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F e a t u r e A r t i c l e
EVANGELIZING FROM THE BOTTOM UP
By RUSSEL L. FORD
Part I
CRIME is the Number One problem of concern for Americans today. We can't pick up a newspaper or listen to a news program without hearing about crime. This is especially true in those parts of the country where upcoming elections cause politicians to sing rhetorical dirges to mourn the failures of the system in dealing with the problem. Nobody seems to know how to deal with it.
Recognized experts-those professionals who are paid by your generous tax contributions to tell you what will stem the tide of crime run amok-appeal to the public with theories such as the "lock-em-up" cure-all, the secular humanistic psychology cure-all, and the education cure-all. But the problem is, these are all just theories.
There are two drawbacks to listening to the experts. First, none of them is a convicted felon who has spent a substantial amount of time in major penal institutions. Being guided through the crime epidemic by people who have never experienced life as a criminal is like expecting the average man to comprehend the pain of giving birth.
Second and most important, none of the experts is willing to see himself or his theories from the perspective of the one death-row Convict who gave us an answer to the crime problem two thousand years before it was a problem. To do so would be to look into the mirror of self-accusation to see those moral flaws which contradict the teachings of Christ and his Church.
This writer is considered by some to be an expert in the area of crime and punishment, and I am at no more of a loss for words than those great nobles who hold vast degrees and publishing portfolios of best-selling books. There are four major advantages with this "expert," though:
I will offer proven solutions to criminal rehabilitation, as opposed to the worn-out theories.
I am now in my ninth year of incarceration on a 25-year sentence in the Alabama penal system.
I am a prison convert to authentic Catholicism from agnosticism.
Under the scrutiny of two very holy priests, I have been privileged to be used by God to develop what some Catholic writers have referred to as the most successful prison apostolate in America.
The purpose of this series is to demythologize current notions of punishment and rehabilitation, while at the same time offering methods that work, and you can use yourself, to have an impact on both your community and the kingdom of Christ.
I will show why the "lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key" mentality cannot work, and also how mere psychological treatment is like using a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. Although education has a proven track record for positive impact, we will see how it is only a step toward that which truly works.
And what truly works is the conveyance of unadulterated truth, as taught by Christ through his Church. Because they are so starved for religious and moral truth, prisoners are ripe for evangelization to Catholicism; therefore, this series will also demonstrate how virtually any practicing Catholic can establish an evangelistic prison apostolate for the conversion of souls.
This series will concentrate on how to use Christ's truth to both rehabilitate and convert criminals. Examples from our Alabama prison apostolate will be offered as proof of the spiritual and societal benefits.
This series will give a basic outline of how you can establish a prison apostolate, and I will discuss a good number of resources and techniques that can be used by any individual or group that may consider carrying the Perfect Prisoner to the more than one million federal and state prisoners in this country.
Before we can look into these topics, it is necessary to have a true understanding of the origin of this current crime epidemic in order to grasp how true Christianity can turn it around. Bear in mind that the insights given herein do not come from a doctorate-level sociologist, criminologist, or psychologist, but rather from the observations of a convicted felon.
Many so-called experts claim five primary causes for crime: child neglect, child abuse (sexual and physical), rearing in extreme poverty, rearing in a drug culture, and the breakdown of the family. There is a large element of truth to the experts' point of view, but it simply is not adequate. I have met thousands of convicts during my years of imprisonment and listened to the histories of hundreds. It is true that one, all, or some combination of the five factors comes into play in each case, but the making of a criminal both individually and as a class runs much deeper.
Each of these five factors equates to violence against a child. Child neglect, excessive poverty, and the instability of a family or its total breakup are all violence to the tender and formative psyche of a child. Child abuse and a drug-culture environment do violence to both the psyche and the body. Such violence has a definite effect on the adult child's ability to reason and the way he perceives other human persons; however, these five factors, despite their devastating effects, are not the root causes of crime.
It is true that violence begets violence, but there must be an origin for the violence that begets violence. Since all crime can be traced directly to a blatant disrespect for human life to varying degrees, in order to find the cause of the current crime epidemic we must locate the origin for society's lack of respect for human life. It is my contention that the current epidemic can be linked to 1930 England.
In 1930, all of Christendom, Catholic and non-Catholic, held that artificial contraception was a moral evil. This belief was so ingrained in occidental culture that artificial contraception was on the books as being illegal in America. But the people of England had decided they wanted the pleasures of sex without the responsibilities, so they petitioned the Anglican bishops to allow artificial contraception.
Under immense pressure from the people, the Bishops over the official state religion of England, meeting at the Lambeth Conference, appeased their laity with a decree that essentially asserted the immorality of contraception, yet granted permission for its practice by British Anglicans. The floodgate was opened, and the licentious practice of contraception spread throughout the West in a few short years.
Suddenly, for the first time in the history of Christianity, man had arrogantly put himself in the place of God. Man decided he would be responsible for choosing when life was to begin. This action created a lack of respect not only for the procreative gifts given to man by God, but also a lack of mutual respect for the personhood of those persons having sexual relations while practicing contraception. From this beginning of the so-called sexual revolution, it wasn't long before people began to be reduced to objects of pleasure rather than persons.
Then came the darkest day in American history when President Harry S. Truman made the fateful decision to wipe out the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No doubt it was a tough decision for Mr. Truman, one over which he must have lost many hours of sleep. I hope history treats Mr. Truman with compassion as later generations come to recognize the severity of his decision; still, any moral stand we had in the war was lost with the annihilation of the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the first of the two most significant events in American history to demonstrate a blatant disregard for human life.
When asked if he should apologize to Japan for dropping the atomic bomb on two of their industrial centers, Truman noted that nobody had apologized for Pearl Harbor. This attitude of superiority is precisely the attitude which carried over into the Nuremberg war crimes trials. America had shown its callousness by choosing revenge over justice.
This form of replacing God as the decision maker for when human life should end was one where the government decided on behalf of the American people. Vietnam, however, was quite another story. It was in the Southeast Asian conflict that we sent thousands of mothers' sons into a war nobody wanted, taught them to burn villages and kill the innocent along with the enemy, and to develop a concept of worthlessness for human life.
Finally, the U. S. Supreme Court entered the scene to act as the national conscience when it condemned to death-a death penalty absent of a crime, without due process, and lacking any sort of defense-millions of innocent pre-born children still in their mothers' wombs. Just over forty years after we took God's place to decide individually when life should begin, the Supreme Court gave us the individual "right" to determine when life should end. This was the second of the two most significant events in American history to demonstrate blatant disregard for human life.
Now things have gone even a step further. The recent acquittal of Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian marked the beginning of a new era of bloodletting. The jury charged with determining Dr. Kevorkian's guilt or innocence, in essence, ignored the law that was violated and gave its stamp of approval to euthanasia.
The liberal entertainment media has done its share to contribute to disrespect for human life, too. The most common tool used by prison officials to keep the prison population lethargic is television. Many shows or movies during prime time fill the minds of viewers with glorified violence. Murders are a dime a dozen, the rapes of women (and sometimes men) are frequent, and it's almost impossible to discern bad guys from good guys. Murder, rape, degradation of the human person; all are glorified in the entertainment media. We are being taught to desire illicit sex, drugs, and wealth, while simultaneously learning to be excited by murder rather than repulsed by it.
What messages have we been sending to our children? Most of the messages are merely subliminal or implied, but they are present nonetheless. Via contraception we tell them they were a planned choice instead of a welcomed and anticipated gift of God. The implication is that we chose not to give them siblings, and we could have just as easily chosen not to give them the gift of life.
The message is the same with abortion, with one major exception. In abortion we tell our kids that we could have changed our minds about giving them life and murdered them in the womb.
When the message of denial of life or threat of death is linked to the constant bombardment of the media to glorify the worst of crimes and immorality the result is a current generation of people whose consciences have been effectively numbed. This means that those born since about 1960 are virtually unable to determine right from wrong.
Many recent events serve to prove my point. One example is the eighteen-year-old American citizen, Michael Fay, who was sentenced to a caning in Singapore for acts of vandalism. Fay blatantly demonstrated a lack of respect for others by his actions, and any such disrespect has an anti-life philosophy as its root. The terrifying thing is that Fay's parents see the just punishment as being too severe. Such a view is easy to understand when coming from a young president whose moral formation has been proven to be flawed, but from the boy's parents?
Another case in point comes from California. A girl in high school showed up one morning for classes carrying a firearm. She began shooting and took hostages. During hostage negotiations, a police officer asked her on the phone why she had initiated the unprovoked attack. She replied that it was a boring Monday and that she only wanted to liven things up a bit. Several people were dead or wounded when she had finished "livening" things up. Human life has no more value to this girl than a fly crushed beneath a swatter.
Nor are those sworn to serve and protect us immune to the effects of the anti-life philosophy that has permeated our culture. Alabama, one of the nation's most conservative states, with law enforcement officials who have always been tough on crime, has had its problems, too. A state trooper sits on death row today because he murdered his state trooper fiancée after purchasing a large life insurance policy on her.
Not all is lost, though. There is hope. We must turn the tide of crime by evangelizing America, and the best place to begin is at the bottom. If we want to end the crime epidemic, the work must begin in the prisons.
A stand for severe punishment is good for politicians to get votes, for departments of corrections to get fatter budgets, and for voters to feel assuaged, but it produces career criminals who hate and want revenge. I've seen this repeatedly. A convict will go free on parole or with time off for good behavior, then end up on the front page of the newspapers for the rapes or murders of several people.
The one thing I've noticed about each of these ex-cons (some of whom I've known personally) is that they had no prior history of violence. Such men were previously in prison for property crimes, minor drug possession, or other nominal crimes. It has never dawned on the taxpayers of Alabama that the harsh treatment received in prison-and Alabama's penal system is notorious for the abuse of its prisoners by authorities and fellow prisoners-for both of which Alabama is guilty and responsible-has been the cause of anger being expressed in the form of violence. Harsh punishment simply does not work.
Pop psychology is another blowout. Since it is mostly based on secular humanism, psychology removes God and allows self to replace him. How can a science which has no absolutes successfully rehabilitate persons who have never been exposed to any form of absolute right and wrong in a society where the laws (both civil and divine) are stated in absolute terms? No, psychology doesn't work. If anything, it serves only to destroy souls.
The only thing that works is a radical conversion to a religion that has truth as its basis. What must be determined is which religion is right for conversion.
There are three main religions represented in prison. One is Islam. Islam is a noble religion, one with which Christianity finds a common root. The problem is that it lacks the fullness of truth, and the elements of truth that do exist in Islam are distorted in prison by the segregationist and bigoted attitudes of many of its adherents.
The second religion greatly represented in prison is Protestant Fundamentalism. Although there are a few serious and life-altering conversions to this brand of Christianity, for the greater part, Fundamentalism in prison is either an emotional tool used to cope with the stresses of prison life (given up when the prisoner is released), or a tool used by con artists who try to get over on the system.
Besides, the most obvious flaw of Protestant Fundamentalism is that it promotes rebellion against proper authority. It is built on the foundation of rejection of authority; therefore, despite its many truths, Fundamentalism is not the answer.
The only answer, then, is radical conversion to the third greatly represented religion in prison, the religion which possesses the fullness of absolute religious truth. Truth, as defined by Fr. Robert J. Fox, is the conformity of the mind to reality. Reality is Jesus Christ. Reality is that Jesus founded his Church on Peter as the rock, and that Church is the Roman Catholic Church. Reality mandates that the only religion for conversion to is the Church of Jesus Christ for sinners; that is Catholicism.
The first thing to realize is that convicted felons can be rehabilitated by Catholicism, but it must be Catholicism without compromise. To rehabilitate implies that one must be brought back to the proper teaching. What will work with these men and women is absolute orthodoxy; that is to say complete fidelity to Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the papal magisterium.
Prisoners are starved for truth. They actually want to know the difference between right and wrong, that God truly exists, that there is a competent authority with their best interests at heart, that there is a reason for their existence, and that sanity can be wrought from the insanity of their lives. Only genuine Catholicism can do this.
Alabama is in the so-called "Bible Belt." Of its more than 3.9 million citizens, we Catholics make up only 3.2 percent of the population. Roughly 95 percent of Alabama citizens claim to belong to Protestant Fundamentalist sects, the vast majority of whom adhere to or teach a vehemently anti-Catholic platform. Despite this, we have managed to see the conversions of nearly one hundred prisoners to Catholicism since 1989. Why? Because prisoners are starved for truth. But how successful has our evangelistic Catholic apostolate been toward curbing crime?
The overall recidivism rate (the percentage of ex-prisoners who return to prison) is abut 80 percent, which is indicative of the state's failure to cope with crime. There is no doubt that advancing a convict's education helps recidivism rates from less than 5 percent to 20 percent, depending on which study you cite, but these figures are still unacceptable. Converts to Islam and Protestant Fundamentalism remain at about the general 80-percent level. The rate of recidivism among those who have converted to Catholicism here in prison, though, is one which should not escape the attention of those who are serious about curbing the crime epidemic.
Since 1989, all but about a dozen of our converts have returned to society. Despite an 80 percent overall rate of recidivism, not one single convert to Catholicism from this apostolate has ever returned to prison. Indeed, many are valuable assets in their parishes, and some even evangelize and teach the catechism. This should not be at all surprising to a Catholic who understands the faith.
The greatest news of this is that you can contribute to the Church and society by allowing the Holy Spirit to use you in a prison near where you live to curb crime and start souls on the road to sanctity. Beginning in the following part of this series we will examine exactly how any Catholic can work in the prisons for the salvation of souls, reduction in crime, and to visit Jesus in prison (Matt. 25:36, 40 ).
Part II
THE overall rate of recidivism in Alabama is 80 percent, with a significant reduction in recidivism when convicted felons work to advance their education. Depending on the level of education achieved in prison, recidivism drops from the 80-percent mark to a downward range from 20 percent to less than 5 percent. This is good but it is still unacceptable.
The 20-percent rate reflects prisoners who have learned to read and write and have obtained a general education diploma. The low end of less than 5 percent is limited to prisoners who have achieved college degrees. Since Congress has taken away any chance of prisoners receiving higher education, however, it is a waste of time to discuss the merits of a college degree.
Because crime is a moral problem, one would think that religious conversion would substantially reduce recidivism. The statistics, however, establish quite the opposite. Surprisingly, converts to Islam and Protestant Fundamentalism, two of the three major religious groups in the Alabama penal system, maintain an unaltered 80-percent rate of recidivism.
Converts to Catholicism, though, do not seem to accept the statistics as applicable to themselves. Based on the number of converts to Catholicism through the prison apostolate here, at least forty of our people should have returned to prison already. The simple fact is that not one single convert has ever returned to prison. Certainly the day will come when this record is broken. However, the success of this apostolate is indisputable.
On the basis of our record of recidivism-which is zero-one must ask the question: Why are Catholic converts not returning to prison when the Fundamentalists and Muslims are? The answer is quite simple really. Penitentiary Islam is primarily a religion of racial bigotry. Prison adherents do not typically practice genuine Islam; but rather use religion as a means to promote hatred. Fundamentalists, on the other hand, practice their religion; however, it is a religion which is almost devoid of dogma and valid moral absolutes.
The Catholic school of thought differs significantly from those of penitentiary Islam and Protestant Fundamentalism. The reason none of our converts return to prison is that they receive the complete, unadulterated, magisterial truth of this living, breathing organism we call the Church. In our various catechetical and apologetical training and formation programs, inquirers, catechumens, converts, and cradle Catholics receive absolutely and completely Christ's divinely revealed truths. Nothing is left out.
The men are taught of the cleansing power in the sacrament of baptism. They learn of the special relationship they develop with the Holy Spirit in confirmation. They readily accept that Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, is really present, Body, Blood, soul, and divinity, in the Holy Eucharist. They understand that the Mass is, at one and the same time, Christ offering himself to the Father while offering himself to us.
They come to appreciate the words "I absolve you from your sins . . ." in the sacrament of penance, knowing that God through his priest has truly forgiven them of their sins. They fall in love with the mercy of God as they learn how he reaches out to them with the graces of final perseverance (or final penitence) in the anointing of the sick.
They come to long for the family unit as God intended it, when they learn of the indissolubility of holy matrimony; along with the fullness of Christ's teaching on unity and procreation. They learn to stand in awe of the divine origins of holy orders, thus treating our priests with a level and manner of respect they have never given to any other human person in their lives.
Before explaining the most important aspect of the catechetical formation our prisoners receive, I wish to digress for a moment on the topic of how our men view their priests; this is very important in understanding how to give a convict the necessary tools to avoid returning to prison.
When Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb comes to our prison to celebrate Holy Mass for us, the men, because of what they have been taught, are fully cognizant that their right foot stands in the upper room on Holy Thursday night and that their left foot is present where Mass is being celebrated in the twentieth century. They know that they are in the presence of the twelve apostles at the same time they are in the presence of a legitimate successor to that holy college.
When the homily is being preached, whether it be our ordinary or our confessor, they know that they are hearing the words of Jesus Christ (Luke 10:16). They are absolutely positive that it is Christ's ambassador who is making the conscious decision in his Name to forgive their sins when they hear our holy confessor, Fr. Michael Sreboth say, "I absolve you from all your sins" (John 20:23).
Because they have been given a wholesome and well-balanced education in holy orders, they understand that they truly receive the blessings of the King of Kings when they receive Fr. Sreboth's blessing. Finally, due to their understanding of the Church's authority and the divine origin of holy orders, Fr. Sreboth's pastoral word is law in their hearts and minds.
Francis of Assisi was once preaching in a town where the people complained of the sinfulness of their parish priest. They were using this priest's betrayal of his vows as an excuse for their own licentiousness. When the priest and his paramour were brought by the crowd to Francis, he countered their venom by kneeling before the priest and saying, "Whether he is good for his own soul, I do not know. But my soul needs him." Our men understand that no matter what sins our archbishop and our priest could conceivable commit, without those men who are recipients of holy orders their souls would be doomed.
The last and, oddly enough, the most important part of their catechetical formation comes by way of a forceful teaching about the Church's authority. What makes this odd is that criminals are criminals simply because they reject authority. And yet it is the establishment of the Church's authority in their minds which causes them to toe God's line. Once the orthodox position of Church authority has been established, prisoners have no problem with accepting the Church's teachings on matters of faith and morals.
In fact, we often hear Catholic prisoners responding to objections of non-Catholics by simply stating, "because the Church says so!" Of course, the primary reason such a statement is used is because they are not yet confident enough to articulate a well-reasoned answer to an objection; however, the statement focusing the spotlight on Holy Mother Church's authority is absolutely valid. It's just plain good theology!
The most striking element in prison evangelization is that convicts are starved for truth. They gravitate toward the truth as the opposite poles of magnets attract one another. There are a number of reasons for this. One is the background of the convicts themselves. They come to us as agnostics, atheists, Fundamentalists with questions, or simply unchurched-but without exception they all have a background, at least in their formative years, in the puritanical tenets of Protestant Fundamentalism.
The very foundations of Fundamentalism force them eventually to turn their backs on this form of Christianity. After all, it is a religion founded on the basis of rebellion. Furthermore, Fundamentalism unjustly restricts that which is not sinful while failing to enforce God's Law in some areas that are gravely sinful.
Finally, because Fundamentalism tends to expect its adherents to "clean up" before coming to Christ, prisoners have experienced rejection by their Fundamentalist pastors, fellow congregants, and even sometimes by their own parents.
Another reason pure Catholicism attracts prisoners is that there is no wishy-washiness in the Church's morality. The Church's yes means yes and her no means no. She doesn't teach one moral doctrine as truth for one generation and then change that teaching for the next generation. For example, for two thousand years the Church has taught that remarriage after divorce is sinful.
Not so among our separated brethren. When I was in high school attending a Southern Baptist church, a pastor who got a divorce destroyed his career. In the twenty-plus years since that time, I have known Baptist pastors in good standing who have been divorced and remarried several times. Seventy-five years ago, it was acceptable for Baptists to smoke moderately, just as it is for Catholics today.
Of course, we all know that smoking will not send Baptists to hell. The implication is that my good Baptist grandfather went to heaven while smoking, but that it sent my father to hell. This is intolerable to the intellect of anyone, whether criminally inclined or not.
Finally, another reason the Church attracts convicts is the forceful strength she uses to teach morality. Since each Fundamentalist is his own pope, in that he can interpret Scripture privately, there is no real understanding among Fundamentalism's followers of what is right and what is wrong. Fundamentalism does well to promote patriotism; however, it tends to take it too far.
The result is that the state becomes the moral spokesman for the people. In other words, convicts of Fundamentalist background have a great difficulty in distinguishing that which is legal from that which is moral. A prisoner can tell you what law he violated to end up in prison; but he is completely mystified as to why it was wrong. He assumes that what is law is moral, but no one has ever explained to him the moral background of such laws. Adding to his confusion is the prevalence of such immoral laws as abortion and the state protection of abortuaries.
Not so in the Catholic Church. Prisoners are not simply given a list of dos and don'ts. The men of this Catholic prison apostolate are given the whysof the dos and don'ts. From arguments based on Scripture, Tradition, and reason, our converts become convinced of the rightness of Catholic morality, and understand it. Of course, this can only be done if the Church's authority to determine Christian morality is first established in the mind of the student.
This is rehabilitation, Catholic-style; although, it is important to note that the word rehabilitation is actually a malapropism. In order for one to be rehabilitated, one must have been habilitated in the first place. Since the vast majority of modern prisoners are generation-X'ers and young baby boomers, they have never been habilitated to anything. Therefore, the prison apostle's responsibility is not to rehabilitate (or habilitate again), but to habilitate for the first time.
Many have said that our accomplishments in this particular prison apostolate (i.e., great numbers of conversions and zero recidivism) are extraordinary. It is my contention that this is not extraordinary, and should not be considered so, but it rather can and should be the norm. What must be done is that lay people become committed to prison apostolate. It is my opinion that those who are capable but do not get involved in actively evangelizing prisoners have absolutely no right to complain about crime run amok.
But the question arises, "How does one establish a prison apostolate?" Herein, and throughout the remainder of this series, I shall give a step-by-step guide for establishing such a sacred work.
When I said in the above phrase "those who are capable," I was referring to those with a vocation for this sort of work. Indeed, working in prison apostolates is as much a vocation as anything you are already doing in life. Just as one can lose one's soul by not yielding to a vocation, so can one lose one's soul (and the souls of countless others) by taking up this vocation when no call exists. Prison apostolate is the most emotionally demanding evangelistic work in the Church in America today. The personal costs can only be paid if a genuine vocation exists.
Just as with any vocation, one must test the waters to find out if God is calling. First, call your chancery office and find out what priest is assigned to the prison nearest your home. Next, contact that chaplain and tell him that you may have an interest in working with prisoners, and ask if he can arrange for you to accompany him on a couple of his visits to the prison.
When you go to the prison for your first visit, remain subdued and in the background, allowing as little attention as possible to be focused upon you. Do not prejudge the activities or potential on the basis of the number of prisoners attending the Mass, or whatever meeting you are visiting. In some parts of the country, there will be many convicts present; this is not necessarily indicative of any fruit-producing apostolate. In other parts of the country, there may be only two or three prisoners present. Lack of attendance does not mean that a potential does not exist.
During this first visit, pay close attention to everything around you. Tune in to the sounds, sights, and smells of the prison. Pay close attention to the convicts. Listen to the words they are saying, but be especially sure to hear what is not said, by way of facial expression and body language. This should be the extent of your activity on your first visit.
Immediately after you leave the prison, stop off at a coffee shop or restaurant to relax for a few moments over a little snack. Say a brief prayer to the Holy Spirit asking him to recall to your mind all that you have observed. Then just sit and meditate on the events of your visit.
Make it a point to pray and meditate for five to ten minutes a day for the next week, focusing upon the faces and souls of the prisoners you met. If the Holy Spirit is calling you to the prison apostolate vocation, he will indicate it in some subtle way, such as giving you an unexpected feeling of compassion for the prisoners. There are other ways that he may let you know, but what I have described is the most common.
If you believe the Holy Spirit may be calling you to the service of Christ in the least of his brethren, then it is important that you have open dialogue on the subject with your confessor. Your confessor possesses the "graces of state," that is, those sacramental graces of holy orders that will help him to determine with you God's will for you.
If you and your confessor agree that you should pursue the prison apostolate, then the next step is prayer, prayer, prayer. I would heartily recommend that you make a formal retreat before embarking on this vocation. If this is impractical, then at least set aside one weekend to spend the majority of your time in prayer and meditation.
If it were I, a good general confession, devout reception of Holy Communion at Mass, and two days of one hour each praying to our Lord in his prison above the altar would be the minimum. Now, apostle, you are ready to begin.
At this point, you must go back to the chaplain and tell him you are interested in working in the prison to evangelize prisoners. Even if this priest is one of those unfortunate souls who has decided against fidelity to the Holy Father, he will most likely embrace you as a comrade in this work because anything you do will help lighten his load. If he is a "papal priest", such as our own Fr. Sreboth, he will be anxious to assist you in getting established any way he can.
Working with the priest-chaplain you will probably meet with prison authorities. They will want to run a security check and educate you on proper security procedure. They will be particularly interested in what it is you intend to do. Let them know that you are interested only in souls, so your activities will be restricted to teaching. You will not be getting into prison reform, convict civil suits, or civil rights. You are interested only in souls.
The final step is to establish yourself with the convicts. In whatever way best suits your personality, let them know that you want to be their friend, and that you want to learn to love them. But you must also be firm in telling them that you can provide no money, nor can you work for their parole, or other similar favors.
In the next article of this series, I will explain the details of prison evangelization. There are five issues which must be briefly covered here regarding your new vocation.
First, you must always remember that everything you do has eternal ramifications. Convicts are experts at sizing up human nature. They will see through you like a crystal goblet. If there is the least hint of insincerity, dishonesty, or lack of commitment, they will turn away and you will never get them back.
This leads to issue number two. You are accountable to Almighty God for every thought, word, action, and omission regarding this apostolate and the prisoners involved. God will not judge you for the decisions they make, as each prisoner is endowed with a free will. However, he will judge you for any laxity on your part that affects the decisions they make.
Prayer and personal holiness are your keys to success. Do not for an instant believe that reducing yourself to their prison subculture lifestyle will win them over. Nor should you believe that it is your place to condescend to them. Rather, it is your task to reach down to prisoners and lift them up to Christ. This can only be done if you are living a structured prayer life, and trying to become a saint.
Finally, it is absolutely necessary that you commend yourself and your work to our Lady, and a patron saint. Regarding our Lady, I would suggest that you use Louis de Montfort's formula to make an act of total consecration to the Immaculate Heart. If you have already done this, then I suggest that you renew your consecration by going through the whole process again.
A patron saint is up to your individual devotion. There are a number of patrons for prisoners, such as Paul, Dismas (the "Good Thief"), and Maximilian Kolbe. Our patron saint-indeed, the saint who inspires our entire apostolate-is John Bosco. Most people do not realize that John was involved with prisoners before he began his work with boys. If you are at all familiar with Don Bosco's spirituality and methodology, you will see in the next three parts of this series the great influence this friend of God has had in developing this apostolate.
Prison apostolate is not for everyone. The emotional demands are staggering. In all humility, I admit to you that I have cried myself to sleep many, many times, worrying about the souls of my boys. Admittedly, it is more difficult for me than it will be for you because I, too, am a prisoner, and cannot find free world diversion. Still, the keys which enable to do this work (and the same holds true for you) are prayer and constantly trying to become a saint. Christ commands it, and the needs of the souls you serve will demand it.
Russell L. Ford is incarcerated in an Alabama prison. This series will continue next month
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