Charles Strobel, humanitarian and Room In The Inn founder, dies at 80.

Charles Strobel, a Nashville native, longtime Catholic priest, humanitarian and founder of Room In The Inn, died Sunday. He was 80.

Spending a life advocating for underserved members of the community, Strobel was best known for his work with people experiencing homelessness through Room In the Inn. He was also passionate about racial justice, mental health and opposing the death penalty.

He is the author of "Room In The Inn: Ways Congregations Can Help The Homeless" and the recipient of multiple awards, including the American Civil Liberties Union's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award, Father Ryan High School's Lifetime of Service Award, and more.

A wide range of Tennesseans remembered Strobel Sunday as bearing a legacy equally significant as that of elected officials.

“Our city is a much better place because of Fr. Strobel, and all of us should strive to keep his legacy alive through compassion and love for our neighbor,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper said in a statement.

The Rev. Enoch Fuzz, a Civil Rights leader and pastor of Corinthian Missionary Baptist Church in North Nashville, commented on the importance of Strobel’s interfaith work and said he was “ahead of his time as to do with race relations," Fuzz said in a statement. "Father Strobel was a precious stone in the history of Nashville.”

Many see Strobel’s work as both a faith and community leader as groundbreaking and anchored in a compassionate and progressive Catholicism.

Strobel was among the “people who have shaped Nashville,” nephew Martin Strobel said in an interview. “The question I ask myself is who is in that next generation of leaders whose moral compass pointed toward justice that fill Uncle Charles’ shoes.”

Priest and ecumenical community servant

Born March 12, 1943, Strobel grew up in Germantown. His father died four years later, leaving his mother, Mary Catherine Strobel, to raise Charles and his three siblings on her own. Mary Catherine Strobel was dedicated to caring for the poor, a passion she passed on to Strobel that he carried the rest of his life.

Raised Catholic, Strobel decided on a calling for the priesthood at a young age. After graduating from Father Ryan High School, he attended seminary at St. Mary's College in Kentucky and later pursued a graduate degree at Catholic University in Washington D.C. He received his ordination in 1970.

After returning home, Strobel became pastor of Holy Name Catholic Church in Edgefield in 1977. People experiencing homelessness would frequently visit the parish and Strobel and his staff would make them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

“Golly, that seems like that’s what I’d do all day long,” he told The Tennessean in 2015.

The PB&Js paved the path for Loaves and Fishes food bank to provide people with meals. In 1985, Holy Name started using some of its unused space to provide overnight housing in the winter. The need for this service became more and more apparent to him, and in 1986, he sent a letter to the editor to The Tennessean urging local churches and synagogues to do the same.

"This is an urgent call to every member of Nashville's 850 churches and synagogues," he said in the letter. " Our city must have more emergency shelters, now."

Strobel’s vision for various faith groups working together was uncommon at the time, Martin Strobel said. “That was transformative for Nashville, and it helped the city in so many ways to help it become more progressive as a community,” he said.

Ecumenism was foundational to Room In the Inn, which partnered with four congregations within a year of its 1985 founding to expand the number of winter emergency shelters it operated. Today, about 200 congregations representing different faith traditions partner with Room In The Inn.

“He built the community of Room In The Inn by bringing together people of diverse faiths from across the city to share simple acts of kindness and hospitality,” said the Rev. Gene Manning, an Episcopal priest and chair of Room In The Inn’s board, in a statement.

In a handbook for participating congregations, Strobel repeatedly emphasized the need to respect the dignity of guests and the program isn’t just to provide a place for people to rest their heads. They should feel loved, respected and included, Strobel said in the handbook.

“What he would say to almost every single person is ‘you don’t know the goodness that is in you,’” Rachel Hester, executive director of Room In The Inn, said in an interview.

‘He was our conscience’

The same year he founded Room In The Inn, an escapee of a mental health hospital murdered Strobel’s mother.

It was a dark time in his life. But he and his siblings didn’t support the death penalty for their mother’s killer.

“It was because of this notion of the miracle of forgiveness,” Strobel told The Jackson Sun in 2016. “Forgiveness means peace…. You can never even the score by killing one, or killing a thousand.”

Following his mother’s death, Strobel left Holy Name and transitioned into a full-time role at Room In The Inn. He served as its director until 2005, when Hester stepped into the position, which allowed Strobel to become more of a pastoral leader in the organization.

Strobel was present almost every day until about six months ago, Hester said.

With his death, “What will change is that I don’t have somebody in the room next to me that’s going to ask me, ‘I know you’re struggling with whatever that decision is, where is that in the scriptures?’” Hester said. “He was our elder. He was the person who I could sit down with and process with."

Room In the Inn’s success inspired a similar organization with its namesake to form in Memphis in 2009.

“Room in the Inn-Memphis has followed his simple model for shelter to meet the complicated needs of those living in homelessness through a beautifully diverse faith community,” the Rev. Lisa Anderson, Room In The Inn Memphis executive director, said in a statement. Anderson, who also pastors Colonial Cumberland Presbyterian Church, worked with Strobel for 15 years to build her organization.

“He (Strobel) was a man who was always mindful of those who lived on the margins,” said Nashville Catholic diocese Bishop J. Mark Spalding in a social media statement.

Martin Strobel said his uncle treated his Nashville family the same as his immediate family.

“He was our conscience as much as he was Nashville’s conscience. He was never afraid to stand up and speak about what he thought was just,” Martin Strobel said. “We will remember that, but we will also remember that bright, vibrant smile and that deep, happy laugh."

'He's beautiful': Nashville homeless shelter founder honored for 35 years of service

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on Twitter and Threads @liamsadams.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Charles Strobel, humanitarian and Room In The Inn founder, dies at 80.