father Donald P. Merrifield, chancellor of Loyola Marymount, recruited Chase as special assistant years ago. The two met through Chase’s nephew, who, while attending Loyola, was Merrifield’s driver. Merrifield, along with Father Don Kribs (now chaplain at County-USC Medical Center), were role models for Chase’s involvement on Skid Row while both were involved with St. Vincent de Paul Men’s Center, serving the poor downtown.

“He’s extremely good in dealing with a wide variety of people,” said Merrifield, who brought Chase on partly because of his social contacts. “He offers himself for counseling to both the rich and the poor. I have heard people criticize him, that he goes to parties just to get his name in the paper. He’s become well-known, but he’s very conspicuous--it’s easy for a reporter to notice him because he’s dressed conspicuously.”

Merrifield says that Chase “likes to mention the people he’s visited,” and says he obviously enjoys the socializing. “But I don’t have a problem with that,” he says. “He is very priestly in his dealings with people. The rich have souls, too.”

Party-Goer’s Praises

And the rich readily defend Chase, saying they enjoy his company and his work.

“It’s not a party unless he’s there,” says Henry Plitt, chairman of the board of the Plitt Entertainment Group, who has known the priest for six years.

“First of all, he’s a nice person. He generates fun. He’s a man to respect because of the work he does. And he relies upon the people he socializes with to do that kind of job. He’s just a part of this community. And at the parties I think he just plain has a good time.”

Plitt describes Chase’s tactics for getting contributions to his downtown work.

“He writes a letter thanking you for a party, telling you how great it was, and at the same time pointing out that there are so many people who are unfortunate and have no clothes and no food,” Plitt says. “He’s sure you’d want to participate in changing that situation, and he puts a couple of blessings in. So you write back and send it to him.”

Bonita Granville Wrather, chairman of the board of the Wrather Corp., contributes to Chase’s work downtown and dismisses the criticism of him.

“I’ve heard people say that they feel he might be a social butterfly, but I don’t think so at all,” she says. “He’s a very remarkable man who loves people and has done a fine job on Skid Row. I think he enjoys the parties, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve been told he’s a very good money-raiser. You have to be known (in those circles) to be able to raise money.”

Marion Jorgensen, wife of steel tycoon Earle Jorgensen and a longtime friend of Chase’s, says “he tells you what he’s doing and somehow you want to help him. He loves to get around, but that’s because he loves people. He wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing if he didn’t care about people.

“There’s something about the man that attracts people,” she says. “They feel his kindness and warmth.”

Another acquaintance, who requested anonymity, says, “there’s a lot of good to him. But he has human failings just like the rest of us. I think we find (what he does) odd because he’s a man of the cloth. I think he does want to be a good person, but the packaging is kind of weird.”

So why, Chase is asked over lunch, does he sometimes approach society reporters at parties and ask to be mentioned in their columns? Why did he prepare a press packet for an interview?

When he came to Los Angeles, he says, he “was just another priest.” And when he first was mentioned in a society column, “it was kind of fun. I must confess that I enjoyed going to parties and it was exciting to be kind of known.

“But I found that in getting known, it was helpful in raising money for Loyola Marymount. But I need to always come back to the chapel and say to the Lord, ‘I’m trying to please you. I’m not trying to make a name for myself.’ ”

As for the press kit, Chase says, “Every time I go to these parties I see that the (reporters) get a press kit. I really tried to prepare for this.”

He is as good at party schmoozing as any veteran Hollywood agent.

“My style,” he says, “is to find out what other people are most interested in. If you ask people about their children or grandchildren, they can talk all night. I’m always trying to make people comfortable. If they want to talk about something serious, I’m willing to talk about it.

“At most of the parties, though, it’s light conversation, about some movie they’ve seen, friends we’ve seen. I let people initiate the conversation. I try to make them happy when I go out.”

‘A Simple Person’

He pauses a minute, then adds, “I don’t think I’m a very profound person, to be honest. I’m kind of a simple person. I know myself pretty well.”

He beams again, his eyes narrowing to slits through his black-rimmed bifocals. “I love God, I love people, I’m happy in my work.”

In August, Chase was arrested after protesting at a nuclear test site near Las Vegas. He says it wasn’t easy for him to decide to do it. Although he had the permission of Archbishop Roger Mahony, he didn’t make up him mind until the last minute.

“We went out there at dawn and had a prayer meeting and Mass,” he says. “I prayed about this: Am I going to do this? And, they might put me in jail over this. But I just think we spend so many millions potentially killing people. It’s very simple with me. I think that’s something we should stand up and say how we feel.”

He and the other protesters were arrested and brought before a justice of the peace, who asked them a few questions and then released them without a fine.

“I was not ashamed about it a bit,” Chase says. “It was one of the few things I ever did that I felt kind of courageous about. It’s kind of out of character for me. (I’m) not that kind of a militant person.”

If some see his life as pursuit of the limelight, he sees it as a pursuit of something higher.

“If I wanted to be rich or famous,” he says, “I would have become a lawyer or gone into politics. I’ve always been well-liked, I was student body president in high school and president of my freshman class in law school.

“But to become a priest, you’re trying to serve people. So you don’t become rich or especially famous. You just become somebody who’s trying to please God.”