Columbus Police Officer Mark Hauenstein says that although their profession requires that they be armed, the most important object Catholic officers can have with them is not a gun.
“As Catholic police officers, the most effective weapon any of us can carry at all times is a rosary,” Hauenstein told the Catholic Men’s Luncheon Club at its monthly meeting on Friday, Sept. 2 at Columbus St. Patrick Church.
“It’s important to defend people’s lives, but what’s more important than the salvation of souls?” Hauenstein asked. “We should be as passionate in praying the rosary as some people are passionate about the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.”
Hauenstein said he always has a rosary with him as an effective encouragement to prayer in his free time. “This week when I was doing rifle training, for example, I would take out my rosary and pray when I had free moments, while other officers would be resting or on the phone.
“Police officers are used to being surrounded by some kind of activity,” he said. “We fear the silence. I encourage you not to get wrapped up in the noise of everyday life, but to pray or to study Catholic teaching.” He said his patrol car is always tuned to St. Gabriel Catholic Radio in Columbus so he can keep learning about the faith while he is trying to put that faith into action by serving others.
“Always be ready to explain your faith and the reasons for your hope, but do it with respect for the other person. Don’t go out and Bible thump, but do go out and be a good example,” he said.
Hauenstein, 44, is a graduate of Columbus Christ the King School, where his mother was a teacher; Columbus Bishop Hartley High School; and Ohio State University (OSU). He has been a police officer for 21 years, 20 of them as a second-shift patrol officer.
For the past year, he has been a community liaison officer in the city’s Fourth Precinct, which includes the University District, Weinland Park, parts of Italian Village and Victorian Village and the area near Battelle Memorial Institute. He is a member of Columbus St. Timothy Church, where he is an usher, lector and extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, and of his parish’s Knights of Columbus council.
As a member of the Columbus police honor guard, he has taken part in the funerals of many officers during the past two decades. “This allows me to honor my colleagues while performing the corporal work of mercy of praying for the dead,” he said.
“In attending so many funerals, I’ve come to realize that although suffering in itself is empty and has no meaning, it has a purpose when united to Jesus’ suffering on the cross. Through Jesus, our load is lightened, and our suffering becomes tolerable.”
Hauenstein said he grew up in a family in which his mother was Presbyterian until becoming a Catholic, and his father was Catholic. That meant he alternated between attending Brookwood Presbyterian and Christ the King churches. “I felt when I was a kid that I didn’t need church, yet I know now that Jesus was always at my side,” he said. “Despite my ignorance, God still had a plan for me.”
In college, he became a part-time employee of the OSU police department, escorting people who requested such help and using two-way radios to tell the university police about areas of concern. He was working with the department in February 1997 when OSU officer Michael Blankenship was shot and killed in response to a report of a suspicious person inside the university’s Wexner Center for the Arts.
“That changed and humbled me,” he said. “This wasn’t supposed to happen to a colleague. After thinking about it for a long time, I came to the conclusion that God allows things like this to happen to bring us closer to God, whether we are asking His support or we are venting our anger to Him. If there was no suffering in the world, would we feel the need to turn to God and help our neighbor?”
Hauenstein began his talk by showing a video clip from a Christmas show of the old Dragnet television series, with its idealized portrayal of police, and following that with a clip of what started as a traffic accident and deteriorated into a confrontation, with police trying to keep spectators back so they could investigate the scene while dealing with taunts that included racially insensitive language.
“You want to seek Jesus in everyone you serve and protect, but it’s not easy in situations like this,” he said. “Raise your hand if you think it would be hard to keep calm in the face of what you just saw.” Several hands went up.
“This is the kind of chaos and insanity a street officer has to deal with on a daily basis,” he said. “Jesus is there, but folks are so wrapped up in their own situation that it’s hard to see Him.
“All of this is ultimately an example of how original sin affects us. In so many situations, what you see on the surface as criminal behavior is one thing, but maybe the persons involved were abused or neglected as children or didn’t have a mom or dad, or both. … The family is under attack by Satan, and when there is no family, everyone suffers.
“We’re hearing a lot today in Columbus about Kias and Hyundais being stolen by a juvenile peer group with children as young as 8 years old,” he said. “Chances are they’re dealing with a lack of love and faith and support, and perhaps with domestic violence or alcohol abuse in their families.
“This is what makes kids turn to gangs where they can find a false sense of security or a form of love – steal a car, and you’ll have respect. It’s conditional love, but it’s more than they’re getting at home.”
Hauenstein said that although police work is constantly stressful and challenging, and every moment can be unpredictable, it provides officers with many opportunities to fulfill Jesus’ command to take up His cross and follow Him.
“A Catholic police officer is called by the nature of his job to discipleship, to serve others,” he said. “There are people who hate police officers, and there’s not a week that goes by when someone doesn’t ‘flip me the bird’ or use some nasty expression toward me,” he said. “At those times, I keep in mind John 15:18: ‘If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you.’
“In 21 years as a police officer, I’ve learned to offer all my worries to Jesus and put my faith and trust in Him,” Hauenstein said. “I am still a work in progress, remembering that Christ came to serve everyone, even His opponents. I don’t hesitate to tell others that I am Catholic and don’t shy away from doing so.”
Hauenstein closed his talk by showing a promotional video he made for the Columbus Division of Police. The video, which can be seen on Facebook, ends with him saying, “Through all the ups and downs, this job has only strengthened my Catholic faith and my relation to God, which is the most important part of my life. Each day, I’m reminded to serve others and to be willing to sacrifice my life if necessary to save someone else.”
The video ends with a reference to former Columbus Chief James Jackson, who led the police department for 19 years before retiring in 2009 and was a police officer for 51 years. “As Chief Jackson used to say, ‘Service is the rent that we pay for our room here on Earth,’” Hauenstein said.