Cover
story Behind the walls, healing begins in Christian community
(Editors note: An impressive range of groups and
individuals work against great odds to transform the grim prison experience
into a time that enhances life. NCR will report on some of these efforts
in the coming months. Below are two examples of Catholic parishes
operating inside the prison walls.)
By JOYCE CARR
Special to the National Catholic Reporter
When Richard Champ
Hernandez, speaks up during a service of the Grief Ministry Program, his
concern might be one heard at a similar gathering in any parish in the
country.
Hernandez, whose wife had a miscarriage, tells the group, I
buried my grief and questioned God and my wife. ... The fetus was my child, for
life begins at conception. Now its time to let go of my unborn child. In
questioning God, I have come closer to him.
As the conversation moves from one person to the next, it becomes
clear this is no ordinary parish.
Everyone in this room has unresolved grief, says
another man. I have lost several loved ones, including my mother and
first grandson. But I have been able to deal with my grief, failed marriage and
separation from my children. I took a life in 1989. Through reading and prayer,
I have a deeper understanding of the grief I caused my victims
family.
Hernandez and the other man are inmates at the California State
Prison, Sacramento, where about 60 percent of the 3,300 inmates are baptized
Catholics.
While not canonically classified as a parish, the community here
and a similar community in a prison in Delaware have structures that resemble
those of a parish.
In both places, Catholic chaplains have organized parish-like
organizations for ministry where prisoners evangelize their counterparts, pray
for men on death row and contribute funds to a home for children.
The communities have pastoral councils and committees in which
prisoners plan programs ranging from grief ministry to fund-raising.
In the Sacramento prison, Dennis Merino, a permanent deacon who is
the chaplain, has organized the Catholic Community of St. Peter, which draws
about 150 inmates. Members named the ministry and wrote its mission statement:
to provide a spiritual foundation for the men during their
confinement by strengthening the faith of practicing Roman Catholics,
restoring the faith of men fallen away from God and attracting, by example, new
members to the Catholic church.
The community has five committees: finance, bereavement, liturgy,
social and Catholic outreach. Members meet monthly as a council to plan events
and recommend ways to use the annual $2,500 operating budget derived from state
funds, donations from the Knights of Columbus and inmates contributions.
The Bereavement Committee, one of five appointed to run various
aspects of the in-prison parish, assists with the prisons Grief Ministry
Program, which allows the men opportunities to grieve the loss of family
members in a supportive environment. Violence can erupt when inmates
suppress emotions of loss, guilt, isolation, anger and depression, Merino
explained. They repress their grief, because crying here is seen as
a sign of weakness.
During a memorial service held in one of the maximum security
facilities, Merino called the ritual a special time Jesus becomes present
when we reach out to those who are hurting and get in touch with our own
grief.
Merino concluded the service with an exhortation to embrace
who you are with your mistakes. Our joy is in the realization that Christ lives
among us.
The Grief Ministry Program also includes counseling by the
chaplain and by 10 inmates who have had deaths in their families. They are
trained by the deacon during 10 two- to three-hour sessions. About half of the
bereaved prisoners opt for grief counseling, the chaplain said.
Don Goodwin, a grief counselor, recalls a fellow inmate who would
not eat or leave his cell after receiving a death notice. I walked around
the yard with him two hours, sharing my own loss, before he opened up and began
to grieve, Goodwin said.
Another counselor, John Irish McGuire, told NCR
the Grief Ministry Program has helped him become compassionate. I help
fellow inmates deal with the loss of loved ones and with the everyday grief
that comes from being in prison, he said.
St. Peters committee members also endorse three nonsectarian
support groups held weekly in two facilities. Typically, about 20 men sit in a
circle facing a lighted candle on the floor, which barely illuminates the
stuffy room. Each participant speaks without interruption for a few minutes
about his past weeks experiences.
They praise the support group as a 2 1/2-hour escape from a
guilt-ridden life, prison isolation and racial attacks in the yard.
One member noted, No religious or racial boundaries here,
which does something for my humanity. Here I see compassion and
concern.
Another said, I get positive energy here and release what is
bottled up. Its like getting a monkey off my back.
Each committee of St. Peters Community has specific
functions. The Liturgy Committee selects music for Sunday Masses celebrated by
Sacramento area priests. Twenty prisoners serve as lectors in the three
facilities.
The groups Catholic Outreach projects include sponsoring a
teenager in Mexico being trained in crop production and providing living
expenses for a retired Salesian nun in Mexico. Last Christmas inmates
contributed $1,356.36 to the Sacramento Childrens Home.
The Outreach Committee publishes a newsletter named The Rock
Group, which announces the communitys activities and invites
non-practicing Catholics to join the group.
The Social Committee plans two community meals a year, inviting
Catholics and their guests.
At the R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, prisoners
played an active role in their Catholic Prison Ministry, organized by Oblate
Fr. Ron Chiasson, chaplain, who died unexpectedly April 22.
While praying for the poor, sick and hungry during the Mass he was
celebrating at the prison, the 60-year-old priest died of a heart attack.
Volunteers who worked with Fr. Chiasson hope to continue their
ministries when his successor is appointed.
Chris Mathews, an inmate and Chiassons senior pastoral
assistant, said his participation in the St. Dismas Community has helped him
change from a drug and alcohol abuser to a catechetical ministry student. He is
serving 15 years to life for killing a man during a fist fight in 1991.
The god I had [then] was in a bottle, he said.
In prison youre trying to change, he said.
Its easier now to let go and let God guide my life. Mathews,
35, is taking correspondence courses for a diploma in catechetical ministry and
has applied to become a Third Order Trinitarian priest or brother.
Mathews tasks included preparing for seminars in English and
Spanish on life and growth in the Holy Spirit. Volunteers from various parishes
conducted the seminars held several times a year.
Rosella Greco, a volunteer who gave talks during the seminars,
believes this program brought peace to the inmates. I feel they are
captives set free by the small-group discussions, anointing by the
chaplain, their profession to turn away from all wrongdoing and sin, and
inviting Jesus to be lord of their life.
Prisoners at the Delaware Correctional Center in Smyrna, Del.,
also told of their conversions while participating in the parish-like
community.
They expressed genuine remorse for their crime and
compassion for their victims, said Xaverian Br. Steve Strausbaugh,
chaplain at the maximum security facility for some 1,750 prisoners.
Here, the St. Dismas Catholic Community has seen numerous
conversions, Strausbaugh said. Many prisoners tell me that without their
incarceration [and involvement in ministry], they would be either physically or
spiritually dead.
Another prisoner told Strausbaugh, When I come to St.
Dismas, at least for a little while, I dont feel like a convict but like
a human being.
But restrictions on religious activities have forced the community
to downsize its ministries from 44 committees that functioned under previous
chaplains to five groups that serve the Catholic Communitys 140 members.
Committee chairmen and elected inmates comprise the 12-member
pastoral council, which meets monthly.
The Liturgy Committee works with George Taylor, a permanent deacon
who is co-chaplain. The committee plans religious services, including two
Saturday Masses and two eucharistic services each month, and helps to organize
training for lectors and altar servers.
The Formation Committee helps organize the 10-month catechumenate
process for persons who wish to join the church. This year three men in the
program are being instructed by volunteers from Catholic parishes and by
inmates who have a sound knowledge of the Catholic faith,
Strausbaugh said. The committee also plans video-viewing sessions and weekly
classes, open to all prisoners, that include reflections on scripture passages
and lectures.
The REACH (Reach Every Ailing Convicts Heart) group visits
and prays with men in the prisons infirmary.
The Social Concerns Committee organizes an inmate-led addiction
support group and obtains speakers for the October Respect Life observance to
address themes from the womb to the tomb, Strausbaugh said.
Another group, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, is the only such
society in the world that operates in a prison, said Paul Reddington, a
volunteer from Holy Family Parish in Newark, Del.
Eight prisoners belong to this society that supplies toiletries to
inmates, pays for their medications and physicians fees when prisoners
are unable to do so and assists family members in need.
When the mother of a prisoner was facing foreclosure on her home
for owing two house payments, Reddington contacted six St. Vincent de Paul
parish conferences and raised the needed $660.
Prisoners in the society have grown spiritually by helping
others, Reddington said. They have become less confrontational,
more prayerful and more understanding of those in need.
National Catholic Reporter, July 2,
1999
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