In early November, when the Celts celebrate the start of their year, I was
appointed pastor of Sacred Heart parish in Camden, NJ. The year was 1974.
When my bishop, the late George H. Guilfoyle, brought me into his office,
he had only one question for me. He didn't ask me "Do you believe in God?"
or "Can I add and subtract?" No! He simply asked, "Do you believe in Catholic
schools?" I did not give him an immediate yes but said, "It depends of where
they are located." Catholic schools in poor neighborhoods should be supported
wholeheartedly. In places where there are good choices in education, I am
not sure. He said, "Fine," and then added, "I will be happy if you go to Sacred
Heart and I will be happy if you don't go."
I had a choice. So, for better or for worse, I chose Sacred Heart with its school and its poor and all the troubles I've seen.
Camden, NJ is very likely the poorest city in the United States, with a population of 79,829. More than half that number live in central and south Camden. To be exact, 41,000 people. At one time in that whole area, there were eight full-fledged Catholic schools. Now there is only one--Sacred Heart.
It will open in September 2003 for its eighty-third year with an enrollment of approximately
240 children, kindergarten to eighth grade. It is a student body that is mostly
Baptist because most of the Catholic families of South Camden have moved away.
A Baptist mother answered the question, "Why Sacred Heart?" "The education is better",
she said, "the discipline is better, and I want Tanika to have something inside."
So Sacred Heart Church has made a commitment to Tanika's mother and parents like
her to keep our school going, as long as they knock on the doors for a better
choice for their children. We also made a commitment to go "Sinn Fein"
(ourselves, by ourselves) in terms of finding the funds to sustain the school.
Many people participate in helping us from many parts of the country and a few
outside the country. And so the blessings of many are placed upon our struggle.
God knows we need them. Our school sits in a terribly battered neighborhood that is oppressed by severe environmental injustice. It sits upwind from a nearby county sewage treatment plant which receives 65 million gallons of raw sewage every day from the suburbs. Out there, 46 sewage plants were shut down and all their nasty contents are flushed daily to Camden into nostril-reach of our dear children. Their ball field borders the treatment plant and they have no gym in which to play. And yet! And yet they strive for their dream, both teachers and students, with admirable resilience and joy of spirit.
Some years ago we did a survey and asked our children what they liked best about
Sacred Heart School. Their answers both comforted us and saddened us. "I feel safe here,"
was their number one response. Nearly ninety percent made that their first choice.
Within the walls of our school, where the vibrant life of the children fills the place,
one could be lulled into thinking that all is normal and good for these children.
No way. Drugs and guns kill life and hope in their neighborhoods. At the fence where they
walk into their school playground, there is now one of those pathetic shrines that appear
at murder scenes in this city. The drooping balloons, the rows of empty beer bottles, the
candles and the teddy bears soggy in the rain. Momah Rogers, 25, was gunned down there in
the early hours of July 3rd. He is one of Camden's 33 homicides in the first eight months
of 2003. One block from the school there is Broadway with its constant assault of big
rigged trucks with their deadly emissions. There, too, attracted by the trucks, is a
sideshow of prostitutes and bruised bodies for sale 24 hours a day. How hard it is for
the flowers to grow in the heavy traffic that tramples them.
Sacred Heart School strives to educate these children in spite of all that assails them, to draw out as the word literally means, the gifts that God has placed in each one of them. But we fail, too. We have no art program, nothing that is in any way adequate to give form to their "buried treasures" and the ones that clamor for expression. We do succeed in song. Of course, the children themselves are the real treasures that God has given to us. We are reminded of this every year on August 10th, reminded of the inestimable value of our children. We take note on the feast of St. Lawrence, that third century martyr who, before he was burned alive, was commanded by the Roman Prefect to hand over the most valuable treasures of the Church. Lawrence, God bless him, presented the poorest children of Rome. And so it gives me great joy to salute the smiling treasures of Camden.
The existence of Sacred Heart School and its struggles in the face of the forces that
oppress it, cry out that something is wrong in a nation of generous people, if the
children of a free society are condemned to bear with so much. It points to real estate
protection, profit enhancement, and racism, creating an inner city apartheid where poor
children are concentrated as they try to grow up and get an education. They have greatest
needs and the least resources to deal with them. Nevertheless, we commit ourselves to
doing our best to educate them. May God give them "something inside." Some spark, some
seed of eternal hope that will crack any hardening crust that might cripple their growth
as time goes on.
We rejoice in their hope, the hope that springs eternal in the eyes of our children but we grieve, too, because the streets where they walk are bereft of any beauty. Who has the right to trample the garden that God planned for their play? But we can tend to the garden of their imagination and we commit ourselves to save that garden as much as we can.
Once when a teacher here worked with younger children at writing poetry,
great things came out of them. But the poem I remember most vividly came from
a little second grade girl. She wrote it rains on my city and when it does
I see rainbows in the puddles. The teacher wondered how this could be. The
child said, "The bus. It's the bus". And sure enough, when we checked, the
bus had a strip of colors.
When September comes, that month of fresh starts, we celebrate the birthday of Mary of Nazareth, and Rosh Hashana, the birth of the universe. Jasper Street will fill again with the life-lifting sounds of children back to school. The red doors will open with welcome to those lovely sounds, and with gratitude to the parents who once again entrust their treasures to our care.
Michael Doyle