A Priest with a Badge

I loved the movie "48 Hours" with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. One of my favorite scenes in the movie was when Eddie Murphy was pretending to be a cop in a redneck bar and he told the white patrons, "I'm your worst f***ing nightmare, I'm a nigger with a badge!" That's a great line. Well, sometimes I feel the way that Eddie Murphy did in the redneck bar. A lot of times I'm out of my element while I'm policing and I think that people look at me and say, "He's our worst freakin' nightmare, he's a priest with a badge!"

I'm here to tell you that it is not easy being a cop and a priest. I'm completely misunderstood by my co-workers at the police department. I'm completely misunderstood by my fellow clergy. I am definitely misundertood by the citizens that I serve. I sure am glad that God understands me!

More than once I've asked a suspect that I've just arrested if I could pray for them. I haven't been turned down yet. Some look bewildered. Some thank me. Some just cry. But my thought is that if they've done something bad enough for me to have to place handcuffs on them they are in desperate need of God's love and mercy.

Often times I've prayed with the victims of crime. They, too, are in need of God's love and compassion. Sometimes I have to accompany the Coroner to the home of a family and inform them of the death of a loved one. I always ask to pray with them and for them. They need God's love, grace and compassion at that moment.

Being a priest with a badge has afforded me the opportunity to do ministry in some very unusual places and with some very unusual people. It has allowed me to do ministry with the most broken and wretched people in society. These are the very people that Jesus came to save.

I was once rejected by a certain religious order because, according to them, I'm a man of violence due to the fact that I carry a gun. I'm sorry that they feel that way, but I'm glad that they are enjoying their peaceful lives because people of "violence" like me and my brothers and sisters in blue make it possible for them to do so. This "holier than thou" attitude is the cause for many of the people that I put in handcuffs telling me that they will never darken the door of a church building.

Misunderstood? Yes! Rejected? Sometimes. Blessed? Always!!! God has given me opportunities to minister that many believers have never had and I am truly thankful for this. But God has also given you opportunities to minister that I will never have. Are you taking advantage of those opportunities?

I'm a priest with a badge! I don't want to be anyone's nightmare. I want to be a blessing. I pray that the Lord will allow me to be a blessing and I pray that He will allow you to be a blessing too.

God's Peace,
Fr. Rick