Prison ministry

...Commonweal 12 September 8, 2000...

...visit by a member of the hierar- the church is in danger Prison ministers offer inmates chy can have a galvanizing effect of losing touch with the hope and a path to redemption on prison officials...

...Unless there is strategic thinking about how lay typically barred from areas where ministry is most needed: chaplains and diocesan officials communicate, the church is maximum security prisons, solitary confinement blocks, and in danger of losing touch with the twenty-three-hour lockdowns...

...Ulysses, we need to bind ourselves to me that my death from here on in would Since that happens to people who are the mast to avoid temptation...

...year alone...

...This ties...

...State institutions are similarly What lay chaplains cannot do is say Mass, anoint the sick, affected...

...Can the bish- More than 95 percent of inmates op's interest-and the prison's at- are eventually set free-585,000 tention-be sustained without state and federal prisoners this priestly prodding...

...And, although prison communities are rife with ing Protestant denominations...

...Furthermore, they are local church...

...These numbers suggest two things: prison ministry is ever more needed, and there are fewer priests to meet the need...

...this world...

...Increasingly, whether priests or not, chaplains are hired and supervised as state or federal government em- "He always joked about it, but I never thought my ployees...

...0 areas...

...The Federal Bureau of Prisons, for example, for Plymouth County in Massachusetts...

...for other institutions, a collection of pinch-hitting priests are brought from their regular pastoral duties solely Kathleen Reagan is a writer and a former assistant district attorney to say Mass...

...poses real challenges "Prison ministry represents the Currently, each diocese manages to the local church...

...In 1980, all but two members of the American Catholic Correctional Chaplains Association (ACCCA) were ordained priests...

...prisoners trying to hold their families together...

...And afraid of the man in the red dress," reality of prison life...

...The poor, the homeless, issue a statement on criminal justice this November-its refugees, victims of violence-all need the church's aid and first since the late '70s...

...A priest who is hired as a chaplain is responsible husband actually would turn me in to the FDA...

...But Oregon is fortunate church can provide prisoners, is not available where priests in that each prison has at least one staff chaplain (of varyare absent...

...As the laity increasingly take up this work, the term "chapKathleen Reagan lain" has required clarification...

...Will it continue to priests has resulted in a lack of prison ministry in some engage society on the issues inherent in prison ministry...

...he reconciliation, conceivably the most relevant comfort the serves with a lay Catholic chaplain...

...let's try one more round of situation as one where, much like Becoming seventy has not persuaded chemotherapy...

...A 1997 Vatican document (Some Questions Regarding Collaboration of Nonordained FaithPRISON MINISTRY ful in Priests' Sacred Ministry) restricted the term to clergy, bu Are Catholics being locked out...

...ried chaplains with children can offer seasoned advice to But he worries more about losing the room altogether...

...and change prison conditions...

...many are untrained, sometimes unreliable or naive, and are The increase in lay chaplains poses real challenges to the not trusted by Corrections employees...

...then there is life after prison...

...The conference is expected to gle with divorce, fall sick, and die...

...and the number of religious men and women has dropped by some thirty-two thousand...

...They are all in a grim and hopeless place...

...El chaplain is subject only to secular authority...

...I see the a few more years of life...

...The world has am, I have no reason to believe I would when the health-care costs of the elder- many problems-war, poverty, violence, be any more resistant to the lure of ex- ly become insupportable-by which I racism, exploitation of others-but I have pensive technological rescues than they mean they are dearly depriving younger never heard anyone make a plausible are...

...If the present rate of growth continues, there will be 2 million by the end of 2001...

...In the last fifteen years, the number of priests in the United States has declined by more than ten thousand...

...doubt show its hand at some point...

...one chaplain says...

...He means varying degrees of interest, mea- thinking about how lay not only emotionally and spiritusured in commitment of person- chaplains and diocesan ally but also physically...

...prived of that which would give them There are far worse things that happen in No, I hope I won't do that...

...sign reading "Assembly" marks the room where Even so, some dioceses require that prison chaplains be orinmates worship at Boston's Suffolk County dained...

...Maring to get the prison administration to change it to "Chapel...

...A Religious Services Divimental illness, drug addiction, HIV, and AIDS, the oppor- sion gives chaplains needed clout within correctional facilitunity to receive the sacrament of the sick is all too rare...

...A House of Corrections...

...Will prisoners, the least among us, continue to reThe USCC has an important role to play in developing a ceive the counsel and sacraments they so desperately need...

...Mandatory witness is needed...

...In the end, then, I can my self-interest in staying alive (an at- on expensive medicine...

...That so many tant, given that the United States Catholic Conference return to jail suggests how desperately an expanded church (USCG) is focused on ending capital punishment...

...Faithful Catholics stand in rather than rehabilitation all deserve greater scrutiny and line for attention as they baptize their children, marry, strugcomment from the USCC...

...the United States bishops have concluded that, given the title's unique history here, common usage does not create a confusion between an ordained priest and the lay minister...

...The Justice Department estimates that 62 percent During a period that has seen the burgeoning of the prison of these former inmates will be charged with new crimes populations, diocesan response has been especially impor- and 239,000 returned to jail within three years...

...Church nel, episcopal visits, and diocesan services are the one place that an support for prison outreach...

...national strategy to deal with these issues...

...I would vote for tolerate the idea of an age limit because titude hardly anyone in our society such a limit with trepidation, knowing I take aging and death to be a part of would now call selfish), which will no that I (and others like me) could be de- human life, and not a wholly evil part...

...succor...

...that he increase the ACCCA, "we don't even communication is vital to the have people to do Communion church's ability to comment upon in lay chaplains services...

...In reality of prison life...

...sentencing, coupled with cuts in rehabilitative services and Our understaffed parishes have many claims on sacraa new societal determination that emphasizes punishment mental and pastoral resources...

...If, and be a social tragedy, even if it is not sometougher and of better character than I only if, we reach a point in this country thing I look forward to...

...A officials communicate, inmate is safe from bodily assault...

...At the other extreme, Colorado, with no state-paid chaplack of access to the sacraments reduces a specifically lains, has one administrator (Protestant) who recruits an unCatholic presence in a setting that inherently strips away even group of interdenominational volunteers and contract denominational considerations as chaplains try to respond workers...

...In addition to province of professional lay ministers, will the ministry lose counseling, chaplains also provide religious education and its Catholic character...

...Should I, therefore, change my the- people of what they need to live decent case that one of the great evils to be put oretical views, bringing them more in lives and to have a chance of becoming on that list is the fact that elderly people line with nasty old reality, in this case old-then I would support an age limit get sick and die...

...Despite the contribution that volunteers make, to the naked claims of the human person...

...Today, of its 183 members, 39 percent are ordained priests, 20 percent laypeople, 19 percent permanent deacons, 19 percent religious sisters, and 3 percent religious brothers...

...George Williams, S.J., the In certain respects, lay ministers and ordained deacons prison chaplain and a religious brother, is try- have an advantage over priests in counseling prisoners...

...As the number serve that inmates view them in a parental role-probably of Catholic priests dwindles and prison ministry becomes the the first such positive contact many have had...

...Forty-two "contractor" priests serve promote community relations...

...and absolve sin after confession...

...The priest's too many states, says Jacobson, attachment to a diocese encour- who also serves as president of ages the flow of information...

...The shortage of Will the church support prison ministry...

...Out of the priest shortage is emerging the new institutional chaplain, with attendant changes in prison ministry...

...Instead of Mass, lay Catholic In Oregon, Father Jim Jacobson is the only priest employed chaplains lead Communion services...

...only refuge that prisoners have," its own demands for prison chap- says Timothy Wilson, a former lains...

...During the same period, the prison population has grown by more than a million...

...MassachuWilliams's problems provide a metaphor for the ques- setts chaplain Deacon "Buzz" Taylor and his wife Mary obtions facing Catholic prison ministry today...

...Today, we have 1.86 million people in prison...

...both to the government and to his bishop, but a lay prison Commonweal I I September 8, 2000 services, do administrative work like recruiting and training which manages one hundred institutions, employs only volunteers, visit sick inmates, assist correctional staff, and sixty full-time chaplains...

...the remaining institutions...

...Individual bishops display Unless there is strategic Massachusetts inmate...

...But the sacrament of by the Oregon Department of Corrections as a chaplain...