PEDRO Rest in Peace

Funeral For A Sweet Soul;
Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 10:30 am-St. Stephen Martyr Catholic Church, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC.

Pedro, or "Peter" didn't speak English very well or much. He was quiet, friendly, usually smiled and said hello to me whenever he saw me. That was when he was crouched in front of the West End library steps, on a bench in Washington Circle Park, once or twice when I cooked for him at Miriam's kitchen and at the winter Christmas church shelter or in the back row at Mass when I went to St. Stephens. He was paunchy, had diabetes apparently, a patch of died blonde hair in a pony tail and could be seen wrapping a rosary around his wrist in the dark on the back pew. Pedro was a catholic. Whenever I saw him I tried to drop off some kind of food. The Starbucks on K street donated day old wraps that I took to him when I found him lying in a door frame on K street. A church group donated a box of Au Bon Pain yogurt, muffins and coffee I delivered to the steps of the library. I paid him to do odd errands for me once in a while. I told him once- "we'll get you out of here Pedro hang on." I lied. We never got him off the streets. He died a fairly young man- didn't look older than 40.
I ticked off the church ladies when I invited him and a bunch of his friends to "Italian night" at the church basement. For God's Sake! What are all these homeless people doing in our basement party! For God's Sake Indeed.

Pedro went to meet the Lord I just found out and his funeral Mass will be held October 6 at 10:30- and there will, as is typical, be a 'reception' in the same church hall that served as his shelter during Christmas. The same one in which the snooty church ladies (bless their hearts) on fancy church committees and archdiocese budgets held their nose permanently out of joint at the thought of all the homeless people ruining their 'Italian Night' because there wasn't enough lasagna to feed everyone. This ironic indignity happened on the Feast Day of Saint Francis- the Saint best loved for his 'social justice' spirit in which he gave his inheritance and his father's money to the poor of the streets of Assisi.

Here would be my suggestion: Take a good walk around Washington Circle Park, and then go across the bridge to Georgetown, backtrack down K street from 22nd to 17th street and find the 30 or more chronically homeless quasi-crazy souls trying to keep their sanity and invite them to the "reception" for their friend Pedro. Then figure out a way to build permanent shelters for these people that they could actually care to live in with privacy, safety and noise under control, clean sheets, a working kitchen, and a view of the River they typically slept near, some under cover of the bushes. There is a lot of land right next to that Salvation Army building. Perhaps you all can work out a deal.
So we all don't have to feel guilty for doing next to nothing to really help Pedro and his buddies.

Then do an audit- and compare the money spent on cleaning stained glass windows in churches across America to the budget for cleaning the clothes of the "temples of the Holy Spirit" living homeless on the streets and tell me where the priorities are.