Tributes have continued to pour in after it was announced this week that Brother Kevin Crowley will retire from the Capuchin Day Centre in central Dublin at the end of this month.
The 87-year-old Capuchin friar and West Cork man founded the Centre in 1969. Through his mission, born of a desire to restore human dignity to the poorest of the poor, he fed and clothed generations of people marginalised through homelessness, unemployment, and drink and drug addiction at the well-known Centre in Dublin each day.
Up to 1,600 people queued for food parcels distributed by volunteers at the Day Centre in Bow Street every Wednesday, with the amount of people in need more than doubling since the collapse of the banks in 2008.
When the Centre first opened its doors to the homeless and struggling in 1969, roughly 50 people attended. In recent times, Br Kevin’s volunteers have fed a cooked breakfast for up to 300 people each morning – and have served lunch to around twice that amount from 1-3pm daily. Many people, shunned by society, found great comfort and community at Br Kevin’s Centre at a time when they were at their most vulnerable, hopeless and helpless.
Open six days a week from 7am, the Day Centre offers a much-longed-for reprieve for those in need, providing not only quality cooked meals, but also warm showers and fresh clothes to anyone who may need them. A doctor and nurse are also present some days, and services provided include counselling, chiropody and eye testing.
One of his volunteers, in a mini RTE documentary several years ago, gave an insight into his calm nature – no doubt a fruit of his Fransiscan prayer life:
“He’s very serene, and if there’s ever an outburst, the minute he appears and puts his hand on their shoulder, there’s a calmness. I’ve never met anyone like him”.
“He’s a fabulous man who surrounds himself with a wonderful team of staff and volunteers,” she added.
His dream, according to the lady who worked with Br Kevin, would be to come over from the friary and to see nobody at the Day Centre, “not because he doesn’t want to see the people, but because the people wouldn’t need the service”.
Indeed, on announcing his retirement this week, the treasured capuchin said that the only regret he harbours is the fact that there is still a need for the Centre “after all this time”.
The Centre was first opened more than 50 years ago after a young Br Kevin, then in his early thirties, saw several men eating food out of bins in Dublin’s city streets.
Speaking to Dublin Live in 2018 ahead of the Pope’s visit to the Centre during his trip to the World Meeting of Families, the friar said that his mission from the start was to restore human dignity and respect to those most lacking it:
“When I saw people coming into our church, going around the streets, the dustbins and taking food out of them […] Being hunted out of various places and nowhere to go during the day time, it really encouraged me to do something to help so they’d have some dignity and respect”, he recalled.
From multiple interviews and interactions with the friar down through the years, it has been abundantly clear his ministry with the poor in Ireland has always been one rooted firmly in love:
“To me there’s no such thing whatsoever of my being a saint on earth. I love the people and want to share in their joys and their sorrows,” the now 87-year-old said in the same interview.
Throughout the Covid pandemic, when so much came to a standstill, the Day Centre’s food parcel distribution and most of the family supplies continued – and while the Centre was closed for in-person visitors as lockdowns took hold, food parcels saw a steady take-up during that time.
Thanking generous donors, fundraisers, staff and volunteers, Br Kevin explained that the service continued uninterrupted, and a “Take Away” meal service was operated. During this time, the Capuchin friars were moved by the sight of people without accommodation eating their food on the street, and offered the use of the Church as a facility where those most at risk could eat their meal with dignity and safety.
The capuchin has been far from shy in holding the Irish Government to account over the course of his ministry, and has repeatedly called on politicians to intervene to address Ireland’s ongoing homeless crisis.
One of the things that broke his heart, according to one volunteer in an interview, was seeing so many children coming into the centre with their mothers, and then having to go to hotels for emergency accommodation.
“These little children have to leave our place in the afternoon, and go to a hotel, and the only food they get is what we give them in the evening from the Centre”, Br Kevin told RTE in an interview at the Centre.
In 2019, he made headlines for holding the Government to account over the “absolutely appalling” homelessness crisis in Ireland, and appealed to the Government to build more homes to tackle the issue, admitting that he never thought he would see the homelessness crisis reach the stage it has.
He has been one of the most prominent voices in highlighting and tackling head-on Ireland’s homelessness crisis.
“In this day and age it’s absolutely appalling and I appeal to the Government to build more homes, that is a huge problem and that is why we have so many unfortunate homeless people, because the Government are not building houses. Each person should really have their own home, have a key to their own door,” he also said in 2019.
On a simply human level, the work done by the Capuchins and Br Kevin is remarkable. But his life and work also offers us a captivating glimpse into the life of religious vocation at a time when vocations to religious life and the priesthood are on the decline in Ireland.
The Irish Capuchin friars have ministered to the Irish people for over 400 years, and currently work not only in the Day Centre, but also in hospitals, hospices and in their friaries across Ireland. Every day, through prayer and action, they set out to dedicate their lives to God and to those in need, modelling the witness of St. Francis of Assisi.
Explaining his vocation to the Capuchin friars in a 2015 video recorded to tell the world more about the stories of Irish nuns and brothers, Br Kevin explains his vocation:
“Even though I was enjoying life I still had an unhappiness and this was because the Lord was calling me and I wasn’t answering the call.
“Being a religious brother means I have plenty of time to give to the people who attend the centre and to listen to their problems and difficulties,” he added.
At a time of dwindling vocations, falling Mass attendances, and a rapidly ageing clergy, Br Kevin’s witness to true Christianity burns like a beacon. He offers us hope as Christians and as Irish Catholics. Going beyond human goodness, the example of Br Kevin is above all, a living out of the Gospel message; a radical ‘yes’ to the commandment of Jesus to his disciples in Matthew 5:13 to be “the salt of the earth” and the “light of the world”.
With secular Ireland, political figures and much of our establishment media expressing its gratitude and admiration for Br Kevin following the announcement of his retirement, it’s clear he touched the hearts of many, including those who, perhaps long ago, walked away from the Catholic Church. We must not neglect, at a time when bashing of the Church is a regular occurrence in Irish public life, to acknowledge and reflect on the great work and witness of religious orders and individuals like Fr Kevin, and learn from the example they can offer us.
Maybe one of the reasons we are, as Christians, facing the prospect of having to proclaim the good news all over again to a hardened and increasingly secular Ireland is because we ourselves have failed in our own personal mission to also be the salt and light of the world.
Br Kevin’s service and living out of his vocation proves to me that the way to live up to the call demanded of all of us to be “the salt that does not lose its flavour” is not through murmuring and moaning, through criticism or judging, but instead through loving and serving and giving of ourselves, and acting where we see a need. We can all learn a lot from his legacy of love.