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Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published March 23, 2007

Gregg McIntosh Allen Allison, a Detroit fireman who volunteers at St. Cecilia's Cecilliaville, oversees a basketball league where Detroit public school students gather in a supervised atmosphere after school.

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was addressing an audience at Orchestra Hall during his State of the City speech last week, when he asked Detroit pastors to "stand up" and engage their neighbors to help stop violence.

"We must, as a community, step up and take this head on, together," Mayor Kilpatrick said, "because disorganized love cannot fight, nor even defeat, organized crime."

But, beyond the opera hall walls, he also was preaching to an enthusiastic choir of Detroit Catholic priests, avowed religious, lay ministers, educators and volunteers who have been reaching out to families in the community for years through social ministries, neighborhood watches, after-school activities and anti-violence initiatives.

"There are 68 parishes in the city of Detroit, so we are very much established in the neighborhood and already familiar with the many problems, and we're doing our very best to cooperate with our neighbors to make it an environment that is safe and healthy," said Cardinal Adam Maida, regarding the Catholic Church's outreach in Detroit. "This is a great opportunity we have in the ecumenical area to work with our brothers and sisters of other faiths who have the same objective of building up the community as brothers and sisters in the Lord."

In his address on March 13, the mayor painted a sobering picture of a city where crime was out of control and where repeat-offenders ravage neighborhoods with violence.

Detroit had 411 murders in 2006 — up from 374 the previous year. The city consistently has had a violent crime rate around four times as high as the national average, according to the FBI.

The situation is far from lost on Catholic institutions in the area.

Social programs
Consider 14-year-old Detroiter Stephanie Kendle. Many kids from her area are from one-parent homes where the parent works a regular shift. In the unsupervised afternoon hours, it's not hard for children to fall into gangs, drugs or sexual promiscuity.

But instead of being involved in gangs, Stephanie, and many other volunteers and mentors help keep younger children out of them at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen on Detroit's east side.

She is a junior counselor to younger children, at the Capuchin's Rosa Parks Children/Youth Program there, which takes place after school.

"It's just fun," said Stephanie, who's done everything from art to trips to girls' group in the program. "They teach you how to be responsible. … Every time we come up here we learn something different."

The Capuchin Soup Kitchen is one of many Catholic institutions addressing the need to provide kids a safe haven in the after-school hours during which, according to the FBI, nearly half of all juvenile crimes take place.

Kristin Lukowski Diamone Gilmore, 21, helps Hashim Green, 9, put together a puzzle. Adults serve as mentors to young children atthe Rosa Parks Children/Youth Program in Detroit. Joe Kohn Carl Burnett stands in front of his mother, Petrina Davis-Burnett, and principal, Sharon Perko, in front of St. Bartholomew School on Detroit's east side. A seventh-grader at the school, Carl says he enjoys the after school activities and that it helps kids "stay out of trouble and off the streets."

Sr. Nancyann Turner, OP, director of the Capuchin institution, said programs there give children a place to feel safe.

"The whole foundation of our program is based on respect and nonviolence," Sr. Turner said. "We can certainly see an atmosphere here where kids feel really safe and protected."

That's also the idea at Ceciliaville, the 39-year-old ministry at St. Cecilia on Detroit's west side that involves basketball. Each year, thousands of public school students — ages 7 through high school — learn the sport and play in teams under the supervision of volunteer coaches.

St. Cecilia also has invited neighbors, Catholic or otherwise, to meet with the church community, a city council member and police commanders. The church has organized a neighborhood watch, too.

"These abandoned houses that are around us — they've become drug centers, places where young people are afraid," said Fr. Ted Parker, pastor of St. Cecilia. "We feel that we have to be involved. I think that's where the Lord wants us to be."

Fr. Parker, a board member of the Metropolitan Organizing Strategy for Enabling Strength, also stresses the importance of interfaith efforts to build safe neighborhoods.

Fr. Anthony Richter, pastor of Our Lady Queen of Angels Parish, meanwhile, also stays in touch with the local police to help keep crime under control near the church. A children's program at his parish includes a spring football camp for boys and girls.

And where there are efforts to keep children safe and away from violence, there are a sundry of other Catholic parishes involved. Typically, a program in the inner-city has support from dozens of Catholic parishes in the suburbs — both in terms of money and volunteers.

For example, St. Christine Christian Service on Detroit's west side just this year began an after-school program in cooperation with the St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Center of Farmington Hills, and hosted by nearby Christ the King Parish. St. Christine also has hosted a summer basketball camp each year to keep kids away from gangs.

Those programs, in addition to the center's soup kitchen, are a joint effort by 22 Catholic parishes from metro Detroit. The Capuchins, parishes downtown, Most Holy Trinity Parish in Detroit's Corktown district, and St. Cecilia rely on similar support from the greater Catholic community.

Kristin Lukowski Jesse Evans, 7, plays a carracing game at the Rosa Parks Children/Youth Program. Detroit: Violence by numbers 20,000 or more violent crimes typically occur each year. 411 cases of murder were reported by law enforcement agencies in Detroit in 2006. 60-75 percent of children grow up without fathers in their homes. 70 percent of homicides are related to drugs. 46 percent of juvenile crimes occur between school dismissal and 8 p.m. 4 times the number of violent crimes occur in Detroit than in the average U.S. city. 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion in Wayne County. Sources: FBI and Michigan Department of Community Health.

School programs
Catholic schools, too, drive to the heart of building a peaceful city by dealing directly with the relationship between the parent and the child.

St. Bartholomew, one of 10 Catholic grade schools in Detroit, focuses on an approach to education that builds an alliance between the primary educator of the child — the parent — and the teachers and principal.

Parents such as Petrina Davis-Burnett, a single mother who has three graduates of St. Bartholomew and whose son, Carl Burnett, is in the seventh grade, appreciates what the school provides.

"The kids these days need some structure in their environment, which St. Bartholomew has every day," Davis-Burnett said. "They know what it means to have and give respect, and the school keeps them involved and away from negative activity."

The school also strives to provide the children with after-school activities and summer programs — chess, bowling, choir, tutoring, softball, baseball and a latchkey program, to name a few.

"They have to hear and they have to see that they can do things," said Sharon Perko, principal of the school. "We are there for guidance and encouragement."

That goes for at home, too, says Fr. Russell Kohler, pastor of Most Holy Trinity in Detroit's historic Corktown district. His parish also runs a grade school.

"We have a covenant between the parents and this school, that they must come from a home of manner and prayer," Fr. Kohler said. "No drug use or drug sales. (Parents) have to be half of the enrichment."

Fr. Kohler often talks of the fatherhood void in Detroit. Less than half of children in the city grow up with two parents. Most often, it's the father who's missing from their lives.

Fr. Kohler says that children latch on to whoever is put in front of them as a role model or "hero" — it could be a parent or teacher, or it could be the drug dealer down the street, or even the murdering, car-stealing protagonist of their video games.

"We've got to redefine hero," he said. "And for people of faith, it's the Lord — He's asking us all to be ambassadors."

He added that he's happy to see the message sent out over the past few years through the annual Archdiocese of Detroit's Catholic Conference for Men, where men are encouraged to faithfully carry the mantle of Christian fatherhood.

"Fathers coming together to honor their commitment is a  bright promise for the future," he said.

Heart of the problem
Though schools and social programs provide physical locations, activities and emotional support for families, the most important aspect of the Church's institutions is to bring the Prince of Peace into people's lives through ministry.

Kristin Lukowski Volunteer Sharon Agee plays a spirited game of Memory with 5-year-old Madison and 4-year-old Makenzie Holinshead, at the Rosa Parks Children/Youth Program. Gregg McIntosh Allen Allison mentors youths on about basketball at St. Cecilia's Cecilliaville in Detroit.

Though to convert the hearts of everyone in the city may seem a mountainous and impossible task, ministers remind that it is the mission of the Church and it would, indeed, solve the problem of violence in Detroit.

Of course, it has to be done one soul at a time.

That's what's happening in southwest Detroit, where resides a  bourgeoning ministry for young Hispanics. Msgr. Don Hanchon, pastor of Holy Redeemer Parish, says a Monday-night ministry for Hispanic youths and young adults frequently draws about 175 people. Their focus is to bring Christ into the lives of each other and their peers.

"I'm always impressed at the attendance," said Msgr. Hanchon. "They're very much into promoting an understanding of faith. They've talked about staying out of gangs, staying out of drugs — but it's a prayer group, basically."

And prayer, says Alejandro Torres-Antonio, coordinator for urban youth ministry in the archdiocese, is where true change begins.

"Unless you handle the spiritual part first — the actual conversion of the heart that leads to an actual change of motives — then you really don't target the problem," said Torres-Antonio, who ministers to inner-city youths across parish boundaries. "Violence stems from the heart of the person.… It seems a little silly to attack violence without attacking the root of it."

Torres-Antonio's ministry frequently brings together youths and young adults from the inner city for conferences and retreats. What's become clear to him through his ministry is a desire by inner-city youths to live in peace.

"The young people are really concerned with ending violence," he said.

And he added — like the Church in whole — they're willing to work for it.

"They really want to do a lot of things about it," Torres-Antonio said. "They are concerned about their friends who are on drugs and in gangs, so when they have the opportunity to get formation on missionary opportunities and evangelization and conversion of the heart — that's when they can really make a difference."

— Also contributing to this story was Michigan Catholic reporter Kristin Lukowski.