Harry Lennox (2:38)

Father Mike, it's an honor to be with you. Thank you for having me. I'm grateful to God that he would have us have this time together.

Father Mike Schmitz (2:46)

We logged on, hopped on this call, and from the beginning, I just was so grateful to be able to talk with you. And at one point they were like, hey, let's record this, because you guys are. You seem to be enjoying this conversation with each other. And I was just like, man, this is just an honor and I'm really grateful. So just to start, could you give us a little sense of. You grew up on the south side of Chicago. And from someone who doesn't necessarily know your story, My guess is so many people would immediately recognize your face, but they might not know your story. What did either growing up on the south side of Chicago or even just what did the beginnings of your life and living in that place, that location, that neighborhood, teach you about life, people and yourself? How did it bring you to this place right now?

Harry Lennox (3:30)

Yes. Well, it's interesting, you know, I guess an actor's job is really to, you know, to subdue, subjugate on some level their personal story, to play some other story. But mine is dramatic in itself in some way. I was born in a place called South Shore. And very interesting year of 1964, a few months. My first memory really is of the walk down the street with my mother. It must have been April 4, 1965, or 68. I'm sorry, where Dr. King was killed. It must be, because I can't imagine any other. I don't remember going to a funeral for somebody closer. That said, I remembered it being a kind of fraught time. There's a lot of stuff going on. There's a lot of people moving up in a kind of working class neighborhood that had been Jewish before, that had been Polish at some point, Irish. But it was this kind of. The great migration was ending, and there were these three story buildings, and it was sort of the concrete jungle, the asphalt jungle. And as I was coming into my youth, there was like the black power movement was going on. The Muslims, the Nation of Islam had a lot of people on this other street, on the other side of the street, actually the other side of the alley. We had alleys in Chicago where we played, where it was like a whole culture in itself. These arteries that were filled with life and culture and event baseball and all sorts of stuff. And gangsters were around and musicians were around and doctors were around. But as I came into my teen

Father Mike Schmitz (5:13)

years,

Harry Lennox (5:15)

the one thing that was a consistent thing was the Catholic Church. I went to my brothers and my sister. I'M the youngest of four. And I. To a widowed mom. My mother lost her husband, my father, before I was quite two years old. So I never had a father. But the Catholic priests were my father, so to speak. And the nuns were like these kind of surrogate mothers. When we were in school all day, we would go. I remember Father Mike. We would go. When the public schools were closed down. Cause it was too cold or it snowed, we were in school.

Father Mike Schmitz (5:51)

That stinks. That would be the worst, you know.

Harry Lennox (5:55)

But we kind of. It toughened us. It was. I'll walk either way and so on. And, you know, it was hard Scrabble there for a while, but we all worked. We never got on public assistance. We had, you know, a lot of models in our immediate vicinity. And so I remember it being an eclectic, really all black world, except for, you know, 79th Street. I grew up on 77th and Phillips. But on 79th street there was still the Jewish dentist. I didn't know what Jewish was. And there was the pizzeria place and the shoe store. And so soon after it all turned black when I was like 13.

Father Mike Schmitz (6:37)

Okay.

Harry Lennox (6:38)

But I was also going.

Father Mike Schmitz (6:39)

Until then, it was relatively. Had more diversity and whatnot.

Harry Lennox (6:44)

It was moving, right? I mean, my mother used to visit as part of Catholic Charities. We had to visit this lady, her name was Mrs. Wolf, I presume. This Jewish lady who was always moving, that is to say, the boxes that she lived out of for three years. When we would visit her in her elder years, she was always going to be moving the next week. And that next week never came. But there was a lot of stuff like that. You know, there was. The Chicago street gangs were really kind of formalizing at that point. So the Black Gangster Disciples, the Black Peace Dome Nation, the Vice Lords, the Latin Kings, all of this was happening. But we were kind of in this state of grace. Having this affiliation really with that neighborhood and being of it. And we also felt a little bit apart being kind of the only Catholics on the street. But it was a really interesting time listening to the music that was coming out. The modern gospel sound with people like Edwin Hawkins. I remember. Oh, happy day. I remember when that first came out and wanting to know, what is this music? What is this culture? Who are these people? When we would go to. When I was a kid, I would go to Pentecostal funerals or weddings. And people would talk while the pastor was talking. I was shocked, you know, at this relationship with God, evidently, that these. That these people had that looked like me, but that were, you Know, that had a kind of different way of viewing the world. And so it was. It was like that. And then at 13, I went to a preparatory seminary. I had always been interested in the formal sacredness of the Mass, of the liturgy in general, and of the role of the priests. And so I was an alder boy. I was a very good alder boy. I gave a lot of Masses or I served a lot of weddings and funerals and so on. And so I was eager to learn more about it. You know, I thought that I had heard a call, so to speak, and was willing to see if that's what I remember that book of, you know, that story of Samuel that we learned in elementary school and said, hey. The next time say, hey, I'm listening. So, you know, it's never. It wasn't a voice in that sense, but it was like, hey, you should look into this. And so I did. I went. And I was in this new world entirely south, you know, with Poles and Irishmen and Mexicans and. And it was crazy, like a whole new world. And I learned a lot. I learned a lot about those cultures and people, and I learned a lot about performance. And so in any event, that's a kind of general overview until I. Did you.

Father Mike Schmitz (9:40)

Did you live at that prep school or was it kind of a commute back and forth?

Harry Lennox (9:43)

It was a commute back and forth. It was a pretty long time.

Father Mike Schmitz (9:45)

So you still got to be in your neighborhood with that group, that kind of tight knit group of people as well, your family.

Harry Lennox (9:51)

Yeah, it was interesting because, you know, we would go from my neighborhood and pick up, you know, on a bus on the Chicago 79th street bus from Yates. We would slowly accrue black Catholic seminarians on the way west to Western Avenue. So there might be 10 or 12 of us making that commute every day to. What was the dividing line at that time in Chicago on the racial divide? Lie.

Father Mike Schmitz (10:17)

Okay, yeah. You mentioned, you know, you serve Mass. And the priests were seen as probably sounds like good father figures when it came to that, like, speak, Lord, your servants listening, that, you know, Samuel. Was there anything in particular that kind of stirred that desire in your heart to check out the priesthood?

Harry Lennox (10:37)

I think this. I think this. I think that it was the services, the special occasion, the events that we would do in preparation. There would usually be some sort of presentation at Easter, for example, when you crown the Blessed Virgin with the roses and so on. You know, the ritual of it spoke to me immediately. And I think that that's what really drew me in the walking into a church and the solemnity of it were your behavior and your attitud. You know, I'm also a big watcher of Bishop Barron when I get the chance. He said something about prayer being defined as lifting the heart and the mind to God.

Father Mike Schmitz (11:24)

Yes.

Harry Lennox (11:25)

And I think that's what would happen when I would walk into the church now. It would change radically. Father Mike, When I left, sometimes I can imagine inside it was different, you know?

Father Mike Schmitz (11:36)

Yeah, that's great. That seems like just even there's something. Again, Bishop Barron would point to beauty. It would point to that how? Beauty, in many ways, you can't necessarily capture it, but you can only experience it. And that sense of, here's God, who is beauty, who is the source of all beauty in that sense of, okay, we're going into this. Something that's special, this solemn event, this solemn space, this solemn thing. And just kind of, like you said, being lifted up in many ways and just. Yeah. Your mind being. And heart being raised up to the Lord. That'd be incredible. So even though you discerned out, you know, how did that. Or discerned out of the seminary or pre. Seminary prep.

Harry Lennox (12:22)

Seminary.

Father Mike Schmitz (12:23)

How did. Would you say that that formation, that time shaped the way you understood me? Maybe even mom. You mentioned your mom would work or volunteer with Catholic Charities and, like, be of service to the people in your neighborhood. Did that time and going with your family, did it shape the way you understand, you know, calling, purpose, vocation?

Harry Lennox (12:46)

There's no question that it did. At least in my mind I remember. You know, my mother, by the way, was a converted Baptist. She married my father, who was a Catholic from Louisiana, and he was a Josephite. I'm sure you know, about the priest. Very interesting. I didn't even know that until very recently, like a couple of years ago.

Father Mike Schmitz (13:05)

Wow.

Harry Lennox (13:06)

But that said he. To get married, he had to marry a Catholic in those days. And so she converted and she became. Even though he was gone, she was pretty strict, you know, of doing the service. And that's, I think, where I first observed it. We were also, you know, the beneficiaries because my mother worked as a laundress in the parish rectory, you know. Okay. Yeah.

Father Mike Schmitz (13:36)

So you guys had close contact then with the parish? It wasn't kind of just this ancillary thing. It was pretty regular contact.

Harry Lennox (13:43)

That was her job. You know, she was taking care of the priests and doing their laundry. That's pretty intimate, you know, in a certain way. And I would visit her frequently there. Yeah, absolutely.

Father Mike Schmitz (13:56)

Wow. And Was that time again? That time, whether at the prep school or with your mom, how did that shape that sense of. I mean, even if the Lord is like, you know, speak, Lord, your servant is listening to Samuel, and wasn't called to be priest when it came to. I mean, you started acting pretty young in your life, even professionally.

Harry Lennox (14:16)

Yes. Not compared to some people. Some of them get started at like three years old or whatever.

Father Mike Schmitz (14:23)

That's not as much as a calling, as a telling. You're going to do that.

Harry Lennox (14:28)

Yeah, that's right. Fortunately, I didn't have a stage mom. I'm glad that I didn't think about it seriously until I was a little bit in my later teen years and stuff. But, no, I think that it's foundational. I don't think that there's a way to separate myself from it. I think that in my craft as an actor or a director or a former teacher in the Chicago public schools, I taught for about eight years. But that. That is my way of giving, being a service. You know, we used to have this thing on the Quigley south entrance carved in, engraved was ora et labora. And from the very first year, freshman year, we were in service, we would have to go to, you know, nearby places where you would visit people who are mentally handicapped, perhaps, or in recovery of some sort for alcoholism. We would, you know, I have a very good friend, another, Father Mike. Father Mike Flager in, say, Sabina. And, you know, I remember him taking, you know, coming up to our school and teaching us how to really activate service in the community and taking us into the street, you know, the kind of things that. Than any good priest does that you do. So you see how important it is and what they're doing it for, you know, it's usually not for their own aggrandizement. It's for the glory of God, as you said earlier. It is for, you know, for the least of these, as you also say, and as our Lord said. And so I think that that is addictive in its way. That's very attractive. It's very attractive because it's honorable. It's based in a principle that I think is of great benefit to everybody. There's nothing bad about it.

Father Mike Schmitz (16:30)

Right? Well, it is. It's for the other. Right. It's rooted, or it should be, when it's best. It's rooted in love, which is that willing the good of the other, that it's. Actually, I'm doing this thing not for my own benefit. I'm not for any. Like you said, Aggrandizement. I'm doing it for the. For you, for. For the other person's good. Would you say that, you know, even the. The life you've been able to respond to the invitation of God you'll respond to as a. As a teacher, actor, director, a storyteller. Are there any ways that you would say, like, you know, part of that. I see that. I see that acting. I see that storytelling as service. I see it as me offering something to the people around me.

Harry Lennox (17:18)

You know, I had the great benefit of. In preparation for our conversation today, you know, I read what your quote was going to be from Isaiah 61 and 4. I think I wanted to relook at, you know, a man who I had to happen to have had the great blessing of being in his presence once at Quigley south in 1979, Saint Pope John Paul II came, you know, to our school. Wow.

Father Mike Schmitz (17:47)

Wow.

Harry Lennox (17:48)

And I've been seeing. Yeah, that's pretty. Pretty cool, seeing that in 1999, you know, that he had written a letter to the artist. I read that letter, and it's profound. It goes on about how the arts are of service to God, that it's very beginning, or at least since Christians have been approaching it, we have used these great techniques. That's really what aesthetics is, is the perception through the senses, the ability to put into form the great principles and ideas and characteristics and attributes of some greater force. And that it has never been, at least in its Western sense, surpassed by, in my view, as to what Christians have been able to create from that, with that mandate, if you will, to go forth into the nations. And I think that our ability to do that in some small way, in some small attribute through our body, throughout the creation in itself, through our voice, through our intellect, I think is. Is we are being like God in that sense, in that we are creating something more or less out of whole cloth, but that we can put into a form that is accessible to those who are willing to receive it. And I think that. I think I really learned the foundations and the roots of that in the seminary, you know, how to tell stories, how to read literature, how to execute scripture, how to look at it in poetic ways, ways that were beyond the literal. That was really the first thing I learned that I take away. Father Dominic Rossi said that, or maybe it was Cola Torowitz. We had a couple different guys that weren't even priests but should have been, you know. Yeah, yeah, I think it was one of those guys, Cola Torowicz. He said that everything in the Bible is True everything, for example, in the book of Genesis, but it is not fact. That blew my mind. That blew my mind. And so when thinking about Genesis and Adam and Eve and the Great Fall and so on, a kind of way to make it sensible, how to make these huge concepts sensible and perceptible. I think that I was able to see that there was a way to do that kind of work through this craft. And even though I didn't take the orders, have that sacrament, I think I'm still about the business of trying to do that.

Father Mike Schmitz (20:30)

Well, that makes so much sense. In that sense of. Here is like you mentioned that the guy.

Harry Lennox (20:36)

Yeah. Call it Torwitz.

Father Mike Schmitz (20:38)

Sounds like that's a lot of syllables in that name. They're saying that. Yeah. Not everything. Everything in the Bible is true. Is not all historically and factually true. Right. It's not a whole. Like you mentioned, just facts. But there's a. I'm guessing there's that sense of, like, when you realize that and then you get to be a storyteller yourself. Or even when you're a teacher and you're communicating to your students. Here's the power of story is like just to tell a story that's true or in acting, to act in a way that communicates, okay, this is the truth of this character. This is the truth of whether it be the good guy or bad guy, whatever thing or mix is there. When you were teaching, was there ever that sense of here what I want to communicate. I want to communicate, whether it be the power of story or the. I guess what was maybe even the driving kind of philosophy that you would say, when I taught my students or when I show up on a set or when I sit down to tell a story. Here's my undergirding philosophy that I have, or the lens. I'm looking at this. Do you have something that's like. That you would communicate to your students and communicate to us Now?

Harry Lennox (21:57)

I think that. And I don't know that I said it in actual words, but I think that I modeled it or I tried to, which is that any skill set, such as acting or preaching or doctoring is if it's good, if it's sound, if it is of God or has the potential to be of God, then it can explain the entire phenomena of the world through that specific discipline. So, for example, I could understand through a acting lens, through a human behavioral lens. I mean, as an actor, I'm a studier of human behavior. I'm a behavioralist. Right. In most senses, a psychologist, a historian. A researcher. I have to utilize all of those skill sets in order to do my job. And I can understand the behavior of people like Putin or what have you through the lens of studying human behavior. Right. It doesn't give me the totality of ways of looking at him or such other persons. A historian might look at a different way, a poet would look at a different way. But from that worldview of acting and what it's required to do from musicians, it's the same thing. So when I taught mostly in elementary school, I taught music for the most. I taught several things. I was what was called a permanent substitute, a cadre, they called it. But that said, I taught music mostly. And if I listen to Duke Ellington or Bach or Rachmaninoff, I can explain the whole world. I can understand it better. And I think that really, that's what religion does. Theology, philosophy, is that it is a way of understanding the world. And I guess for me, I guess theology really is a way of understanding God. I know that there are many, many other ways, but the stuff that I do in my life as a producer, actor, director, and so on has to be pointing toward an authentic experience of humanity, of being fully human.

Father Mike Schmitz (24:23)

Yeah, well, there's. So one of the things I'm hearing from you is that sense of, like, as an artist, as a, again, teacher, director, actor. One of the things is you get to understand humanity from many different. Well, here's. When you were talking, I was thinking about. I think I listened to an interview with Christopher Plummer. I think I have the right actor who was in Glorious Basters, and he was like the villain in Inglourious Basterds.

Harry Lennox (24:49)

Christoph Waltz, I think.

Father Mike Schmitz (24:51)

Christoph Waltz. Thank you so much. Christoph Waltz. And at one point, an interviewer asked him, like, how did you, like, you know, channel that much evil? How did you, like, play this evil, evil character? And apparently, his response was kind of this. He was flabbergasted, like, no, I didn't play someone who was intentionally evil. I played someone who believed that he was right. And he said, no one as evil because they think that they're being evil. And would this be in a sense of. You mentioned Putin. Like, I can. Okay, like, how. What would that mentality be? I want to get inside this person's mind, not to agree with them, but to understand what is the truth that they're believing, whether that's accurate or not accurate. That sense of knowing the human heart by being a student of human behavior. Is that accurate, or am I missing something?

Harry Lennox (25:47)

No, that's 100% accurate. Before the magnificent Christoph Waltz said that Laurence Olivier said something to the Marlon Brando. Any great actor, really. Yes, any great actor to do their job well, has said or is practiced that when you play the character, character you're playing, you have to, like. You have to figure out something about that person that you identify. You're on that character's side.

Father Mike Schmitz (26:16)

Yeah.

Harry Lennox (26:16)

As a human, as a person playing it. Approaching this. And it becomes psychological in some way, of course, but you have to identify, you have to think or to know that that person believes himself or herself to be right. It might have been Talley, Iran, I don't know. Somebody said, though, once that history is not determined in the struggle between right and wr, but between two rights, you know, and it goes back, really, in some way. It's Aquinas like, as Thomistic in the sense that there is no evil. There's a privatio boni. There's an absence of something. And perhaps that absence of those evil characters that we are intrigued by. You know, that character he plays in Inglourious Bastards is an attractive guy. The devil is frequently attractive. He's the angel.

Father Mike Schmitz (27:05)

People are captivated by his portrayal. Yeah, yeah.

Harry Lennox (27:08)

So I think that, you know, even the Muslims actually believe that the devil thinks that he's right. You know, that they give some credit. But nevertheless, I think that in order to approach the character properly, we have to submit ourselves in the performance of that job totally to that character. Yeah, very interesting. It's not dissimilar from a priest. A priest has to submit himself fully whether whatever he personally believes or holds to be true. Right. If you are a priest in good standing. Yes.

Father Mike Schmitz (27:45)

Yeah. Well, also. Also in that sense of recognizing that when a priest acts, when priest lives, he's living or acting in Persona Christi. And so there's that sense of, okay, that is, I, as Michael Schmitz, is. I'm secondary or even lower on the list to Jesus in that sense of, okay, so how. How can I be Christ to the world and people in front of me? Yeah, right. See, so one of the things that. It just seems. You mentioned that when you were growing up, there was a lot of tension, a lot of racial tension. You got the opportunity to play Malcolm X for years, right?

Harry Lennox (28:29)

Yes.

Father Mike Schmitz (28:30)

Yes. And what was that like in the sense of, you know, because. Because it seems like the arts, it seems like, you know, storytelling, whether it be on stage, on screen, or in a book, even the story, is really good storytelling that the arts can offer. It can offer hope, it can offer healing. It can offer alternative to violence in a community.

Harry Lennox (28:55)

Yes.

Father Mike Schmitz (28:56)

Would you say that there's been some characters or what would you say to that? I mean, what is your reflection on that as the arts offering an alternative?

Harry Lennox (29:04)

I think it's an essential component that is a privatio boni in the black community, certainly on the south side of Chicago, is the absence of a good thing which, if it could be put back, I think it would be a great tool for the mitigation of violence and of many other forms of distress. Spiritually, artistically. You know, people are dying to be heard to say something, hence the proliferation of this Internet age and so forth. But there's no substitute for the real thing, for being in the space of other humans really there. You know, however wonderfully we might dress it up, there's nothing like being in communion with the body of whoever is receiving that. Yes. A kind of sacred space. And I think that a sanctuary. And I think that every community, the world needs it. And I know when it was in the community where I grew up, Father Mike, it was. It was great. I had places I could go listen to jazz. Three or four places. Right. In my neighborhood, can't do that anymore. I could go see a play at three or four playhouses in my neighborhood, can't do that anymore. So this kind of need to express oneself, it's there and it's going to express itself either creatively or destructively. Right. Sadly, in many cases, self destructively or even sadder, I should say, where if we could put a place, a public forum, I think, in an area easily accessible, I think that we would do great benefit spiritually. And without even calling it that, there's this phrase I've fallen in love with in loco dei, in the place of God. So even though we are not claiming to be a religious place, we are doing the work, even if it's not. Even if it's outside of the Catholic faith or the Christian faith, something that is inherently human and dignified because it reflects its creation. And I think if we had a place to express that reflection, it would be a better place all around for everybody. Everybody.

Father Mike Schmitz (31:37)

Well, and what I hear you describing is two factors. One is because you're having the ability to tell stories, people have the ability to participate in revealing a story. So in a theater or you mentioned jazz, there's some coming together and creating something which is so, as you mentioned before, is so human, but also divine.

Harry Lennox (31:58)

Right.

Father Mike Schmitz (31:58)

It's one of the ways we image God in the world is by creating. Because here's God the creator. But also, you had said, a place to come together and experience it at the same time. If everyone, if we're, you know, we can. Here's what I'm getting at is I can experience someone's movies, a TV show, your stuff on my phone or on a mini screen in my house, but to come together in a space where here's the creativity, here's the part of, like, here's truth, goodness, beauty, the brokenness of the world is revealed and we all get to experience it at the same time.

Harry Lennox (32:34)

And.

Father Mike Schmitz (32:34)

And it's like you're saying in your community like this, these are the people that you live with. These are the people that when you walk out the doors, you might go back to your own families or your own homes or your own apartments or wherever, but you had this shared experience. And that has the power to transform.

Harry Lennox (32:53)

Yes, we've seen it. You know, it'd be one thing if it hadn't worked, but I mean, the church itself is evidence of it. Right. You know, when they were forging their way through the wilderness of the American west and so on, winter storms and the Donner Party and all, they found a Catholic mission, right? These people would be able to find a place where nobody was trying to do anything but be brotherly and to have love. Right? And so I think that that's evidence and we've seen it in a far more sort of real, that is current way in places like Brooklyn and New York, where your brother lives, I think. And that was, you know, at one point, Brooklyn had more empty space than any city. It was the fourth largest city of such kind of place. Now you can't afford to like it. I live in Central park area. I can't afford to live in Brooklyn. So that art came, the arts came, Brooklyn Academy of Music came, the Berkeley center came, Theater for a new audience came there, and it transformed the neighborhood. Restaurants sprung up. I've seen it in Chicago. I've seen it. So why not on the south side of Chicago?

Father Mike Schmitz (34:05)

Well, and that's what leads that led you to. You developed specifically the Lillian Marcy center for the Performing Arts. Could you. So we're kind of alluding to this, this place, the Lillian Marcy Center. But could you say something about that project and, like, how it started and how it's going?

Harry Lennox (34:23)

Yes, the Lillian Marcy Center. I do believe that it was put into my heart. My spirit started out really as a kind of home for a theater company in Chicago that I've long been associated with, called Congo Square but before Congo Square, there were other theater companies all over the country, black theater companies, to wit, that did not have a residence, did not have a place to call home. And I thought it would be interesting to build it in places like Los Angeles. And I looked around other places, but it seemed to me that its natural fit would be at home, my home, where a lot of it was born in the first place. You know that if you think about the blues that Chicago's iconic for, you think about the kind of black arts movement of the 60s where writers like Lorraine Hansberry and all of these people come from there. Sam Cooke comes from Chicago, like these great artists come from Chicago. And in the old days, they always came home to Bronzeville. There were places where they would make a point. No matter if they were playing the Airy Crown or the Orpheum or what have you, they would go home and play the Regal or some other type of place. And it emboldened us. It made us proud to know. When I was a kid, by the way, Muhammad Ali lived not too far from me. I was.

Father Mike Schmitz (35:53)

I understand that.

Harry Lennox (35:54)

Yes.

Father Mike Schmitz (35:55)

Yeah.

Harry Lennox (35:55)

So we thought. I think God helped me to think that restoring that, knowing what it had done before, but doing it even better to make it long lasting, to take an institutional approach to it with the help of private funding and corporate funding and public sources and individuals, that we could create a long lived sacred space, so to speak, centered on the culture that we created. And we give away to our detriment all the time. For example, it would be crazy if the Saudi Arabians had to go to Iraq to get their oil. But we do, you know, that's our oil. That is our resource, that is our creation. We have to go someplace downtown or uptown or across town to enjoy the fruits of our labor. That doesn't make any sense at all. So I know, I've seen there is evidence that even though it's an act of faith, a foolish, quixotic mission, I've

Father Mike Schmitz (37:04)

seen it work well, and it seems like it is that. I mean, going back to John Paul ii when, as Karavojtywa in, you know, Communist occupied Poland, what did they do? They, they told stories, they put on. They wrote plays, they put on plays. They. They had the performing arts in that sense of. Because why? Because art drives culture. It has ability to drive culture. And to be able to say, here is a place in Southside, in Bronzeville, to be able to, like, this is a culture, is a culture, to be able to tell stories in this culture that you get to tell stories, you get to come and see these and experience these, this art and this culture in such a way that, that you can a. Like you said, you can be proud of. But also it's transformative and there's something about that. Like you mentioned, you're mentioning the liturgy and many times, like the Mass, it's meant to be transformative. We don't go and watch the Mass. We're drawn into it and supposed to actually change our hearts. Imagine similarly on maybe more human level, but also it taps into our souls. When you experience that beauty or, you know, the power of story, it has the ability to change our minds, to change our hearts and to change our lives. You mentioned that it's happened before. So like say Bronzeville, if someone were to say, I don't know, I just don't know if we could, we should invest in arts and culture. I don't know if that makes sense in any under resourced urban community. I don't know if it makes sense in a place like Bronzeville. How would you respond to that?

Harry Lennox (38:41)

Well, I would have a two pronged attack on that one, Father Mike. I would say the first thing is

Father Mike Schmitz (38:47)

that not a defense, two prong, attack,

Harry Lennox (38:52)

defense. I stand.

Father Mike Schmitz (38:53)

I like the attack part. I mean, it's like, yeah, someone's going to say that. Like, no, here's what we got.

Harry Lennox (38:58)

My wife and I the other day were talking about there was a book written called King Warrior, Magician, Lover. I was telling those are the four kind of Jungian archetypes or whatever. But I thought king first. But I think we agreed on Warrior. I'm a warrior.

Father Mike Schmitz (39:13)

Yes, yes. So this is a two pronged attack from the warrior.

Harry Lennox (39:17)

Two pronged attack. The first thing is, what are you looking in terms of a return on your investment? A better community, a better world, more peace, more holistic healing, a curative, restorative source of good that has effects far beyond its monetary value. And the second thing would be, which is, I think inarguable. The second thing and that we have evidence for. We've done some research. You have to hire a bunch of people, Father Mike, to start to pitch to banks and investors. They do all kinds of assessments in that, right? How much money is in a neighborhood, how much money to be expected to, how much is the average income, so forth. And then my answer would be, well, the details are in on that. It's worked in all these other places. It's worked in Chicago. Just it hasn't been tried here. The second thing is that I think it is imperative that we show that there is a monetary return on investment. I think that we do have some indications of it, because if it weren't valuable, why would we be getting robbed of it, so to speak? But I've seen the restaurants in New York, the theaters in New York with plays of all sorts from all sorts of communities, supported by every demographic in that community. I just finished a run on Broadway this past summer and fall, and it sold out. The Helen Hayes and all of this and rebroke records at the Steppenwolf Everywhere. A black play about a kind of Chicago political, religious family, you know, modeled on a somewhat famous family, people say. But that said, I know that there's commerce for it, business for it, because people are going to it. I saw them. I'm gonna be in Chicago soon directing another play. Every time they do a play at the Goodman, it's August Wilson play, a black play, whatever does bananas, does great. And so I think that the proof is there. We just, you know, what we have lacked is the proper environment to grow the culture, is the proper space that has the proper amount of sunlight and the proper, you know, there's that parable, of course, Jesus throws the seeds and one is a bramble of weeds. So we've been. I think there's a bramble of weeds here, if you will. But people are de. Weeding. And I think there's a thing that really makes this take root is that it's the right size, it's the right place, it's the right idea. We've thought well about it, and we want to make it known that this makes business sense and spiritual sense. And I think that we won't need many years to prove that, I don't think.

Father Mike Schmitz (42:17)

Yeah, well, it seems like, as you've already said, there's evidence of this in other places. You've done the feasibility, all that. And also there is something. So it just seems like, okay, I mean, even I think of even the term urban, whatever, here's where we are in the city, that sometimes, in my mind at least, maybe I could be wrong because I haven't lived in big, big cities too often, is. It can be less than human in the sense of just like, okay, we've got buildings, we've got cars, we got activity, as opposed to. I mean, your experience living there. It's like, no, this on this, in this neighborhood. This was home. This was family. This was human. And to be able to say that's also the place where stories happen and to be able to invite people to our home because here's the neighborhood. And to say we're inviting them to our home, we want to tell them stories. And so whether they come from out into the neighborhood or they come out of the neighborhood and they're like from the neighborhood, you're inviting them into your home to tell stories. And that's bring them together. Human and divine.

Harry Lennox (43:38)

Points to it's good everywhere it goes. There's no downside to its presence on the north side or across town or in the suburbs. There's no bad to it outside of the community and there would therefore be no bad for it inside of the community.

Father Mike Schmitz (43:58)

Right, right.

Harry Lennox (43:59)

Community that needs as much help as it could get. Right.

Father Mike Schmitz (44:02)

So the Catholic initiative that sponsors this podcast, they're investing in the Josephine Academy in Chicago. I don't know if you know anything about the Joe, but it's a school that has a pretty long legacy in providing a quality arts education to girls. It's a girls school, the Josephinum, from primarily low income backgrounds. I mean, I don't want to reiterate the same question, but. So here's the Josephinum, here is your performing arts center. Why do you believe that this investment in the arts should continue? Or why is it so crucial, especially in low income communities? Not just anywhere in the world. But why is it so crucial, especially in this neighborhood?

Harry Lennox (44:45)

You know, there happened to be at Quigley a guy named Father Robert Bridge who got me into the theater. He took me to my first professional play and it was called Fiorello. But, you know, giving Fiorello, it was about Fiorello LaGuardia, a musical out in Lake Forest. Man, that was a whole new world. Talk about culture shock. But that is the kind of relationship I think that's important at an early age, early exposure, and to be able to meet people where they are. If there are these young ladies who are interested in it and using it properly, through whatever form of service they go, whether they go on to take their orders or whether they are teachers or wives or mothers, whatever endeavor, we can be enriched through the proper instruction in the arts. And I think when it is focused, when the people coming to the art, to the place has an agenda, has an intention, they know what they want, they know how they want to take what is there to improve for others, for themselves, something, then I think it's essential. And as I said, you know, not just St. Josephine, you know, we want a relationship with them and with Leo Catholic, I know those boys that there's a sister school where my brothers went to high school. Leo Catholic High School have a band that's doing quite. Or choir that's doing very well, for example, look, imagine giving that choir access to the Morehouse Marching Band. The FAMU marching or, you know, the Boys Choir of Heart. Whatever. The greatest. Whether it's not. It doesn't even have to be something. So, you know, predominantly black. You could take them down to the Lyric Opera. They should have access.

Father Mike Schmitz (46:47)

Yeah.

Harry Lennox (46:48)

To know through proper instructions, showing them what they're looking at and so on. That kind of instruction is essential. And I think, as I say, it's rated G. Everybody, everybody benefits, everybody.

Father Mike Schmitz (47:02)

Yeah. Well, that's the thing, too, is that so often when we're talking about these things, what you said, the opera or theater, that sometimes people think, well, that's kind of hoity toity. That's kind of like for a certain kind of person. As opposed to like. No, that's just for all of us. It's again, every one of us made in God's image and likeness is made for that more. We're made for that story. We're made for encounter. But here's. I think this is fascinating. I don't know if you'd say this, but it seems like you do not lack work, that you seem to be at the height of your career in the performing arts, that there's no lack of stuff for you to do. And yet here in the middle of. You could be acting, you could be directing, and you are. But you also, in the middle of that, have chosen to give back. And not like from a distance, you know, not just like writing a check, but with your time and involvement. And what was it in you like, this podcast is called called and so at what point were you like, okay, I'm doing this work. I'm doing the work that I, you know, dedicated my whole life towards. What was the thing, the initiative, the impulse that you're like, you know what? I need to. This is the time that I need to start giving back in this way.

Harry Lennox (48:31)

You know, I think rather coincidentally, it came around the time that my wife and I got married, because I know it was the same around the time I met her. 2007. I have the first document of my idea for AMPA, the African American Museum of the Performing Arts, which is really the institution that I want the Joe to have the relationship with, because its job will be to archive, instruct, and so on. But I think it came from the, if you will, the fruitful potential of marriage. And when a guy gets married, you start thinking about the next generation. Do you not. And so I think, well, how would you know? I'm asking a priest.

Father Mike Schmitz (49:17)

I'm acknowledging. I can imagine.

Harry Lennox (49:20)

I'm kidding you. That's what I think. Properly done, it should make you think. Of course, that's really the natural consequence. And so I think in terms of giving to the next generation, it got solidified there. I had always wanted to be of service and always thought in some way that I was being a model of. Of a dignified, you know, black actor who had a career that was interesting. But on the other point of it, you know, you say I'm giving back, sacrificing my time. You'd be surprised at how much downtime I have. Father Mike.

Father Mike Schmitz (49:57)

It's crazy.

Harry Lennox (50:00)

That's funny.

Father Mike Schmitz (50:00)

No, that, that. But it sounds like here, the transition going back to the Jungian archetypes of the warrior to the king, that sense of, like, no, I wanna. Okay, it's not just enough for me to go out and fight and come out and do the thing. I wanna be able to hand something on. I wanna be able to. Yeah. When I'm gone, or even not before you're gone, I want to do something that lasts. That's beyond me and that makes so much sense. And I think there's something in that goes back maybe even to your discernment of the priesthood in that sense of. Or any Christian's discernment of God, I think. I don't know if this is your experience, but a lot of us were like, okay, I'm going to pray. Why? Because I want to be holy. I'm going to pray. Why? Because I want to be a saint or because God's calling me to pray. But at one point, this, again, this is part of the drive of this podcast, is at one point, it's okay, this isn't just for me. God isn't just calling me for me, he's also calling me to be a gift for others. And one of the ways, I like to think of it like this is the first movement is God or Jesus. I don't want to let what you did for me go to waste on me. So I'm going to let you make me holy. Draw me closer to yourself. But that next step, I think, is God. I don't want to let what you did for me stop with me and Harry. I wonder if that's part of this sense of, like, you meeting your wife and like, okay, let it not stop with me.

Harry Lennox (51:30)

I think that that's beautifully put. Thank you. That gives me a way of putting it Going forward, actually, let it not stop with me. I remember asking Father Mike Flager, my friend, my friend, I happen to be a Jewish fellow. My publicist was dying, you know, he Stage 5, a couple of weeks to live, and he wondered. He's like, why me? Why me is a valid question. Right question, young man. But, you know, relatively. And I asked Father Mike, I said, I need some help, man. Help me to answer this man's question. He's not going to take the old band aid on the wound thing. This is a deep question. He said, well, at some level, man, listen, we all have a story. We all have to travel that road, and this is a marathon. He said, life is a marathon, and it's a baton race.

Father Mike Schmitz (52:29)

Yeah.

Harry Lennox (52:29)

Oh, you're just passing this long road on to the next generation, I think. Father Mike, you also mentioned, I think about. We were talking, I think offline about the Great Commission. What does God. What does Jesus say? He said, he's not there to take it on himself. He has to put these 12 dudes.

Father Mike Schmitz (52:49)

Yeah.

Harry Lennox (52:50)

You go out there. Yeah. Or however many was at that time. Yeah, yeah, you go. You do it. He said, you're gonna do greater stuff than me.

Father Mike Schmitz (52:58)

Yeah.

Harry Lennox (52:59)

I'm a licensed preacher, by the way. I don't know if you know that. I didn't know that the Kojiks licensed me to do so. Anyway, I'm a Catholic. You don't have to worry about it. But that said, I have given a few sermons or, if you will, homilies, and, you know, I have to exegete things from time to time. And I've written actually a movie called Revival, which is actually the Gospel of John set to gospel. So it does precisely what we're trying to do with the Lily of Mercy. It is a gospel fantasy of the Gospel of John.

Father Mike Schmitz (53:38)

Has it been produced?

Harry Lennox (53:39)

Yeah, it's produced. It's been out. I released it myself. I couldn't get any help from the secular Hollywood world. But I would love for you to see it.

Father Mike Schmitz (53:48)

I would love it. Revival.

Harry Lennox (53:49)

Yes. And one needs a mission, even if it's never stated, to carry forth to this stage of their life. I don't think that I'm going to find a more critically important vocation. This is it. This is now my crusade.

Father Mike Schmitz (54:15)

Yeah, well, and that makes sense. That sense of here. Here is this lifetime you have of theater in the arts, telling stories and saying, okay, what would make the biggest impact? You know, some could be like, here's another. Here's a new story like Revival. Here's another thing you're going to direct or produce or act in. But there's also that sense of if we were to have this Lillian Marcy center, and we were able to. For the performing arts and be able to have. It would change the community, it would change the neighborhood. You mentioned the other place, amp, what's it?

Harry Lennox (54:48)

Ampa. African American Museum for the Performing Arts.

Father Mike Schmitz (54:53)

Gotcha. African American Museum for Performing Arts. That's so important for us to highlight, too, because that's just. Again, it's changing culture. Second to last question I got for you. I don't want to cut you off at all here, but in all of this, you're responding to this, I would say, a call. Right. That sense of 2007, you have this sense of, like, there's got to be more. I want to give, I want to serve, I have a mission. How would you. How or how do you define success when, like, the full impact of what you're doing might not be seen in this lifetime, like, you know, handing on the baton and you might not see where it goes from here? So how do you define success in the midst of. Of what might not be visible fruit?

Harry Lennox (55:45)

I think to remain. I would define success as without. With minimal negative collateral damage in the pursuit of one's calling.

Father Mike Schmitz (56:01)

Yeah.

Harry Lennox (56:02)

That is without hurting anybody or hurting them to the minimal degree.

Father Mike Schmitz (56:06)

I like that. Minimal collateral damage. First do no harm, and then first do no harm.

Harry Lennox (56:12)

Right. Hippocrates, I believe. Yes. But in the pursuit of one's vocation, that one remains relevant for past their own time, so into the next generations, however long that may be.

Father Mike Schmitz (56:31)

Right.

Harry Lennox (56:32)

You know, I was in Japan once. I went and took some time to go to the Kabuki theater. A fascinating place. Mind blowing.

Father Mike Schmitz (56:40)

I can imagine.

Harry Lennox (56:41)

But those families have been doing that for 900 years. They have entire dynasties of actors who've been doing kabuki for that long. Right. So I want the best. So for me, success would be to create an institution that goes on for 900 years, right? Yes. That's what I want.

Father Mike Schmitz (57:05)

With minimal collateral damage.

Harry Lennox (57:07)

Yes. And if I could be associated with minimal collateral and if I could be associated in some small way with it and therefore. Therefore live through it as it were, then that, to me, is a rousing success.

Father Mike Schmitz (57:22)

But that is that sense of here is this thing that lives on, that does good in this world, that does good in the south side, that does good in our country, our culture. Thank you for that answer. And I'm laughing at the minimal collateral damage part, but that actually is pretty critical. Like, I'm like, oh, that's very important

Harry Lennox (57:47)

because somebody's gonna get hurt whatever you do. Right?

Father Mike Schmitz (57:51)

Yeah. I'm gonna charge ahead regardless of what happens, that happens to people.

Harry Lennox (57:56)

Do you think. Let me just ask you this question before you ask me the last question. Do you think that in our time, is there ever cause to be glad that a bad thing happened or collateral damage happened to a bad person? Do you think is it ever good to root for the. For a bad or a justice of some sort?

Father Mike Schmitz (58:17)

Right. I feel like I'm being put in a corner here. No, I would say, well, here's what I think. I think that. So Scripture says that the Lord God says, vengeance is mine. And so there's that sense of for the destruction or for the end of oppression. Would you say, yeah, I want to root for that. For someone who's. Here's what I think might be a particular example of the broader Christian worldview. For this, I'm going to forget his name. I think it's Rudolf Hess. I could be completely wrong, but Rudolf Hess, if I have the right guy in my head, he was a commandant in one of the concentration camps. And so he perpetrated and perpetuated the incredible evil that was happening in the concentration camps and throughout Nazi Germany. At one point, the war ends, he gets arrested, and he is condemned to death. And so, like, there you say, okay, justice. Here's justice. Here's this man who was directly evil and also in an ancillary way, was or directly impacted evil, did evil, and in an ancillary way, perpetuated it. He's experiencing justice. And so we'd say, yes, that is what, you know, in some ways, that is what should happen in that sense of, here is a person who's committing evil, who's being stopped. And at the same time, he had begged for a priest to come hear his confession before he was killed, before he was executed. And in fact, the story is that no priest was willing to come to his. His cell. It was like they asked the person, a priest after priest, and they went, only one. He was a Jesuit priest who had broken into his concentration camp to serve his brothers, his brothers in the priesthood. And Hess had let him go. And so this priest said, you know, he let me go. I need to go see him. Went, heard his confession, gave him the last rites and everything, and he died the next day. Or I think he was executed the next day. And we would say, I think this. I think that both of these things are scandalous. The great desire for justice is in some ways scandalous, but also the incredible outpouring of mercy. I know people who have heard that story and their instant response is anger, like rage, that, wait, this guy who did so much evil that God would give even him the opportunity to be forgiven? The answer is yes. So in some ways, I would say the whole thing, Right. I would say, yes, we desire this justice, but we can't desire justice at the expense of mercy. But what would you say?

Harry Lennox (61:05)

Well, Shakespeare, I think, said it the same way, didn't he? He said, in the pursuit of justice, don't abandon mercy.

Father Mike Schmitz (61:13)

Right.

Harry Lennox (61:14)

He says, remember only. Yeah. So anyway, I think that that's what I would prefer.

Father Mike Schmitz (61:20)

Yeah.

Harry Lennox (61:21)

And so on. So I think at the end, though, Shakespeare says justice comes first, but I think the point of view of the church is that mercy comes first. I'm always. You know, by the way, I love your saying the rosary with you. And I love the fathom of prayer.

Father Mike Schmitz (61:37)

Yeah, yeah.

Harry Lennox (61:37)

In particular, where it says for all souls to go to heaven, especially those most need of thy mercy. That's an amazing thing. You know, it's not always easy for me to say that part.

Father Mike Schmitz (61:50)

Yeah. Think about. I really appreciate you highlighting that because that is at the heart of what we're doing, which is like, okay, I love this definition of mercy. Definition of mercy is at least. I don't know if I read it or I came up with it, or I cobbled together, but mercy. Thomas Aquinas said that mercy is the highest love that God can offer us because it's the love that we need the most but deserve the least.

Harry Lennox (62:14)

Wow.

Father Mike Schmitz (62:15)

And so that sense of even praying, like you said, the Fatima prayer, especially those who have most need of thy mercy, and that sense of, oh, that also implies those who deserve it the least. Who am I praying for? Those who need it the most and deserve it the least. And I'm afraid sometimes I fall under that category. But also, I'm grateful that I fall into that category because that's the depth of God's love, man.

Harry Lennox (62:43)

Yes.

Father Mike Schmitz (62:43)

Yeah. Thank you for. This is like, really? I'm just. I'm gonna go pray with this after.

Harry Lennox (62:48)

After.

Father Mike Schmitz (62:48)

After this conversation. Harry, last question. So we usually ask this question at the end of every podcast. You have been responding to a call from the Lord for your whole life. I mean, just saying, yeah, if God. If you're calling me here, I'll go here. If you're calling me here, I'll go here. And you've responded to this call for the last. You know, almost. Almost 20 years. What would you say to listeners who feel a desire to give back, but they don't know where to start?

Harry Lennox (63:26)

You know, Mike, that's a great question. And I guess that I'll have to go back to Scriptures, which says that charity begins at home, and I need to hear that, too. My wife actually happens to be in hearing distance. And so I'll say this in front of her as well, as it were. But we have to remember to be kind to those who are closest to us, to be most merciful and patient with those who are most in proximity, physical proximity, also in identity and so on, to try to understand them first and to have that conscientiousness, to be patient and kind and so on. Right. And then I think it goes out from there. Next, then, is your broader family, your friends, your neighborhood, your colleagues, your cohort in general, your city.

Father Mike Schmitz (64:23)

Yeah.

Harry Lennox (64:25)

And ultimately, if it's correct enough, it'll be for all people who experience it. You know, it's one of the things, I think that's amazing about aa. For example, I was talking to my good friend David Schwimmer, with whom I went to Northwestern. Also recently, he said that the Jewish religion. We were doing this conversation between blacks and Jews, a documentary that's going to be coming out soon, I guess. He says it's the only religion that doesn't actually go out and proselytize. It's not trying to convert people to it. Right. And I say the same thing to some extent about. Not the same quite, but Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not advertising. They do not promote themselves. They gain their acolytes through attraction. And I think that if we are attractive enough, then we can model what. Probably my favorite quote in that whole Passion Week that Christ said in that whole time is when he says, your love for one another, by your love for one another, they'll know that you're my followers. So I think that that's. That. That is what I would say to people who don't know where to start. Start at home, through small things, and then the rest will be revealed. You'll know what the person needs because you'll be a part of it. You'll be in the conscientiousness of that environment. You'll know. They'll tell you.

Father Mike Schmitz (65:55)

They'll tell you. Yeah, they'll tell you.

Harry Lennox (65:57)

Right? Yeah. But you gotta be listening. That's the thing now, Father Mike, that for me, you know, as I go about. We're about to get under construction, I hope in the next 30 days or so with the first phase, the Lillian Marcy Center. And I guess, you know, after this conversation during it, it's come to me that I have to continue to try to hear the call because it may change, it may modify, it may be a different call, but the strategies around it and so forth may become. I'll have to keep my heart and ear open for that.

Father Mike Schmitz (66:31)

Well, that makes sense. The that it's not just kind of like a here's one track. And just don't ever pivot like you will have to continue to. Because it's not just called once, it's we're being called. Right. That sounds like that sense of, okay, I'm called the Lily Marcy center, let's move forward. And then how are we going to do that is also by listening to the Lord's voice and listening to people, what people need. As opposed to, like you mentioned the some of the collateral damage that can happen when it's like, no, this is the way we have to go because I have it in my head. But listening to people in front of you. Charity beginning at home and starting right here with the person who might be within earshot of this conversation. So, Harry, if there's anything you want us to direct the listeners to go to, there's a website you want us to check out or if there is social media you want us to start following. Where should we go for more?

Harry Lennox (67:30)

Thank you for asking. Yes, that's great. I would direct people vis a vis what we've been talking about with the Lillian Marcy Center. AMPA to go to AMPA aam p a museum.org or you can go to lillianmarcy.org like it sounds. L I L L I A N that was my mother's name. Marcy. M A r c I e.org Marcy was Marcella Gilley, the woman that I worked for when she was the principal at the school I taught. Yes. So this is an honor of the creative. You know, I'm so taken by our devotion as Catholics to the Blessed Virgin Mother. I think that this is time to honor mothers who are in that mold in my view. Now, if you want to see me on the screen. Father Mike.

Father Mike Schmitz (68:24)

Yes.

Harry Lennox (68:25)

I did a movie where I play a bishop called really a Catholic bishop who excommunicates the first Latina governor because she's a Catholic for signing into law a late term abortion bill.

Father Mike Schmitz (68:40)

Wow. What's the movie called?

Harry Lennox (68:41)

It's called Godless.

Father Mike Schmitz (68:43)

Godless.

Harry Lennox (68:43)

Godless. I'll send you a link. Well, I'll have a bunch of stuff for you to look at.

Father Mike Schmitz (68:48)

And Revival, which is that movie about the Gospel of John. Gospel. Gospel of John, Yes.

Harry Lennox (68:56)

Gospel music. And then I'm also doing a couple of episodes with somebody who I know is a devoted believer, Donnie Wahlberg. I'm doing episodes of Boston Blue. I've got another one coming up. I did one a little bit earlier and a show called the Bear, which is set in Chicago. I'm supposed to be in that last episode. So that's it. You got my whole schedule right there.

Father Mike Schmitz (69:18)

That's fantastic. Also, speaking of your schedule, thank you for making time in your schedule to have this conversation. I'm just really inspired as well as just. Yeah, as I said, I'm going to be praying with our conversation for a while after this and just really, really grateful. I'm also grateful for everyone who is listening to called Right Now. This podcast is made possible by the Catholic Initiative, which is inspiring Bold Faith in Action. You can hear this in Harry's life. We inspire Bold Faith in Action by investing in vibrant but under resourced Catholic communities through the restoration of iconic parishes, through the restoration of schools and restoration of community institutions. If you want to learn more about their projects or discover how you can make a difference, you can visit TheCatholicInitiative.org, that's TheCatholicInitiative.org remember, for all of us, the Gospel is more than words. It's more than something we believe. It's a way that we be living. It's a way of life. As Jesus reminds us In Matthew, chapter 25, when we serve the least of these, we serve him. So till next time, let's keep listening for God's call and then also let's have the courage to answer it. God bless.