On April 12, Camden Police Chief J. Scott Thomson drove Bishop Dennis Sullivan through Camden City, pointing out landmarks, historic buildings and drug corners, as the two men talked about the challenges facing the city and reasons for hope.
At the end of the two-hour tour, the bishop handed the policeman a gift that had been given to him; rosary beads that had been blessed by Pope Francis. “You’ll need these more than I will,” the bishop told him.
Although once a thriving center for manufacturing and industry, Camden is now well known as one of the poorest and most violent cities in the country. There are 3,000 abandoned properties in its nine square miles. The city’s 77,000 residents include 700 parolees, and 600 registered sex offenders. There have been 790 homicides since 1995.
“The month of July 2012 had 13 murders, a record. The hot spot corner of 8th and Vine in North Camden had six murders within a two-block radius during 2012,” Chief Thomson said as the police vehicle drove over potholes in North Camden, one of the city’s worst sections.
“It’s a disaster,” Bishop Sullivan said, heading back to the office at the end of the journey that started in the business district, then went through the neighborhoods of North, South and East Camden, Whitman Park, Cramer Hill and Fairview and other neighborhoods. “But,” he added, “there is reason for hope. There is goodness despite the evil that is evident.”
The bishop and the police chief talked about the new county-police force, educational initiatives, the stabilizing effect of church-run programs and how the hard work of immigrants can revitalize a neighborhood.
When Bishop Sullivan’s appointment as the Camden Diocese’s eighth bishop was announced in January — at a press conference held in the Camden Diocesan Center in downtown Camden — he said the church would never abandon the city.
There are four parishes and three schools in the city, and they are only part of the Catholic presence in Camden. The only Catholic hospital in the diocese, Our Lady of Lourdes, is located in Camden, as are St. Luke Medical Services; Guadalupe Family Services; and the Camden Center for Law and Social Justice, Immigration Services and Legal Assistance to the Poor.
The Cathedral Soup Kitchen in East Camden provides an expanded meal program and other programs and services, including job training and healthcare. Hopeworks ‘N Camden, located in North Camden, is a youth development program for Camden youth, and the Romero Center at St. Joseph Pro-Cathedral is a social justice education center. Camden churches also belong to Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP), that advocates for neighborhood improvements.
Two non-profit housing corporations with connections to the church — Heart of Camden in South Camden and St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society — have done much to revitalize neighborhoods by rehabilitating vacant houses and promoting affordable home ownership.
One of the most recent Catholic initiatives in Camden is Joseph’s House, an overnight café for the homeless that opened in 2011.
“It is a city of heroes,” said Msgr. Michael Mannion, director of the Office of Community Relations for the diocese, who accompanied Bishop Sullivan and Chief Thomson on the tour. “It is a tale of two cities.”
Msgr. Mannion spoke of parents and storekeepers who struggle to keep their children and the streets safe, and he singled out Judyann McCarthy, a social worker who helped start a basketball league for Catholic school students in Camden several years ago.
As they drove through North Camden, Chief Thomson explained that hundreds of people from the suburbs come into the neighborhood for heroin. Sneakers hanging from the telephone wires mark places where deals can be made.
When the police have to make an arrest, they get the suspect out of the area as quickly as possible, Chief Thomson explained. One day last summer the officers weren’t able to act fast enough, he added, and found themselves surrounded by 150 people who assaulted them and freed the drug dealers they had been trying to arrest.
The chief drove down a narrow street where some of the row houses had graffiti covering the walls and plywood covering the windows, and it wasn’t always apparent whether the property was abandoned or not.
“Then you get one like this,” he said, indicating a small house with what looked like a fresh coat of blue and white paint, “where someone really takes care of their property.”
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