Border Street: Priest sees divide between 2 groups

By Tina Griego, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 16, 2006 at midnight

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The Border Street neighborhood suffers no shortage of bars or churches. They stare each other down from across busy streets. Turn right, turn left, an ongoing battle for souls playing out daily.

The church prevails on a recent Sunday. Inside a chapel, still muggy from the exhaled prayers of a hundred sinners, a young man and his sister take their place in a line of people who have come to see the priest.

There is always a line. There is always a need. During the week, parishioners fill the small waiting room where the office manager tries to explain, again, that they have to make an appointment. It is a futile exercise. They come anyway.

"They're killing him," she says, frustrated. By "they" she means Mexican-born parishioners who, for the last 10 years, have outnumbered the native-born 10-to-1.

On Sundays, they pack the church for the Spanish-language service and when it is full, they spill out of the front doors into the parking lot until Mass has ended and then some push their way inside, hoping to catch a word with the priest who stands at the door and shakes hands and makes signs of the cross with his thumb on the foreheads of children.

The young man and his older sister wait for the priest because they don't know where else to turn, and if there is anything their upbringing has taught them, it is that their church will always embrace them. What is not as certain is whether all the people of the church will do the same. They are human and even this place is not immune from the same friction that plagues Border Street, the tension between native and newcomer, Spanish and English, between the Mexican who says to the Mexican-American: "Have you forgotten where you came from? We share the same blood." And the Mexican-American who replies: "Do you not know where you are now? We do not share the same culture."

The priest celebrated the wedding of the Teacher's brother and baptized three of the Mexican grandma's grandchildren. He has witnessed a generation of immigration and saw fences rising among people long before politicians began clamoring for a wall on the border.

"I see big divisions all over Denver," he says. "Especially between Mexican-American and Mexican people. It looks like they are oil and water. They cannot mix. Instead of trying to understand each other, they look to their differen-ces.You cannot judge 500 people by the actions of five."

It has fallen largely to the shepherds of the neighborhood, the reverends, ministers and preachers, to bridge this divide.

"Father," the priest is called, "Padre." At times, this is exactly what he sounds like. "Learn to speak English," he will tell his Spanish-speaking parishioners. "Learn to speak Spanish," he will tell his English speakers.

"I stress education, always, always. In all senses. For everyone. Human education, academic - go to school, go to college - education in the religious sense, but, if the question is, 'Do I believe I have a duty to them beyond religion?' the answer is yes.

"How can you talk about God to someone who has an empty belly or about morals to someone who has no work? When people were hungry, Jesus fed them first. . . . We risk being holy without being human. And that to me is completely false because anything that is human is religious, because a human being is a picture of God."

The young man and his sister wait while the priest blesses scapulars, rosaries, a big jug of water, all brought to him by parishioners. Earlier, the sister told the priest that she was worried about her brother. He's drinking. He's been drinking for two years. He is telling us he is doing this because he is lonely, but now we two sisters are here with him.

Now, the priest stands behind a desk in a tiny office and tells the young man to kneel and place his hand on the Bible. He does. Repeat after me, the priest says. ". . Prometo y juro no volver a tomar licor. . ." It is an oath, a pledge before God and the Virgin Mary not to drink for at least two years with the hope of never drinking again. Some people take this pledge so seriously, the priest says, they call him to ask permission to have a beer - just one beer, Father - at their daughter's wedding or for Christmas.

When he has finished reciting the oath, the young man rises and the priest asks him to sign the pledge. No drinking, the priest says. No drugs. Don't buy them. Don't sell them. Spend your money on what is necessary.

Thank you, Father, the young man says. The priest gathers his belongings. He has 12 babies to baptize. "Father," the sister says as the priest heads for the door. "Can you refer us to an alcoholics group?" Yes, the priest says. The sister hesitates and then asks, "Father, if he gets lonely, can he call you to talk?"

The priest looks at the man and nods. "Of course," he says.

griegot@RockyMountainNews.com

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