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January 25, 2018
Christina Gray
Catholic San Francisco
MARIST FATHER RENE ITURBE, THIRD FROM RIGHT, HELD A RETREAT FOR LAY DETENTION MINISTRY VOLUNTEERS FEB. 8 AT VALLOMBROSA RETREAT CENTER IN MENLO PARK. FATHER ITURBE IS THE ARCHDIOCESE OF SAN FRANCISCO’S NEW CHAPLAIN OF DETENTION MINISTRY SERVING SAN FRANCISCO AND MARIN JAILS. (PHOTO COURTESY JULIO ESCOBAR)
After 13 years as pastor of Notre Dame des Victoires Parish in San Francisco, Marist Father Rene Iturbe has a new job with the Archdiocese of San Francisco serving as “the face of the church” to locally incarcerated men and women.
On Jan. 6 Father Iturbe, who left his longtime pastoral assignment at the French National Catholic Church on Pine Street this summer, began his new role as the chaplain of detention ministry for San Francisco and Marin County jails.
His assignment fills a need for consistent Catholic Mass and sacramental and pastoral care in the jails according to the coordinator of the archdiocese’s restorative justice program.
“We needed a qualified chaplain devoted to the San Francisco County jails and Father Iturbe was retiring,” said coordinator Julio Escobar, whose program supports crime victims and survivors and works with offenders to achieve restorative justice. “We began praying and talking about the possibilities.”
Archbishop Cordileone made the appointment last year.
In the absence of a priest devoted to the county jails, Escobar spent a lot of his energy finding priests able and willing to say Mass and visit with inmates and managing lay volunteers. As a result, regular ministry to the jail population was difficult.
San Francisco County’s three jail complexes house approximately 1,300 men and women, according to Father Iturbe. These include one large and relatively modern facility located in San Bruno (which historically was under the jurisdiction of San Francisco County) and two smaller downtown jails. Marin County has a small jail at its civic center. San Quentin State Prison, also in Marin County, has its own chaplain, Jesuit Father George Williams. San Mateo County Jail’s detention ministry is run by the St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Mateo County.
“Not everybody wants to do this kind of ministry,” Father Iturbe told Catholic San Francisco Jan. 19. But being “an instrument of mercy” to those who feel alienated is an important part of the Society of Mary charism, he said.
“My draw to this ministry is a bottom line belief that everyone is made in the image of God,” he said. “Even though you may not see any manifestations of it, that is what Jesus saw. Everyone has value before God and that’s the linchpin of human dignity.”
A native San Franciscan, Father Iturbe has been a Marist priest for 43 years, primarily working in university campus ministry and as a parish priest. From 1987-93 he served as vicar-provincial of the San Francisco Province of Marists.
When asked to explain the goals or importance of detention ministry Father Iturbe paraphrased portions of Matthew 25:36-40.
“Let’s go right to the Gospel because that’s what we do as Catholics, right?” he said. “Jesus said that whatever we do for one of the least of our brothers you do for me, and certainly incarcerated people fit that.”
Father Iturbe said that he is there for everyone.
“I’m a Catholic but I’m not just there for Catholics,” he said. Catholic inmates are offered the sacrament of reconciliation, “but anyone can come in and talk to me about anything,” he said.
“We walk with people in what’s going on with them and hopefully in that walking God can operate in their life. That’s what it’s about, really.”
Incarcerated people “have burned through a lot of their relationships like you burn bridges,” said Father Iturbe, whose ministry may provide them with an opportunity to develop a relationship with God for perhaps the first time in their lives.
“Sometimes we’ve just to have everything knocked out from under us,” he said.
He described an inmate he met with years ago who had killed his estranged wife and her lover in a jealous rage.
“God meant nothing to him,” he said. “God wasn’t in his life, not even close.”
After the crime, all relatives on both sides disowned him and he realized he was truly alone.
“One could say he was almost pushed into looking at his relationship with God hoping for God’s mercy and forgiveness,” Father Iturbe said, and that could be true. But after a few months the priest felt the accused had come to “some kind of understanding that God was with him and that through his mercy he could begin again.”
Father Iturbe asked if such reconciliation is hard to believe.
“Maybe, but on the other hand, the fact of the matter is that he was there praying with me to a God he didn’t know before,” he said. “To me that was a palpable time, when somebody who had “all doors locked” had something open up and he had some kind of hope.”