“I PROMISE to work with the most poor and abandoned of young people.”
This was a part of the vows of Fr Chris Riley when he was ordained as a priest.
They are also the words that have driven him throughout his vocation.
But he was only a boy himself when he first realised he wanted to work with young people who were homeless and abused.
The inspiration first began to emerge after he watched the movie Boys Town when he was 14 years old.
“By chance, I was sent to boarding school when I was 14 because my parents were concerned that I was so quiet and shy,” he said.
“One day I was playing football, I saw a big blue bus roll into my school with the name Boys’ Town written boldly on it.
“When I inquired about it, one of the brothers told me that their order ran Boy’s Town.
“I immediately decided I would join this religious order that ran Boys’ Town in Sydney and I joined when I was 18 after I finished my Higher School Certificate.
“I completed my novitiate and teacher training and graduated from teachers’ college on my 21st birthday.
“I was sent to Boys’ Town as my first appointment.”
Boys’ Town, Engadine, supports families in crisis so they can remain intact and deal with difficult issues.
Fr Riley was working as a principal at Boys’ Town in Engadine in the 1980s when he began to redirect his focus on Sydney’s homeless.
He said there had been a lot of publicity about young homeless children in the inner city of Sydney and the problem had been highlighted in a report published by Brian Burdekin, the special adviser to the high commissioner for human rights, United Nations.
“I began going to the inner city of Sydney on the weekends and school holidays,” he said.
“There was a large group of kids who gathered just outside St Andrew’s Cathedral in George Street above Town Hall station.
“All the other charities refused to take their soup kitchens to that area as the kids were so violent.
“Most were heroin users who did crime to support their habit, but I was able to engage these kids and work effectively with them.”
Fr Riley said he always took hot food and medical supplies to the young people near Town Hall and one rainy day he noticed a young man sleeping on a bench with the “rain pelting down on him”.
“I approached him and gently touched him on the shoulder to wake him up, I spoke quietly to him and asked if he wanted some hot food,” he said.
“He mumbled ‘don’t worry about me I’m not worth it’.”
Fr Riley said he was surprised to see it was someone he knew who he had understood to be in “lock up”.
“I pulled his legs onto the ground, and pulled him up by the arms. He was well over six foot tall and he was clutching his shoulders with his arms.
“I then noticed tears running down his face.
“I had never seen this tough kid cry before, even when he had been beaten up.
“I asked him what was wrong and he just kept saying ‘don’t worry about me I’m just cold’.
“I then got it: he was crying because he was cold and that night I realised that you could be so cold that it felt like a knife cutting through your flesh.
“I told him I was going to put him in a hotel for the night and his response was ‘I’m not worth your efforts’.”
Fr Riley said he dropped the young man off at a cheap motel and noted he was much better when he checked on him the next day.
He said it was then that he made a commitment to go into the city every night to make sure the homeless at least had some decent food to eat.
“That night I resolved to work with these kids full time,” he said.
“After the kids were asleep at Boys’ Town, I would go off into the darkness of the night and work with the street kids.”
A year later Fr Riley left Boys’ Town to work with the street kids and the Youth of the Streets (YOTS) program was born.
Fr Riley estimates that some 70,000 young people have been directly supported by YOTS since its formation.
Outreach facilities provided at Macquarie Fields, Airds, Rosemeadow, Doonside, Walgett and Griffith currently support about 2000 young people while further provision is made for about 200 youth on the streets of Sydney.
About 80 youth are being given educational opportunities through five schools of excellence including the Matthew Hogan School at Canyonleigh.
Learn more about the work of YOTS and Fr Riley’s hopes for the future in part two of his life story in Friday’s edition of the Southern Highland News.
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