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DENVER CATHOLIC | APR-MAY 2024
Christ in the City - Offering the Hope of Christ
Christ in the City, a Catholic organization in
Denver, goes about it in a bit of a different way.
Young people sign up to give a year of their lives
to the mission by living in community, receiving
formation, and going out to the streets daily to
encounter the poor. These missionaries walk
consistent routes every day to encounter the
same people and build relationships.
Philip Couture, director of formation for
Christ in the City, lauded the Mayor's plan as
"maybe the best we could ever devise, humanly
speaking." But he acknowledged its shortcom-
ings precisely because it ends with the human
and doesn't recognize the need for God in a
broken world.
"All poverty, all homelessness is the result
of sin," Couture said. "This is the source of all
ruptured relationships. And that rupture is in
the human heart, it's not something the govern-
ment can reach."
Christ in the City's efforts are less tangi-
ble with the goal being relational rather than
material. The missionaries offer the hope of
Christ through an ongoing friendship with their
"friends on the street," as the missionaries affec-
tionately call the homeless.
Christ said the poor will always be with us,
Couture said, and as long as there's sin in the
world, there will be poverty and homelessness,
no matter the best of initiatives we propose. ⊲
G E T I N VO LV E D
Christ in the City also
welcomes volunteers
at their lunches in
the park, happening
every Wednesday
at noon, and the
second Saturday of
the month at noon.
For more information,
or to volunteer, visit
christinthecity.org/
get-involved.
