GRIEGO: Vigil for life remarkable after too much mourning

By Tina Griego, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 3, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Iget a message about another vigil to pray for peace in our neighborhoods afflicted by youth violence and I think: Not another vigil. I'm tired of teddy bears and tears. The huddle of mourners, the candles, the sobbing of mothers and fathers.

I know the need to acknowledge life and love. I sympathize with the parents I have met who gather on the sidewalks, on the corners where their sons - and they are all sons - died, with the mothers who clutch cherished photos pleading for justice.

"Do not forget him," they demand.

But we do.

And all too soon another young person takes a bullet and we meet again on another corner for another vigil. It is at these sorrowful moments I feel as though we are moving in place.

This time the vigil is at Annunciation Catholic Church on 36th Avenue and Humboldt Street. That's in the Cole neighborhood, once predominately black, now mostly Latino, still one of the poorer neighborhoods in the city.

It's a neighborhood, says Deacon Jim Blume, where youth lack both opportunity and hope for the future.

The vigil, I learn, is not tied to a particular death. "It is tied to life," says the church's new pastor, Father Francisco Ramirez. It is an announcement of his intent. A Colorado native, he spent much of the last 23 years as a Capuchin- Franciscan brother before becoming ordained. Annunciation is his first parish.

"I want to build bridges," he tells me. "But I am not so naive as to believe that all we have to do is pray for peace. We are going to have to work to create peace instead of havoc."

On this point, he has already been tested.

He tells me this story. Last December, about three months after he came to Annunciation, one of the neighborhood residents broke into the church. The burglar used a dumbbell to beat at the door. He broke one of the gorgeous century-old stained glass windows. Once inside, he left a turkey carcass on the altar. He stole the processional cross and an altar lantern.

A young man was arrested and charged; the stolen items recovered. "He has mental issues, maybe drug problems, as well," the priest says. In a meeting with the district attorney's office, Father Francisco dismissed the idea of restitution. "With what?" he says. "He has nothing. He is a sick man."

He says he asked the district attorney for two things: "I would hope he would get every ounce of help he needs. If it's counseling, if it's drug therapy, whatever it is, he needs help. The other thing, I would like to be able to speak with him. I want him to know I don't hate him. That I'm not angry with him."

On Tuesday, after a funeral at the church, the priest found himself five feet away from the burglar. "We talked for an hour. He said he was sorry. He said he didn't know why he did it.

"Some people think we should have thrown the book at him. I believe in forgiveness. I believe we have to overcome our differences because we have too much in common not to."

As Father Francisco and I walk through the neighborhood Wednesday - he in his brown habit with the long rope belt - we see the young man across the street. He was sentenced to two years probation supervised by a county mental health unit. Hello, Father, he shouts, waving.

Hey, the priest calls out, we're having a prayer service tonight. You should come.

What time, the man asks. Six, the priest says. OK, the man says, I'll be there.

He does not show up. At least not while I am there, which is only a short time. But the vigil is one of the most remarkable I have seen in this city. The priest has called for matachine folk dancers and they arrive, men, women and children in gold blouses and brilliant blue head scarves and beaded skirts shimmering with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The group leader beats on a drum, a full-throated, rapid pounding, and the dancers hop from one foot to another, the beads of their skirts rattling.

Father Francisco asks them to lead a procession around the block. Illuminate the neighborhood, he says. He is beaming, wrapped in a wool blanket, not seeming to mind the sparse crowd. Eddie Armijo, the gang prevention worker is here, helping to set up. City Councilwoman Carla Madison and the Rev. Leon Kelly also attend and Kelly notes that a vigil for life doesn't draw near the crowd as a vigil following a violent death, and predictable as that may be, it is also too bad.

As we walk, the drummer pounding, the dancers bobbing and weaving down the middle of the street, people come to their porches. They watch and the priest urges them to join the procession and a few children do.

The dancers round the last corner of the block and their gold blouses blaze in the light of the setting sun. Long after I leave, I can still hear the drums in my head, reverberating through the neighborhood, a heartbeat, persistent, strong.

griegot@RockyMountainNews.com

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