Three deacons in training to begin outreach
Three men training to be deacons for the Archdiocese of San Francisco this month begin ministries working with youth in juvenile jails – befriending at-risk adolescents already in the throes of punishment but who are, perhaps, candidates for redemption.
The three – Dana Perrigan, Venancio Garcia, Jr., and John Murray – are on track to be ordained in 2012. All three men are in their 60s. All bring a wealth of experience to the jail ministry and gravitated to it believing they may well make a difference in troubled lives. And they are advocates of the Catholic principle of restorative justice, which combines mercy and atonement.
“They have initiative and the willingness to say, ‘I want to go there,’” said Julio Escobar, the director of the ministry, Comunidad San Dimas, an ecumenical volunteer service named for the “good thief” who was crucified alongside Jesus after being assured he would be with him in paradise.
“We read the Bible when we come to the jails to be with the youth in such a way they can understand it,” Escobar said.
“The first thing we do is become their friend, introducing who we are, and we introduce what God is all about,” said Escobar. “And our hope is that they take that with them. We hope that is what will help them make a decision about changing their lives in a positive way. We don’t force it. We don’t hit them over the head with the Bible.”
Escobar added: “We do it in such a way that is gentle and we become the people that they never had in their lives,” as so many adolescents in this predicament come from, at the least, dysfunctional families.
There is a common denominator for Perrigan, Garcia and Murray, said Escobar. “I see them as mentors.”
Perrigan, 60, a parishioner at St. Monica Church in San Francisco and a longtime journalist, recognizes the detention surroundings. At 14, he was a juvenile hall inmate, an experience he remembers vividly.
“I remember what a bleak time it was, how I felt isolated, alienated – a terrible time. And so I thought I wanted to go there and listen to someone and to talk to someone and it would be appreciated,” he said. Perrigan said he would have appreciated a visitor when he was a detainee, but no one came.
To him, restorative justice is a well-rounded approach to a thorny dilemma, one that gives perpetrators the opportunity to make amends, while the victims, if so inclined, may confront the people who wronged them and may wish to forgive.
“It would help many people come to terms with what they have done, and perhaps in so doing it will allow them to change,” said Perrigan. “It gives them the opportunity to take some action and do something to pay back, and I think that can make a big difference in someone.”
Perrigan, in fact, believes anything is possible in the realm of restorative justice – just as Dostoyevsky’s character, Raskolnikov, in “Crime and Punishment,” found redemption after murdering an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money.
“How often it happens, I would not say a lot,” he said of redemption and change. “But, yes, it is possible.”
“With guys in juvenile hall you are not going to get very far if you go in and preach at them.” Perrigan added. “They are going to feel you out just as you feel them out, and so initially you do a little more listening than talking.”
Still, he said, “You go into the jail,” in the ministry, “and you give what you can give – support, comfort, understanding. Sometimes in those situations you would be surprised how a little can go a long way.”
Garcia, 61, a parishioner at Church of the Epiphany in San Francisco, retired four years ago as an information technology project manager for the State Compensation Insurance Fund. In that job, he always conferred with all stakeholders to determine their needs, their problems and what they wanted to achieve. “And we tried to determine what would work best for everyone and come up with a system that hopefully addresses the needs of all,” he said.
He finds that restorative justice uses the same template. “It is looking at a crime from all the different aspects and angles – the victim’s and the victim’s friends and family and the perpetrator of the crime and their family and the society as a whole, and our justice system,” he said. “It makes sense.”
Garcia added: “There is wrongdoing and that is not to be forgotten, although there is an aspect of trying to understand and an aspect of making amends and trying to have everyone responsible meet and determining what would work best for each person who is involved in this particular crime.”
In his experience conferring with inmates, he has met people who want to have a relationship with God. “What I do most is listening to what they want to say and every now and then they say that something is missing in their lives and that is where they need God.”
The ministry, he said, “is where the Holy Spirit is leading me.”
Murray, 67, a semi-retired attorney who is a parishioner at Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Belmont, said he was inspired by a Bay Area youth minister, Jose Penate-Aceves, who came from El Salvador and who devotes his life to helping people in need.
“I thought that was something I should try,” said Murray.
Murray embarked on the road to becoming a deacon, he said, after asking himself what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He said he was drawn to the youth jail ministry and restorative justice because, in his experience, while people are treated fairly in the justice system, sometimes fairness is not enough.
“The end product does not elevate,” he said of the justice system, because there will be people who feel they have been cheated.
“There is something missing, and what is missing is Christ,” he said.
Murray added, “Restorative justice is regular justice-‘plus’ – plus heart and love. That is something that regular justice does not offer.”
The three future deacons, like all others in their class, are required to commit to a community service apart from their parish several days per month, over a year’s time. They may feed the hungry, work in a hospital or in any other setting where services to the needy are provided.
Comunidad San Dimas is approved by the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s Office of Public Policy and Social Concerns, and juvenile justice detention facilities in San Francisco, Alameda and San Mateo Counties, as well as the adult facility in San Bruno. More information is available at www.comunidadsandimas.org.
By George Raine
From September 17, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
