FINDING LIGHT - PART III

How we treat the anawim

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Now, as the director of the public defender division of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, he spends most of his time on policy and administrative matters.

"We are working to help Texas establish a statewide public defender's system," McDermott explained.

"It is long overdue.

"As a state, we have to decide how we can provide counsel to those who cannot afford it," he added.

McDermott has not abandoned case work, however.

He continues to work on behalf of that client in the Del Rio courtroom (trying to have the charges dropped) and other indigent clients like him.

"It all comes back to the privilege to experience the poor that God gives me."

"I was the odd kid," McDermott acknowledged, "who paid strict attention at mass and in religion and theology class.

"We kept talking about what God wants in our relationship with Him," he mused.

"What God seemed to want was often expressed in how we treat the widow and orphan, the anawim.

"How often can you say those words before you either have to act on them or turn away?"