Page 33 - FOP_MAY16.indd

sentence with, ‘You were there,’” he recounts. “‘You were
there when my partner got shot. You were there when they R took my mother off life support. You were there when I got divorced.’ It hit me right between the eyes.”
ef
abbi Moshe is the other civilian on the five-person
ef
Father Nangle had been grooming his successor for three years, at least. He had asked Father Brandt to cover a wake some six years before that, and after the first
one, he kept asking Father Dan for his help.
Today, he proudly emphasizes Father Dan’s presence
as being everywhere he needs to be for officers and then some. “He truly smells like the flock,” Father Nangle quips. Father Dan quips that his only exposure to law enforce- ment came as a kid when he was more likely to wind up in the back seat of the patrol car in handcuffs. If you know Father Dan, or have had the fortune to witness his per- formances hosting the annual Comedy Cops event for the 100 Club of Chicago, you get that his quick wit, good humor and put-your-feet-up-on-the-desk demeanor has
taken the ministry to a whole new presence.
Montelongo submits that Father Dan would have made a great police officer. Lewis-Davis offers how much she ad- mires Father Dan’s leadership, allowing each of the chap- lains to use their giftedness to share ideas that have spread
the presence.
“Father Dan is our fearless leader, and I am humbled to
be part of his team,” Rabbi Moshe shares. “He never miss- es an opportunity to check up on an officer - anybody who has been in an incident he feels might have bruised their heart or their soul.”
team, but it almost wasn’t that way. His two brothers are in law enforcement, his father was a police chaplain and he did go through the Police Academy. That was 30 years ago, when Moshe chose the ministry over the streets where he finds affirmation for his decision every day. Or as he explains it: “The inspiration I see on the streets reminds me of the words of the Talmud: I came to give encourage- ment and left encouraged; I came to comfort and left com- forted; I came to inspire and left inspired.”
Montelongo embodies that power of inspiration. He al- ways wanted to be a police officer, and for many of his 19 years with the Department he went about his job like oth- er cops. He would be at the roll calls where the chaplains attended and listened because he had to. But then Mon- telongo found a calling to the church, became ordained as a Catholic Deacon and joined the Chaplains Ministry a year before Father Dan took the reins.
A few days after he took over, Father Dan asked Lew- is-Davis and Officer Joe Jackson to join the section. Jack- son, whose uncle, four cousins and nephew are, or were, police officers, walked a beat in the 13th District for 14- plus years before coming to the ministry, and he is the founding pastor of a church on West Chicago Avenue. In his west side neighborhood, as well as throughout the Department, he has forged one of those larger-than-life dispositions for which he is simply known as “Pastor Jack- son.”
CONTINUED ON PAGE 34
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ MAY 2016 33
r - e
- e y -