Published: June 16, 2009 04:16 pm      

BOOK REVIEW: Father Baker's life, pursuit of sainthood detailed in 'Code'

The threat by Western New York parents is so famous that it’s spawned its own Facebook group: “I’m going to send you to Father Baker’s.”

But what would a trip to “Father Baker’s” actually entail?

According to John Koerner, such a trip would more closely resemble the heavenly virtues that exemplified Baker’s life than the hellacious fate the threat implies.

Koerner, a social sciences professor at Niagara County Community College, discussed in detail the priest’s life — as well as numerous posthumous events — in “The Father Baker Code.”

Specifically, Koerner discussed numerous supposed miracles that, if verified by the Vatican, would serve to move Baker one step closer to becoming the first American-born saint.

Baker’s saintly life began at an early age. Born in the early 1840s (spotty records prevent a firm date from being secured), Nelson Baker served in the Civil War before opening a feed and grain business in Buffalo. Most of his spare time was spent helping others, and he decided to answer his calling in his late 20s, working toward his ordainment as a priest in 1876.

Assigned to St. Patrick’s Parish in Lackawanna (later renamed Our Lady of Victory), he worked to add an infants’ home, nurses’ home, hospital, basilica and farm to the surrounding land. He reportedly ate little and slept even less, even giving up recreational reading in order to devote more time to his parishioners and prayer.

He’d earned numerous titles from the church — as well as the respect of the region — before passing away in 1936; more than 500,000 people came to pay their respects. But, as Koerner chronicled, his work was still far from done.

Koerner outlined several posthumous miracles, among them the “Miracle of the Sacred Ground” involving Kenmore native Marilyn Sheriff. While on her way to work in Delaware several years ago, she drove straight into a bus and suffered severe head trauma. Her heart stopped several times in the hospital, and while in a coma her aunt Marie Sommer sent some dirt from Baker’s original Lackawanna burial site to be placed under her hospital bed.

She woke up 2 1/2 weeks later and, to the doctors’ amazement, suffered no ill effects other than a few scars.

Miracles such as this are necessary to secure canonization. Koerner outlined the three-step process, of which Baker has completed the first stem, attaining “Servant of God” status. In order for the process to be complete, there needs to be irrefutable proof that he completed a miracle after his death, after which he’s be beatified.

Once that’s completed, another miracle performed after beatification would need to be proven without a doubt, a process Koerner said is hard to prove because the miracle needs to be attributed solely to Baker, and the miracle needs to have permanent effects.

The process, if it’s ever completed, could take centuries, Koerner said. Regardless, his book details the legacy of one of region’s most beloved figures in a passionate — if a bit hard to read at times — fashion.

Whether the reader is an old-timer who still remembers Baker or a youngster who’s only link to the holy man is his supposed house of horrors, “Code” offers insightful information sure to stir a sense of pride in perhaps Western New York’s most famous native sons.

Contact Paul Laneat 693-1000, ext. 116.



IF YOU READ

• WHAT: “The Father Baker Code”

• BY: John Koerner

• DETAILS: Published by Western New York Wares Inc., 125 pages

• GRADE: B