The City's Worst Sacrilege

Businessmen solicit prostitutes. Muggers attack worshipers as they pray. Homeless mothers sleep in pews. Pilferers raid donation boxes. One man senselessly destroys a revered icon.

For years, people thought of Times Square when they thought of sex, drugs and violence. But a persistent wave of crime in New York City has succeeded in making some local churches a more efficient and proximate locale for unseemly business.

In what has proven to be a microcosm of a faltering city, St. John the Baptist Church in midtown Manhattan stands at the top of the heap, a glaring symbol of the city's social ills.

St. John the Baptist Church was once open 24 hours a day, a haven for people in spiritual need. But theft, vandalism, prostitution and other crimes on the church's grounds escalated so much recently that the pastor, Father Francis Gaspare, recently decided to limit its hours.

Father Gaspare's decision reflects frustration and fear. More importantly, it illustrates that contrary to what many pre-Vatican II Catholics were taught in their catechisms, nothing is sacred anymore. Unfortunately, these crimes serve to sustain New York's infamous reputation for moral decadence and exacerbate the seemingly unsolvable New York quandary.

Last year, Act-Up members desecrated the Eucharist in St. Patrick's Cathedral to protest the Catholic Church's conservative positions on homosexuality.

But the rash of despicable crime that has plagued St. John the Baptist Church has little to do with Catholicism. It has little to do with religion at all. It has everything to do with hookers, panhandlers and thugs who find an easy target in what was once a safe, open sanctuary.

St. John the Baptist has faithfully served parishoners, visitors and refugees for over 150 years by keeping its doors open around the clock. Like city parks that have given way to the nefarious dealings of the underworld, St. John's original purpose of sheltering those in need of peace has been lost in the shuffle.

Unfortunately for St. John's Church and others like it which have similarly conceded to the sad realities of urban life, the only recourse is to lie down--or shut down. St. John's has already hired a security guard whose salary doubles that of Father Gaspare.

Policemen simply lack the resources, and maybe the will, to watch over churches. Even with new Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly's resolve to increase the police force, church patrol will never be a high priority.

The implications of these church invaders' acts have yet to be examined. But in a culture where "good" morality means not shoving your fellow subway passenger, perhaps what New York needs is a good dose of religion.

St. John's serves the spiritual needs of individuals in the city. It could also serve the spiritual needs of the community. Institutionalized centers of prayer can provide moral invigoration and improve societal virtue. It certainly couldn't hurt.

In his Discourses to Livy, Machiavelli points out that he lives in a secular, not a pious world. Machiavelli's observation still holds true today. But if the rights of the pious can be overturned at anyone's whim, the goal of increasing moral consciousness seems less attainable than ever.

Whether the hustlers and hoodlums in St. John's ever gave a second thought to how harmful their crimes really are. Declaring religious institutions immune to crime may be fruitless, but if people aren't even safe in a church, where are they safe?

Like the criminal who upsets the tranquility of a hospital or the teenager who mugs old ladies, the violation of a church, synagogue, or mosque--regardless of political intentions--should not be easily dismissed.

Irreverence for religion cannot be tolerated if New York wants to combat the moral debasement which frighteningly colors so many of its crimes. The city's problems will persist if respect cannot even be mustered for the most basic rights of its individuals.

New York's inability to maintain any safe haven does not bode well for the future. The city's loss of control undermines what little faith remains in the police department and its power to keep order. Increased emigration to the suburbs indicates that confidence in the city has steadily wanted over the years.

The problems awaiting anyone brave enough to confront them are enormous. The number of AIDS cases in the city has exploded, while the number of welfare recipients has also steadily increased. The war on drugs has turned out to be little more than a skirmish awarding drug dealers the decided victory. In a city where the policemen must use pistols to fend against semi-automatic machine guns, it's small wonder that crime has steadily risen. In fact, New York currently leads the nation in number of policeman shot this year.

That leaves church as the one safe place for people to go to escape the city's physical and moral turmoil. As long as the guard's on watch.

Joseph A. Acevedo '96 is a Crimson editor from Queens, New York.