Thou shalt not kill?
Armed with the Catholic catechism—and sometimes a Glock—a priest counsels Chicago Police Department officers on the spiritual implications of the use of deadly force.
By Susan DeGrane
On a recent Sunday in the chapel at Mercy Home for Boys & Girls, on the near west side, Chicago archdiocesan priest Dan Brandt stood behind a marble altar bearing a black-and-white checkered band similar to the one that appears on hats worn by officers of the Chicago Police Department. The stole draped over his robe also bore the design. In preparing communion for the 50 or so police and their family members assembled, Brandt grasped a wine-filled chalice engraved with a blue cross and a blue line and raised it toward heaven.
"That thin blue line represents all that separates order from chaos," he later said of the chalice's distinctive marking. "The police are that thin blue line." As director of the Chicago Police Chaplains Ministry, headquartered at Mercy Home, Brandt often refers to this metaphor, reminding officers, particularly in times of trouble, that they are "doing God's work."
Anytime of the day or night Brandt drives to all parts of the city to offer spiritual support to members of his flock, Chicago's 11,500 police officers and their families, as well as some 5,000 police retirees, no matter their faith or their lack of one.
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