On Being a Chaplain to the Retired Detectives of the NYPD

 

 

After 21 years as a chaplain of the Retired Detectives of the New York Police Department ( and now retired), I have besides my many, warm, happy memories, several  priceless keepsakes. I have a big, beautiful gold detective’s shield in an elegant leather case which I keep locked up in my room. It is marked  “Chaplain” and carries with it the rank something like a Deputy Inspector.  I have the sheepskin attesting to my membership in RDNY (Retired Detectives of New York) hanging in a conspicuous place on my Office wall to impress my many clients. And I have the ARDY award, our Oscar, for outstanding service to the Organization, the city and the country.  It is a bust of a New York City cop in beautiful highly polished bronze with my name on it and the reasons for my being awarded the prize.

 

I proudly wear the RDNY pin on the lapel of my jacket and I am ostentatious in showing the cufflinks I had made out of little RDNY shields.  I wear sweatshirts and T shirts with the NYPD logo blaring out and I defiantly challenge all who see me thus attired to make wisecracks about cops.

 

Of course, my bravado is a bit  “pushing the envelope” when I recall that I am 82, very bald, very creaky in the joints and I wear the Roman collar of the Catholic priest. Who is gonna’ mess with me?         The scary looking dinosaur with not only the PD behind him but also the VERY BIG MAN up there !!!!

 

However, in back of the bravado and obvious relish in flaunting things NYPD, there is in me a real and honest appreciation of men of Order and Keepers of the Peace. When I was a kid playing stickball on the West side, cops were people who grabbed the  “bat”  (broomstick handle) and appropriated it lest some budding Mickey Mantle might smash one of the many windows lining the street.  They were mysterious and frightening men whom the streetwise avoided assiduously.

 

But in my 21 years of association with them, reminding them of their need for and obligation to the Lord, I found them to be men of honor  (even sacred honor), generous men who did the American thing, i.e. there is a job to be done. Let us do it with dispatch, bravely and modestly, but we do the job.  I found them to be men of virtue; almost automatically, without fanfare, to be on the side of Right and Truth.

 

I found them to be great companions, loyal and eager to be of help—because that is what being a cop meant to them. I had many dinners and lunches with them where we laughed and had enormous fun but also delved deeply into very serious matters. I have counseled them not only as their priest but also as their psychologist. I have buried them in the solemnity of the Catholic Church. I have baptized members of their families. I have been available for their pains and fears and perplexities and I have been elevated by their trust in me.

 

 In 21 years I have never seen more than one (just one) who drank too much - - - - or bombed out as we used to say in College. This is more than I can say for my associations with the Wall Street types, the academic campus types and—yes—even the clergy.

 

Obviously, we all react in terms of our personal experience. This is what I am doing as I write of RDNY--- who have been called the greatest detective group IN THE WORLD. Some of the men I have known in the organization have been highly educated. Others not. But they are ALL very savvy.  They have the intuitions and priceless radar in their very being which come only from tough and real experience. I never found in them the adenoidal, sophomoric antics I have seen in the Ivory Tower population which I also know quite well.

 

They are so many I can’t detail them!  Barney and John Gowrie and Mike Mc and Bill McN with the great voice and Howie S  with the great  and generous heart and Jerry Mc with the enormous faith and Billy B and Frank Bruen, the saint and Dave Gordon, Jewish and  wonderful, and Tom Fitz with the  incredible  ability to make us laugh  and Tim with the classy outfits and the great John Mandel and Nick who brought  me into  the RDNY and Steve and John W with the ever present camera and the honorary Detective, Cap’n Eddie Flynn who was  such a good friend to all tho’ so crippled from his WWII wounds. So many. So many.

 

 So, clearly when a schlep criticizes NYPD to me, he gets a quick and hopefully devastating rejoinder.  He is usually uninformed, angry about his unresolved Oedipal family conflicts and screams about Justin Volpe.  It is the same kind of adolescent (of any age) who yells at me about some wicked, weak and evil priest and then – unintelligently - -  concludes that all priests are like those guys.

 

At the end of my life, I am very grateful to the Lord for His many many  blessings  to me. But certainly, I must include the great break I got when He nudged me into RDNY. The motto on the flag hung in back of the dais at the meetings says it all:

 

                                                VIVIMUS FIDELITER !

 

 

P.S.  For the benefit of those who might have been educated by the Jesuits, I translate:   We have served faithfully !