The basement of Holy Angels Church, 615 E. Oakwood Blvd., was only half lit when Deacon Pablo Perez walked in and sat down at a table with two others — Deacon LeRoy Gill to his left and Deacon Richard Johnson across the table. Immediately, the men began sharing the personal stories that brought them together one January afternoon to talk with the Catholic New World. In the fall, Gill, the trio’s ringleader, noticed a student at Holy Angels School wearing a necklace that resembled an urn. Curious, he inquired. “[The student] told me it was his [murdered] brother’s ashes; his sister in the school had one as well,” Gill said. Perez, a deacon at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Parish, 3721 W. 62nd St., in the shadow of Midway Airport and a chaplain for the jail ministry efforts at Kolbe House, discussed the violence that consumes his Southwest side neighborhood, often bloody and tragic. “The violence is right behind my back door,” Perez said. “Anytime someone is killed in the neighborhood, we go right to the site of the crime and we celebrate Mass. As a church, we meet where violence happens and Christ becomes present at that point.” Johnson, an attorney and deacon at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, 708 W. Belmont Ave., then spoke of the murder of his own son, Timothy, in September 2009. “My son came from a well-off family, but he had an addictive personality and got involved in the drug culture,” Johnson said. “He was 29 when he was murdered in his building [just west of DePaul University].” This is a Catholics Come Home campaign of a different sort, the three say; a targeted effort to invite people into the Catholic faith’s tenants of peace and justice while simultaneously providing the tools for conflict resolution, particularly for youth. “The marketing campaign is the violence itself,” Perez said. “There’s no way we can sit back and not do something.” Positioned to respond It was Gill’s simple, even innocent observation at Holy Angels School that set a now elaborate plan into action. After seeing the urn necklace, Gill began to reflect on the Bronzeville area’s penchant for violence. An eighth grader from Holy Angels was murdered in 2008 and several students he spoke with at the school identified numerous experiences of violence infiltrating their lives. “I just had no idea our kids were coming to school with this baggage,” Gill said. “There had to be something we could do.” Immediately, Gill contacted Perez, hoping the two could assemble a large contingent of African-American and Hispanic deacons to discuss urban violence and, more critically, the role, responsibility and response deacons could offer. Soon after, Johnson joined the effort’s leadership. “As deacons, we have families and we can express ourselves as both fathers and husbands when we preach or go into the community,” Johnson said. “Throughout our training, we’re challenged to be closer to the community and saving lives is the best kind of outreach we can do.” An action plan The deacons’ original meeting on Dec. 7 produced a concrete action plan involving parishes, parents, teachers and neighbors. In a letter dated Dec. 15, Gill, cochairman of the Black Catholic Deacons of Chicago, sent a letter to Cardinal George urging awareness and consciousness. “The church has been a beacon of light for the downtrodden and on this issue of violence, the church can no longer remain silent,” Gill wrote. “Just as we have a responsibility for saving a child in the womb, we too have the responsibility to respect and protect life from birth through death. Our children are dying violently.” It is now fulfilling that proposed plan that has become the singleminded mission of Gill, Perez, Johnson and their colleagues. The plan includes: Creating an awareness campaign, immersing homilies, devotions and bible studies in realworld issues, including violence prevention. Providing schools and churches a plan for ways in which they can successfully implement a violence-prevention program. Involving parents in violenceprevention and conflict-resolution practices. Injecting conflict management and violence-prevention skills and values into the curriculums of archdiocesan schools. Establishing after-school programs at churches, perhaps even teaming with those of other faiths, to provide extracurricular activities, tutoring, mentoring, workshops and classes. Creating a full-time archdiocesan position to oversee violence- prevention efforts. Violence, the three deacons agreed, has become all too routine in the Chicago area, citizens increasingly becoming numb to the passing snippets of media coverage. Change is critical for a society quickly falling into violent sin. “We have to come up with a way to reverse this trend of violence,” Gill confirmed. “We have to show that there are positive alternatives. We have to get parents and parishes involved, each recognizing their role. It will most certainly be a challenge, but our response is necessary.”