THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 28, 1996 TAG: 9602280023
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
THE REV. GEORGE CLEMENTS is not the kind of man who lets convention stand in the way of doing the right thing.
Sixteen years ago, when he asked parishioners from his Catholic church in Chicago to adopt hard-to-place children, he got a silent response.
``If you won't adopt these children, I will,'' Clements said in exasperation.
Controversial words coming from a Catholic priest.
During the next few days, Clements fielded media calls from across the country. His bishop told him an adoption ``wouldn't happen.'' Why? Because it had never been done before.
But soon after, Clements heard from the Vatican.
``Pope John Paul had heard the news, and he was pleased,'' Clements said.
Three months later, Clements adopted 10-year-old Joey, becoming the first Catholic priest to adopt a child. Over the next several years, he adopted three more boys.
It was with those strong actions that Clements launched the One Church-One Child organization in 1984, with the premise that every church should place one homeless child with a family. Since then, the ecumenical One Church-One Child program has gone national, successful in adopting 60,000 children across the country.
Clements has now moved on to another mission, One Church-One Addict, and will come to the Basilica of St. Mary's of the Immaculate Conception in Norfolk on Sunday to encourage churches to help him in his latest endeavor: rehabilitating drug addicts.
A board of directors has been selected for a Virginia One Church-One Addict chapter, which includes South Hampton Roads representatives, but the organization is still in its development stage here.
Clements admits that the idea of addict adoption is a more difficult sell than asking families to take in hard-to-place children. ``People aren't as sympathetic to drug addicts,'' he said. ``So it's been more difficult.''
But, he asserts, the church must be on the cutting edge of dealing with society's problems, and he sees drug addiction as that frontier.
He has not hesitated to jump into the fray.
In 1989, for instance, he and another priest led protest marches on drug paraphernalia shops on the South Side of Chicago. They were arrested on charges of criminal trespassing. A revival meeting held in the parking lot of a drug paraphernalia wholesaler led the Illinois Legislature to pass a law banning much of the paraphernalia.
And in 1994, Clements moved to Washington, D.C., to launch One Church-One Addict, a program he hopes will have an even broader impact. Clements said about 50,000 people are already involved in the program, working in teams of four or five to counsel recovering addicts and help them make the transition from treatment programs back to society.
He already has success stories he likes to talk about: A young boy who was found stoned and passed out behind a church in Jersey City, N.J., after hearing his brother had been killed. A church janitor found him and took him to a priest, who linked him up with a One Church-One Addict team. The boy cleaned up his act, got a job working with computers and eventually got married in the same church where the janitor had found him.
Another drug addict learned about the One Church-One Addict program in jail. He joined the program after he was released, then asked his wife to get help from the same team. Once the two of them were on the road to recovery, they formed a team of their own to help other addicts.
Clements advises people to help solve society's thorniest problems by getting personally involved in people's lives.
He did that when he challenged his parishioners to get involved in helping homeless children by pledging to adopt a child himself.
``I thought it was going to be simpler than it was,'' he confesses. ``I didn't think there was that much to it, since I had been involved with so many children in the church.''
He remembers the day he brought Joey home. He made sure the boy was set up in his room OK, then went to his own room expecting his customary evening privacy.
Soon he heard a knock at the door. It was Joey.
``Yes?'' Clements asked.
``Well, what are you doing?'' Joey asked. At that moment, Clements learned parenting was a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour-a-day job.
But the rewards were such that he adopted three more children.
Clements' friendship with a neighborhood boy named Tommy got him passionately involved in the war against drugs.
Tommy was valedictorian of his eighth-grade class and had won an academic scholarship to a prestigious high school. One night in 1988, Clements' phone rang and an emergency room worker told him an unidentified boy was incoherent but was asking for Clements.
When Clements arrived at the hospital, he discovered the boy was Tommy. He had died of a drug overdose.
After the boy's funeral, Clements went to his office and cried.
``I had the feeling someone ought to do something about it,'' Clements said.
Clements did, and he hopes others will too.
MEMO: Clements will speak at the Catholic Charities of Hampton Roads' annual
meeting at 10:30 a.m. March 3 at the Basilica of St. Mary's of the
Immaculate Conception, 232 Chapel St., Norfolk. The public is invited
but reservations are required. Call 467-7707 for more information.
ILLUSTRATION: File photo
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY CATHOLIC CHURCH by CNB