Police Chaplain's Diary

This would prove to be an unusual assignment. The bishop was not yet bishop. The diocese wasn’t yet a diocese. There was no office, no subscription list, no advertising, and worst of all, no money. An editor with no professional experience had nothing but confidence in God’s help.

By the 14^th of the month the new bishop had formed a temporary diocesan council consisting of deans and pastors. The new diocese would consist of a number of ethnic parishes and some that were territorial. When the young editor showed up at the first diocesan meeting, the much older pastors looked down their noses at him. Who needed a social worker involved with a street gang in the ghetto?

When a lunch time recess was declared I went to the judge’s chambers. He asked what brought me to his court. I told him my visit was as a friend of the court in this case, so he invited me to have lunch with him, and I told him that it wasn’t a case of murder but self-defense. After the court reconvened, he rapped his gavel and said, “I have all the evidence I need. Case dismissed!”

A seemingly dangerous situation developed at the Midnight Mass one year on Christmas Eve. As the congregation quieted down for the sermon, a ticking could be heard. In light of problems and threats at the time, I debated about asking the people to leave, but some sixth sense told me not to do this. After Mass I walked over to the pew where Felicitas was sitting and saw an alarm clock which she used to wake her up if she fell asleep in the course of her nightly prayer vigil.

The story this priest had to tell after not seeing me for 17 years was very interesting. During the war he had been involved in secret counter espionage work while serving as a chaplain. After the war he traveled around for a time lecturing about the dangers of communism and was evidently effective as evidenced by the several attempts to murder him as enemy agents sought to end his career. Spy work takes place in a very murky world of deception, deceit and revenge.

The second day of the new year brought bad news. The oldest uniformed man on the police force (one of our trusted coworkers at the settlement) and his partner were in a wreck. Their patrol car was badly damaged and the officer suffered a broken leg. He was sorely missed, being a good story teller and having many tales to tell because of his many years of experience. His advice to young officers: “If you go around poking your nose into everybody’s business, you’re bound to turn up a lot of trouble.”

The following week, our advisor from army area headquarters gathered the battalion officers in the War Room (a glorified bar room) and explained the mechanical and chemical nature of an atom bomb. Hearing this back in the fifties was alarming, to say the least. But someone can usually break the tension with a little humor. We learned that a shield of lead or water can offer some measure of protection from radiation. The division chaplain let it be known that he felt well protected since someone had once complained that he had water on the brain and lead in his butt.

The fibro patient gets little sleep, is tired all the time and is a workaholic in many cases – frustrated at not being capable of perpetual motion. Let’s get involved! How do you slow down? Utropelia! Live with a view to eternity.

A dealer at a local gambling club was shot May 30^th. This gambling was outside the law, and not too much concern was shown over the event in our neighborhood. The law (or lawlessness) of the Wild West seemed to determine guilt by answering the question: “Who drew first?”

November seventh of 1960 I was asleep up in my bedroom about three in the morning when two men got into a fight and argument under my window. Finally one pulled out a gun and shot the other. Both went off running down the alley.

Several days later I was to realize just how far prejudice might go when I drove up to the Settlement House and found it surrounded by fire trucks. Someone had found the way into the chapel sacristy and deliberately torched a linen cabinet causing fire and smoke damage that cost tens of thousands to repair.