The haul at St. Gregory the Great parish may not have been enough to forge a statue from relinquished guns like San Francisco sculptor Benny Bufano’s 2,000-gun “St. Francis of the Guns.” But it was encouraging.

“We started in May 2007,” Monsignor Damien Nalepa, pastor of Baltimore City’s Roman Catholic parish, said of his no-questions-asked gun turn-in program, “and collected 15 guns, which we gave a monetary reward for.”

Since then this 400-family, inner-city church has conducted three additional buybacks — in January, March and June — and has netted a total of 105 firearms for police destruction.

The haul, which included sawed-off shotguns, revolvers and semiautomatic and automatic weapons, cost the program $6,000, which was defrayed by a anonymous donation.

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“Members of the Baltimore Police Department who accepted the guns said many could have caused lots of damage, because they were easily concealable,” said Walter Stokes, longtime parishioner and program volunteer. “That’s less damage that we [potentially] have to deal with.”

“It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” said Sgt. Kimberly Glanville of the Baltimore Police Department’s Neighborhood Services Unit, which oversaw the turn-in. “The response was overwhelming.”

Nalepa wants to continue an effort originally begun — and then discontinued — in the 1990s.

“Right now we’ve run out of funding,” he said. “So I’m trying to get some additional funding, because we’re anxious to start it up again. We’re desperately in need of sponsors to continue doing this.”

The program — part of a multipronged anti-violence initiative backed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore — includes gun buybacks at other parishes and prayer vigils and processions throughout the city to rally communities around anti-violence issues.

St. Gregory the Great conducted one four-stop, 100-person peace procession July 21 — five weeks after a procession at nearby St. Cecilia’s was mounted for one gun-wounded parishioner — and a third is scheduled for Immaculate Conception on Aug. 18.

But prayer, according to Nalepa, should be accompanied with works — and that includes more buybacks when financially possible.

“We’re deeply concerned about the violence because it affects the people of our parish and all the people of the city,” he said. “The vigils and the gun turn-ins have been successful, so we’re determined to continue them and other activities to bring about peace and end the gun violence.”