It's a never-ending high-wire act for those in circus and carnival ministry

Father Jerry Hogan loves the circus. Really loves it. In fact, he loves it so much that he travels to circus shows 37 weekends of the year.

For most people, the circus is pure entertainment. But for Father Hogan, it's part of his vocation. Along with his duties as a parish priest at St. Michael Catholic Church in North Andover, Mass., he also serves as circus chaplain under the U.S. bishops' office of migration and refugees.

Under the big top, he's performed confirmations and baptisms, blessed animals and counseled performers. Once he married two clowns. “It's like a little mini-world,” says Father Hogan with a chuckle.

At any given time during the warm-weather months, there might be as many as 50 circuses and carnivals traveling throughout the United States. And upwards of 40% of the performers are Catholic, many hailing from northern Europe and Latin America. Thanks in no small part to their frenetic travel schedules, they and their non-Catholic colleagues are hungry for spiritual sustenance.

“They're people of God, like anyone else,” says Father Hogan. “They are part of God's mystical plan. They have to be ministered to like anyone else.”

Notre Dame Sister Charlotte Hobelman, coordinator of migrant ministries for the bishops' conference, estimates that about five dozen people serve in the ministry to traveling performers, which has garnered attention in the secular media. In recent years, religious involvement in the ministry has exploded into the public consciousness. That's thanks to a handful of religious sisters who ran away to join the circus, fulfilling a unique vocation of their own.

Bible Barkers

With all the baby elephants, trapeze artists and Friesian horses, the circus does appear to have an air of the exotic. But it only seems that way to visitors, says Sister Joel Byrne. “When you're in the circus,” she explains, “it's very ordinary.”

That's why she's there, along with Sister Priscilla Buhlmann. Members of the international order Little Sisters of Jesus, they live, work and travel with the Carson and Barnes Circus precisely because it is a traveling village, and precisely because — contrary to spectators' beliefs — life in the circus is rather routine.

Sister Joel, who comes from Maryland, and Swiss-born Sister Priscilla have worked in circuses since 1978. Outside of Europe, where the Little Sisters' circus tradition started in 1961, and Japan, where a group of sisters works with fairs that entertain in front of temples and shrines, they are the only Little Sisters who work with traveling entertainers.

They are not, however, the only religious women in the circus in the United States. Two Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, Sisters Dorothy Fabritze and Bernard Overkamp, joined the circus ministry in 2000.

Sisters from the two orders approach their circus vocations differently. The Little Sisters act as witnesses of love, peace and faith — but without preaching. The Missionary Sisters, who moved from Circus Chimera to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in late 2003, look on their work as “proclaiming the word of God wider,” as Sister Bernard says.

“Our charism is to proclaim the love of God to everyone,” she adds, “and to convince them that God loves them — proclaiming the love of God where it has not been proclaimed, where it has not been received or where other people cannot go, or will not go.”

The sisters are in community with a people who have a well-defined character of their own, adds Sister Dorothy. “Performers help us see the joys and inconsistencies of life,” she points out. “That's their charism.”

Neither the Little Sisters nor the Missionary Sisters just sit back and enjoy the show. They work alongside the people they serve — taking tickets, selling souvenirs, cooking, working the wardrobe, helping youngsters with homework, doing whatever needs to be done. And, of course, praying.

“They're vital, being there all the time,” says Father Hogan. “I'm like middle management; they're down there doing the grunt work.”

Three-Ring Sanctity

According to Sister Charlotte, most of the people involved in circus ministry are diocesan priests who make themselves available when traveling entertainers come through town. These priests perform any necessary rites and services, from baptisms to weddings to counseling.

Still, because they're constantly on the move, Catholic performers have a hard time feeling at home in the Church. One carnival couple called a rectory to arrange a baptism for their baby only to be told that, since they were not members of the parish — and the priest would likely never see them again — he could not baptize the child.

For members of Ringling Bros. and the Carson and Barnes Circus, the situation is somewhat simplified by the presence of the sisters, who can help them make vital connections with priests in the towns they pass through, and assist in arranging sacraments and memorial services.

The Little Sisters once arranged a Mass for a circus worker's father 13 years after his death. Over all those years, the performer was never able to schedule a Mass to be celebrated before the circus left town. It took the Little Sisters' help to make it happen.

Although they're part of their circus families now, the sisters admit that, at first, some of the show people were unsure what to expect from them. Would they preach at everyone? Would they try to convert anyone? But before long, the sisters' mission was plain: to live and work in the circus, to adopt its culture and to bear witness to the love of the Heavenly Father with their loving presence.

“They're not out to ‘market’ God. They're to be a living example of love and joy,” says Michael Gorman, vice president of Circus Chimera. “When you've got mud up to your ankles and times are tough, the nuns just have this wonderful, loving, God's presence that is felt by everyone they see. This is the joy of having nuns aboard.”

And this is the sisters' vocation. “We allow our lives to proclaim the evangelistic message,” says Sister Bernard, “sharing God's love and compassion with everybody else in the circus.” And why not? After all circus workers “share their gifts so openly and willingly with the audience. We bring God's news with a joyful face.”

Elisabeth Deffner writes from Orange, California.