From the time he was a 20-year-old seminarian, Rev. Larry Craig devoted his life to the forgotten faithful by comforting juveniles behind bars.
Later, as an ordained priest, he reached out to their families by launching the Chicago archdiocese’s prison and jail ministries.
“The truth is that no one is 100 percent clean and no one is 100 percent dirty,” he told the Tribune in 2000. “In any given congregation, you have saints and sinners together–you just don’t know which is which.”
Father Craig, founder and executive director of Kolbe House Catholic Prison Ministry, died in his sleep Saturday, June 10, at the rectory of Assumption Parish, where he served as pastor for 22 years. He was 59.
Born March 6, 1947, Father Craig graduated from Quigley South Seminary in 1967. He graduated from University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein in 1973.
A tall, slender seminarian who wore his hair unusually long, Father Craig was ordered to trim his mane before he was ordained. But even after it turned silver, his hair always hovered just above his shoulders.
From 1973 to 1978, Father Craig served at St. Sylvester parish. And from 1978 to 1984, he served at Providence of God. Shortly after he arrived at Assumption Parish, then-Cardinal Joseph Bernardin asked him what was missing from the archdiocese. Father Craig suggested a prison ministry, and Kolbe House was born.
In 1980, he wrote a prayer book that is still used in U.S. detention centers to ease the fears of youth behind bars.
“As long as I can remember it was something he was called to do,” said Sister Mary Kathleen Craig, a Franciscan nun who was also Father Craig’s sister. “It was very dear to his heart to help children who were jailed. He thought no one cared about them.”
At the heart of Father Craig’s ministry was his belief that everyone should care and realize they have a stake in creating a just world.
“Through sin, everything was thrown out of whack,” he told the Tribune. “Justice is giving everybody their due. It is also saying, `What’s going to make this right?'”
It was that straight-talking, no-nonsense compassion that helped Father Craig relate to his mostly Latino parish. He delivered most of his homilies in Spanish and English and did not use flowery language.
“The respect he had for people … is what connected him,” said Rev. David Kelly, who serves in the Juvenile Detention Center and the Cook County Jail. “We find God in the faces of these young people. It’s amazing how much faith and hope is in their lives.”
Father Craig’s gifts could even be found in the occasional carats of wisdom he added to casual conversation, Kelly said. For instance, when community organizers declared a war on gangs, he would ask how they could declare war on their own children.
Father Craig is also survived by his mother, Marie; and two brothers, Tom and Bob. Visitation is Tuesday from noon through the evening at Assumption Church, 2434 S. California Ave. A funeral mass will be said at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the church.
———-
mbrachear@tribune.com
