c. 1998 Religion News Service
NEW YORK _ It’s 7 p.m. on a raw January night in the Bronx and the Rev. John Jenik is gathering his flock in the parking lot of Our Lady of Refuge Church for their monthly prayer vigil.
Instead of turning into the sanctuary, however, they head out beyond the iron gates and razor wire protecting the church and into the street _ 25 parishioners armed only with some prayers, a few songs and their faith _ on a mission to reclaim their neighborhood.
With a cry of”Vamanos,”Jenik rallies his troops. They depart, under heavy police escort, to wage their peaceful war with the violent gangs that control the streets of the Fordham-Bedford neighborhood.
A young man, Jose, a former drug addict, carries the parish’s large wooden cross; two others hold a banner while the rest of the group _ mostly natives of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic _ begin singing, inviting the neighbors to join them on the rounds.
For 12 years, these mobile vigils have focused a moral spotlight on illegal activity in one of the highest crime neighborhoods in New York City.”This area is infested with drugs,”Jenik said. But the monthly marches and prayer vigils have helped raise community and police awareness about where drug activity is taking place, he said, adding he hopes they have also brought some relief to besieged residents who live in a place where it’s far easier to buy crack or heroin than fresh meat or fish.
The first stop is a corner bodega _ a small convenience store _ where a drug dealer was gunned down last fall. The store is wrapped in bullet proof glass and surrounded by pay phones _ the tell-tale sign of an open-air drug market.”Dios te salve Maria”(God save you Mary). The marchers chant the rosary to the sound of the police radio and salsa music wafting from a nearby apartment as children peer out from behind window blinds. The officers scan the buildings for snipers.
A block away the marchers pass another landmark of the violent legacy of the drug war _ a spot where two drug dealers were shot last spring. One was killed and the other wounded. Jenik gestures at an apartment building where he says even the police seldom go.”That’s one of the worst buildings,”said Jenik, who came to the parish 20 years ago.”I heard about some officers getting in an elevator there and someone turned off the power, trapping them inside.” The group stops across the street and resumes their prayer.”Ilena de gracia, el Senor es contigo”… (full of grace, the Lord is with you).
The police contingent, including eight officers on foot and more in squad cars, isn’t just for show. The group has been pelted with eggs and cursed at. Once, when New York Cardinal John J. O’Connor joined them, someone hurled a can of soda at the group.
They walk west on 194th street, a commercial strip dominated by Chinese carry-outs, laundromats and stores selling beepers and booze. The group congregates below a wooden cross hung on a telephone pole by church members a few years ago. As the police and marchers approach, young men with cell phones scatter. One drops some money in his hasty departure and a teen-age parishioner stops, picks up the wad of bills and hands its back.
Although police officials say crime is down overall in the precinct, Jenik said violence has intensified near the church. Of the 12 homicides in the 52nd precinct last year, three occurred within blocks of the church, he said.
Our Lady of Refuge looks more like a prison than a church. Its fence doesn’t just go up; it goes over to meet the building’s concrete walls. Visitors must pass through a locked gate and a heavy security door to reach the rectory. Its walls bear the bullet scars of a neighborhood drug war where dealers are brazen enough to ply their trade next to the church courtyard.
One need only look at the area map in Jenik’s office to understand how apt the church’s name is today.”If I had to stick pins where all the shootings occurred they wouldn’t fit,”said the 54-year-old priest, who has plotted on the map seven corner drug markets that together encircle the church.
So why, after a dozen years, do they continue their monthly vigils?”It makes people conscious about what’s going on and shows someone is taking a stand,”Jenik said.”These people are fighters.” (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
When the church was founded 75 years ago, the neighborhood was predominately Irish. Longtime residents say Irish, Jewish and Puerto Rican neighbors lived side by side for decades. But about 15 years ago, when the last members of the original ethnic groups moved and were replaced by poorer immigrants, the neighborhood began to change and decline.
Today, Our Lady of Refuge has a congregation of 1,500 working class Catholics, many of whom help make up the backbone of the service industry in Manhattan.
The church is active almost around the clock. The daily schedule is packed with events from Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and immigration services to religious study classes and basketball games.
And the church has ventured beyond its walls to try to help its ailing community.
During the six block march and vigil, Jenik points to several large apartment buildings that were on the verge of being abandoned when the archdiocese purchased them and refurbished the units for low-income residents.
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The church, however, is virtually the only public refuge in a neighborhood where no one goes out at night and people walk in fear by day. Residents say they take circuitous routes to avoid more dangerous blocks.”People go out in the morning, they come home and never go out again,”said Manny, a retired custodian who wouldn’t give his last name for fear of retaliation.”If there’s no activity at the parish, once it’s dark, I don’t go out.” Rarely are there any more than 30 or 40 people participating in the monthly vigils.”Fear keeps people at home,”said Jenik, who has been shot at while riding his bike in the neighborhood.”Six times they tried to shoot me and they missed.” It’s a fight being waged not so much block by block as paving stone by paving stone and an occasional victory keeps the parishioners’ hopes alive.
In the past two years, two stores that were fronts for drug operations have been shut down and two crack houses have been raided.
On the way back to the parish, Jenik pointed out one of the borough’s most important historic landmarks _ the cottage where author Edgar Allen Poe lived and is thought to have written”The Raven.””He was an addict, wasn’t he?”Jenik asked.”Maybe he’s haunting the neighborhood.” Jenik pauses at a fresh patch of graffiti on an apartment wall across the street from his church. It’s in the shape of an eightball, the”tag”of a new local drug dealer, he said, and a reminder that while there may have been peace in the neighborhood for an hour, the battle is far from over.”We’re not going to give up and we’re not going to run away,”said William Rubera, a Manhattan concierge and longtime marcher, who often accompanies the group with his guitar.”They have closed a few drug houses that were really bad. That shows things can change and gives us the energy to keep going.”
DEA END WORDEN
