ARKANSAS HEROES - FATHER FRANZ AND DEACON KING - Government - http://maxpages.com/darkevilworld/Father_Franz_and_Deacon

FATHER LOUIS FRANZ
AND
DEACON FRANK KING

In 1983, the Catholic Church determined to send three priests to Arkansas to begin new missions within what had traditionally been the "Bible Belt" of Southern Baptist denominational turf for the better part of a century. One of the priests sent to Arkansas was Father Louis Franz, and in immediate evidence of the temper of his wonderful spirit, he decided to let two brethren have first choice of the location for the outreach of their new ministries. Father Franz ended up beginning a Catholic Mission in the small community of Star City, Arkansas, some 15 miles north of the Cummins Unit.

For the first few months after his arrival in southwest Arkansas, Father Franz did not know that there was a prison in the vicinity. He focused his attention on the township to which he had been sent, until one day he received a letter from a Death Row prisoner, Darrell Hill, requesting Confession.

Father Franz immediately proceeded to visit Darrell and was dismayed to learn that a prison of such notoriety and infamy, which also housed Arkansas' Death Row, was in his Mission's very back yard. Soon after visiting Darrell and determining to engage a prison outreach service as best he might, he joined up with Deacon Frank King, from the Catholic Diocese in Little Rock, who had been ministering to the men on Death Row for some time.

For the next eight years, well into 1990, Messrs. Franz and King provided what was to be the only real prison ministry that the Arkansas Department of Correction has ever had, both to prisoners on Death Row and to the general Cummins Unit population. Unlike many of their Baptist counterparts, the Catholic Church as a whole, and Father Franz and Deacon King in particular, were not only concerned only with "saving souls" by obtaining public conversions from sinners and then being done with them. They were not concerned with church membership rosters or religious service sign-in lists. They were not concerned with generating mountains of paperwork or with performing administrative functions to no end. They were not concerned with providing for their own comfort in fancy offices and splendid buildings. Indeed, they also desired to save souls by leading them to salvation above all, but in the process of doing that they also saw to the more tangible and immediate needs of the prisoners, and especially those on Death Row.

Finding the Arkansas prison and criminal justice system to be unjust and barbaric in many ways, Father Franz became a real outspoken activist seeking to champion the implementation of better penal statutes, prison policies, and rehabilitation programs for the prisoners at large. He was particularly concerned for the seemingly countless prisoners who had no families or friends, and who otherwise were lost in the cracks of the system, discarded and forgotten.

Across the eight years of his efforts, Father Franz gained the respect and admiration of many Arkansas lawmakers, lawyers, and professional people from all walks of life. He spearheaded needed change in several Arkansas laws and prison regulations and practices. He and Deacon King also began the Arkansas Churches for Life, which today is still active in the effort to realize the abolition of capital punishment, and for providing legal and other assistance to those men and women whose cases merit a more critical review, or who have a particularized need for help. Father Franz and Deacon King have often been, and still are, the only friends whom many men on Arkansas' Death Row have.

Together, Father Franz and Deacon King have also often assisted ex-cons with obtaining jobs upon release, with finding a residence, or providing a few staple things until they could get on their feet again. They have appeared before the Parole and Clemency Boards on prisoners' behalfs, and they assisted them in any way that they could to assure that Arkansas inmates had a fair and realistic chance to build a new life for themselves. They have been spiritual advisors, counselors, and true friends to many. And, they have had a great success in turning lives around that otherwise may have continued on a course of self-destruction only because few others were willing to give them little more than lip service.

After Death Row was moved from Cummins Unit to the Tucker Maximum Security Unit in central Arkansas, Deacon King focused his attention there, doing his best to be a friend to those condemned to die - 21 of whom have been executed since 1990. Father Franz continued to focus on the Cummins Unit and his Mission in Star City. He also recruited many other individuals into becoming active within the ever-growing numbers of prisons in Arkansas, including Bob Kordsmirer, who filled in for Father Franz every other week here at Cummins in order to allow him to gain support elsewhere in the state by which to effectuate needed change.

Father Franz also recognized that a great and untapped resource resided within the prisoners themselves. By his unselfish example, he encouraged prisoners to care for and to assist each other in whatever ways they could. He encouraged and taught them to find within themselves their native talents and skills, and to express them, and it was the first time that many of them were convinced that they were also persons who, despite their mistakes, had something worthwhile to offer their fellow men and women, and that it mattered what they did. By this Father Franz did more to rehabilitate Arkansas prisoners than all the hollow and self-serving programs the ADC has ever implemented. By their example Father Franz and Deacon King showed that being interested in someone's soul is indeed important, but human beings have needs greater than words and flowery appeals alone might sometimes meet, and those needs must be met if faith is to have any meaning.

Father Franz is a true follower of Christ, by his deeds, and not in word or name only. One of his favorite verses of the Bible is: "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison and ye came unto me. (Matt 25:35-36, KJV). And so, some prisoners who were outside and down on their luck, he fed. Others, he clothed; others in grief he comforted; those in prison he visited even when it was not popular to do; and those who were strangers and in need of a friend, he befriended. He did not need to entice men to service through some gimmick like providing free stamps, or by showing a movie, or by providing other "entertainment." The men came to him, and called for him, because he cared. And, they also deeply cared for him.

In 1992, Father Franz was given a new mission - in the Arizona desert - to provide for Native Americans. He felt that they were another group of people that society has all but forgotten. But, he still stays in touch with some of the men at Cummins, and with those on Death Row, and when possible he comes to see them still.

To you, Father Franz and Deacon King: On behalf of us all, thank you for the love that you have shown to us. We follow in your footsteps in the dusty road as best we can, as you have taught us to do by example. We hope that in the last day we also will be found worthy to have held the treasures that you gave to us here on earth; the greatest being the recognition that other persons are more important than one's self, and the jewel of the hope for our own salvation. But, because you have placed yourself last always, and elevated first those who were low - we pray to God that you will be among the first to enter into the place that you have taught us to seek. We bear witness of you to Him in the quiet of our hearts, and in the peace of our souls.

God's grace to you. Always.

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LINDA TANT MILLER

WASHINGTON

USA

tantsy1@msn.com

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Page Updated Thu Jan 24, 2008 6:54am EST