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F e a t u r e A r t i c l e
Special Sons of the Mother of God
By Russell Ford
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This Rock
Volume 10, Number 1
 February 1999 
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For thirteen years the convict sitting on his bunk in the Alabama penitentiary had been an agnostic, living as a practical atheist and avowed hater of religion. The older convict sitting next to him would write several years later that the younger man was "the most evil man I had ever met in the quarter-century I’ve been in prison."
Although the younger prisoner had a hardened exterior toward religion for over thirteen years, secretly he had on occasion cried out in pain for some sign of God’s existence—he wanted to know by seeing and touching God so worship could be given. Now his prayer was being answered.
The older convict, Michael Mayola, was a lapsed Catholic who had returned to the sacraments in prison and was now sharing the faith with the younger man. Michael was teaching the man about the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. As the reality of this truth sank into the student convict’s brain, unashamed tears began to flow down a face that had been arid far too long. God had been there all along!
The reason I know about this story is because I am the younger convict. That catechism lesson took place on the feast of St. Bartholomew in 1988. In the years since, the love affair between our Eucharistic Lover and myself has been a deep and passionate one.
Thirteen years of anger, hate, pain, and frustration were drained from me that day. I decided to become a Catholic and to quietly live my faith with pleasure in peace and privacy. Alas, man proposes while God disposes. Providence had it that I would enjoy my newfound faith but without peace and privacy.
While I was still a catechumen, our chaplain, Fr. Killian Mooney (a Trinitarian missionary who has since been escorted to heaven by Our Lady), handed me a catechism and told me to teach it to other convicts. I told him I didn’t care to teach.
Fr. Mooney said, "Fine. Now be certain you follow the text."
"You don’t understand, Father," I said. "I don’t want to teach."
"I understand that," replied Fr. Mooney. "If your students have questions you can’t answer, be sure to ask me."
"Father," I asked, "what part of ‘no’ do you not understand?"
"Be sure you pay particular attention to this part of the catechism," was his reply. Argh!
Rather than argue, I wrote a letter to Archbishop Lipscomb, asking him to get the holy old priest off my back. I’ll never forget his reply: "Russell, obey your pastor. I think you will make a wonderful catechism instructor."
What could I do? It was disobedience to proper authority that convicted me to twenty-five years in state prison. Could I allow disobedience to this authority to possibly convict me to a much more permanent prison after this life is over? I began teaching the catechism, and a prison apostolate was born.
From that day to present, the Holy Spirit has shown me favor by allowing me to play a part in the conversion of nearly one hundred prisoners. Here in Alabama, the Heart of Dixie—translation: Protestant-Fundamentalist, anti-Catholic Bible belt—nearly one hundred murderers, rapists, robbers, burglars, and other assorted criminals have become sons of the Church. Most of them have returned to the streets. The most amazing thing—humanly speaking—is that not a single convert to Catholicism has ever returned to prison in a state whose statistics say 80 percent of them should have.
Why? Because a Catholicism that has not been compromised—that is, one that is totally faithful to Scripture, tradition, and the magisterium—possesses the totality of immutable, irresistible, divinely revealed truth. And truth is liberty. I expect that a reader should be skeptical about the claims I’ve made. Let me offer certain actual events I have witnessed.
I estimate I’ve taught the catechism to several thousand men over the years. In this state, whose population is less than five percent Catholic, our Catholic community has become the largest single religion represented inside these walls. One of the most striking things I’ve seen when teaching the catechism is a convicted murderer cry like a baby when he begins to understand Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist. An orthodox understanding of the Eucharist creates a permanent bond between these men and the Church.
Our chaplain is a simple parish priest. His responsibilities include his parish, a mission, two prisons, a youth detention facility, and a hospital. When he comes twice monthly to celebrate Mass for us, Father has to schedule three full hours. He spends two to two-and-a-half hours hearing confessions. Father says he hears more confessions here in one visit that he hears at all five other locations in a month!
Are there so many confessions here because we sin easily and without much consideration? Not at all! These men understand both the spiritual and moral aspects of the Church and her teachings. They grasp the benefits of frequent confession for venial as well as mortal sins. They don’t want to be sinners but saints, and that is why confessions run so long.
Our converts are proud to be Catholic. They are all evangelists, and some are competent apologists. They don’t apologize for anything the Church teaches but defend the purity of the divinely revealed truth possessed in toto by the Catholic Church.
Throughout its two-thousand-year history the Church has been persecuted when the Holy Spirit is successful in seeking souls to join the communion of saints. We have been privileged to enjoy a great deal of persecution from prison officials. Although persecution has been spread throughout the community, the worst of it was directed at me. Since I am considered the leader of the Catholic community, the prison officials’ philosophy has been to kill the snake by cutting off its head.
Prison officials confiscated and burned my Bibles and breviaries. They censored my mail; some of it was destroyed or returned to the sender. I was the only convict in this system of twenty-one thousand men who was forbidden to have any religious materials. They commanded me to stop teaching the catechism, an order I promptly disobeyed. They threatened my life by telling me they would send me to another prison and let it "slip out" that I’m a rat (snitch). I am not, but there is no more contemptible creature in prison culture, and such a lie could well prove fatal. So far it’s only a threat.
One of the paradoxes of Christianity is the unity, strength, and growth that is manifested during persecution. Convicts typically run for cover when "the heat is on" because they fear denial of future parole, work release, or other programs. Not these sons of the Church. The Holy Spirit maintained control.
My emotions were raw, and I felt terribly low under the weight of persecution that prison officials had heaped upon me. I felt totally alone but God used my brothers to show me I wasn’t. I entered the classroom for our weekly catechism class to find a room packed full of Catholics, catechumens, and inquirers. As I started to begin class with a prayer, one of the more recent converts interrupted me. He said, "Russ, we know what these folks have been doing to you, and we know what you’ve suffered for us and the Church. We just wanted you to know how much we appreciate it and love you." Then the crowd erupted into a loud and sustained applause.
I was shocked. God showed me I was not alone, and he gave me his own thanks through my brothers. I was so overcome with emotion that I began to sob. Unable to speak but obligated to indicate their applause was not for me, I took my rosary from my pocket and held it over my head. The applause grew louder. They understood.
I had spent nearly three months preparing myself for a total consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This was a very personal thing for me so I had told no one but my confessor. Almost immediately after I had made the consecration, thirteen of my boys came to ask me to help them prepare for the same thing. Since they could not possibly have had any knowledge of my consecration, I knew the Holy Spirit had arranged this.
The only time we could meet for group preparation on a daily basis was before work on the recreation yard. For thirty-three consecutive days, these formerly hardened criminals—murderers, rapists, burglars, robbers, and drug dealers—met in cold, wind, rain, and in the face of public ridicule by other convicts to prepare themselves to become special sons of the Mother of God.
The day they were to make the act of consecration was the same day Archbishop Lipscomb was to make his first visit to our prison for confirmations. The boys had composed a unique consecration that committed them to evangelize convicts and guards alike under Mary’s mantle. The archbishop and his entire entourage were visibly moved as thirteen convicted felons knelt before the altar to give themselves to the Mother of Jesus. And why shouldn’t they have been moved? These men had combined sentences of well over a thousand years. Through grace and the teachings of the Church, Jesus had replaced hatred with love, bitterness with joy, despair with hope.
Why do our converts not return to prison when statistics indicate that eight out of ten of them will? Why did Dismas, the man on the cross next to Christ, go to paradise? Why did Saul stop persecuting Christians and become Paul the Apostle? Why did the evil Roman Empire stop killing Catholics and make Catholicism the official state religion?
The answer to these questions is simple: truth. Truth is the conformity of the mind to reality. Reality is Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Jesus Christ and His Mystical Body, the Church, are inseparable. The Church is the freedom-giver because it is the sacrament of salvation.
Crime is a major problem in this country. The over one million convicted felons in state and federal prisons are proof of that. But the crime epidemic can be curbed, and it is up to the Catholic laity to do it by evangelizing in the prisons. Jesus said so. Just read Matthew 25 to see I’m right. Our Lord has even made your salvation depend on it.
Russell Ford, a frequent contributor to This Rock, is an inmate in an Alabama prison.
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