ARTICLES

Priests in Prison

LOCAL CHAPLAINS DISCUSS WORK WITH INMATES

By Christopher Zehnder

"You kind of get burnt out" working in parishes, said Father Diego Baptista. "There's a lot going on in a parish -- financial concerns, fund raising, paying the bills, and so forth." So, after 27 years of working in parishes in the Santa Rosa Diocese, Father Baptista sought a different avenue for his ministry. He became a prison chaplain.

Father Baptista says that he had thought prison ministry "a good way of getting out of parish ministry, and yet do the work that I'd like to do" -- working with people. Hearing of an opening for a chaplain at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, he applied for it, and was selected. He has now been at Mule Creek for three months.

Father Joseph Vallooran has for six and a half years served as Catholic chaplain at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City. A priest of the Sacramento diocese, he says his bishop asked him to apply for the chaplaincy position at Pelican Bay. Why did he accept? Obedience. "I did not have any experience of working in the prison," says Father Vallooran. "I was always in the parish. But when the bishop asked me I just obeyed. Now I like it."

Asked what he sees as the purpose of his ministry, Father Vallooran says: "One thing is this. Those who come to the chapel and worship regularly are less troublesome, and when they are paroled, most of them do not come back to the prison. A lot of people who go out on parole here come back. [Prison] is a way of life!"

Father Baptista says his ministry is "to support inmates in their journey towards God. To facilitate as much as possible they're being here, to comfort them, to help them to see that there is a purpose God has for them, though they're in here. Though they've made mistakes in the past, that God is always there to forgive. And God loves them."

Both Fathers Baptista and Vallooran work in maximum security prisons. Mule Creek, says Father Baptista, has four yards, four levels: a level one, which is minimum-maximum security; and then A, B and C yards which are maximum security. Prisoners are placed in the yards according to the gravity of their crime and the amount of points they receive for good behavior.

Father Baptista spends one day each in a particular yard. A typical day starts at 8 a.m. Devoting a couple of hours in the morning to "paper work," he spends the remainder of the day counseling inmates. "They have various needs," says Father. "Devotions they want to do, Bible study, rosary, and others. It changes from day to day because there are about 3,700 inmates in here, so it's not the same, day after day and week after week.

"We have several programs going on: the Bible study, the Twelve Steps." Father Baptista says he has not started saying daily Mass yet "because I'm kind of new, setting up a program." He does, however say Masses on Saturday and Sunday, one Mass for each yard.

Among his other duties, Father Baptista informs prisoners about a death in the family. "That's a tough spot to be in," he says. "Depending on the person, there are different reactions. Some of the inmates have acted as if it makes no difference; others are totally broken down." Father says that this duty is, in some ways, harder in the prison than in the parish where "you know the families you are dealing with -- [in the prison] you don't know each and every one." In certain respects, too, it is harder for prisoners to bear the death of a loved one. "They cannot go to the funerals," says Father. "They don't experience closure for that. Certain prisoners can go, but they have to pay the expenses of having a guard with them."

"My ministry is for everyone," not only Catholics, says Father Baptista. "I'm available to anyone who wants the ministry or wants help. Anyone can come for counseling."

Father Vallooran's ministry is quite similar to Father Baptista's. Pelican Bay has divisions similar to those of Mule Creek: there is a level 1 (minimum security), and a level 2, divided into "A" and "B" facilities. However, unlike Mule Creek, Pelican Bay has another level, called the "Security Housing Unit," divided into C and D facilities. The Security Housing Unit (SHU) houses gang leaders and those with enemies in the prison yard.

Father Vallooran works five days a week, Wednesday to Sunday. Like Father Baptista, he says one Mass on Saturday, for the level 1 inmates, and 2 on Sunday, for those in level 2. Since inmates in the Security Housing Unit are not allowed to be anywhere where two are together (lest their lives be in danger), no Mass is said for them. Father Vallooran can only bring them communion and hear their confessions. "When I go to the inmates in SHU," says Father, "I have to wear a bullet-proof vest."

Father Vallooran says that though the chapels in the A and B facilities are smaller than the chapel in level 1, Masses in A and B are generally better attended. Twenty-five to thirty-five inmates generally attend Mass in A facility, while 12 to 20 attend Mass in B facility. In contrast, though level 1 has a chapel that can seat 80 persons, only five or six inmates from that level attend Mass each Sunday.

Father Vallooran thinks that more level 2 inmates attend Mass because at Mass time "the yard is open to them, and many of them like to go to the yard." Why do so few in level 1 attend Mass? "That is easy," says Father. "They don't have any kind of background. They were never asked to go to church or anything of the kind when they were young. [In terms of] their education in the Church and literally, they are very poor."

Considering Father Vallooran's estimate that 40 percent of Pelican Bay's 3,499 inmates are Mexican, "and that means that they are baptized Catholics," Mass attendance in all levels is extremely low. Does Father have an outreach to these lapsed Catholics? The outreach, says Father, is "my presence, [that] I can go anywhere at all, and I always dress like a clergyman," as well as the fact that he advertises all Mass times and all Catholic programs. "I can't proselytize anyone," says Father, "and ask them, 'Why don't you come to church?'" It is against prison regulations. However, "I give out a lot of material, too: Bibles, rosaries, scapulars, how to say the rosary pamphlets, all donated materials."

Father Baptista, too, takes a quieter approach to evangelization. He says that he has always been interested "in this particular evangelization, in the sense of bringing people into the Catholic Church. In Crescent City [where he served as a parish pastor] in the eight years I had been there, probably about 100 or so people came in. I was very active in what was called the RCIA. My attitude has always been that people see you; I do not actively go and seek out, I leave that to God. When they come and inquire, I try to answer them and make them feel at home so that they realize that it's God's work that I am doing; it's not my personality or my thing that I'm forcing on them. I tell them, try and search for the truth and God will lead you to the truth so long as you are open and sincere. That seems to have worked in all cases I have dealt with."

Father Baptista says at the prison he has had "several inquiries when I'm going to start the RCIA class. I haven't started them yet. You don't want to take on all the programs at one time. The schedule is pretty full, and there is also limited time. The inmates are not available all the time, because of the other duties that they have."

The prison schedule is quite tight. For instance, Father Baptista says, "those who have not yet reached the ninth grade level go to full-time school, from eight to three. There are other skills that they learn, too. For example, there's welding here, there's creative writing that's taught, there is cabinet woodwork. There are all sorts of industries here, too. I get a clerk who is an inmate who does some of the paper work for me, most of the cleaning and stuff like that. In this fashion, the whole prison are involved in work. Those who are not going to school, are working."

Priestly work in the prison would seem to differ greatly from work in parishes. "It is quite a different attitude and a different situation working here in the prison," says Father Vallooran. Father Baptista, however, says that when he first came to Mule Creek he had his "fears and anxieties." "I had visited county jails and city jails, and I had even said Masses in some of them. But that was a kind of limited experience. There was no foundation to my fears, because when I met with the inmates, I found that they were people like anyone else on the street. Different kinds of people. Different professions, temperaments. It was just like a parish, for me. That's my attitude. I think that if we deal with the inmates as human beings, and respect their dignity, then we receive a response that is dignified and human."

But are there not unique, and maybe, extraordinary moral dangers in the prison? "In one way I would admit that," says Father Baptista, "but, again, they also have a choice of whom with whom they are celled. If they find that somebody is impeding them or somebody is enforcing them, they can always ask for a change. It will depend on each individual what direction he wants to take. It would depend on his upbringing and how convinced he is of his religion, of his morals, of his convictions. There is no blanket statement that I could make that way."

Father Vallooran admits the difficulty of men leading a moral life in prison, but, he insists "there are good people in the prison, too. The problem is, most of these people never worked hard outside, and the [prison] system gives everything free. They can complain for food. There is nothing to worry about."

Homosexuality is among the vices some say are characteristic of prison life. While Father Baptista does not think homosexuality is "as rampant as some people make it out to be," he admits that "it is something that is pretty common." Prisoners, he says, live in cells, eight by four feet, each having two bunks, upper and lower. "They don't have contact with anyone else outside," says Father Baptista, "at least not by choice. There's visiting here Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday," though the same visitors "are not allowed to visit every week."

Father Baptista, too, says many prisoners are "con artists." "We were warned about that," he says. "The very first week I was here, we were still going through the initial training. You see, the chaplain has the privilege of letting an inmate make a phone call when it is an emergency. One inmate was being transferred from this prison to somewhere else; he said he was going to be deported, and wanted to let his family know. Actually, it wasn't an emergency and I got caught in it. I let him make the call. Immediately the word started on the yard that the new chaplain was allowing the inmates to make calls. I learned from that to be very careful, not to take them at their word."

Nevertheless, says Father Baptista, not all inmates are the same: "There are different temperaments, different levels in their spiritual [life]. I've met some men who are very dedicated, really have made a conversion, really accepted responsibility for what they did, the mistakes they've made, and now are seeking a true relationship with God, are working toward that. From that, to people who are in full denial -- they're innocent, they have not done anything wrong."

Do the prison authorities facilitate a chaplain's job? "Well," admits Father Baptista, "we have to work on that. On the whole, [however] the staff is very supportive." Father Vallooran says that the cooperation of prison "is pretty good. I am coping with it well. That's all I can tell you."

Several groups, Catholic, Protestant, and inter-denominational have charged that over the last ten years the California prison system has focused more on punishing criminals rather than restoring them to moral soundness and the life of the community. Father Vallooran agrees with this assessment. "That's very true," he says. "The problem is this -- A couple of years I went to Singapore on my way to India. They had a guided tour in the city. I went on that, and the guide on the tour said that if you drop a piece of paper here, they will fine you 100 dollars. None of us dropped any paper. When we came back, we wanted to give him tips; he didn't even want to accept the tips. And the city looks in order, beautiful, and very clean. That's a democratic system, too, that one. It's not a dictatorship.

"The problem here is that they [the convicts] don't know the pain they inflict on others -- unnecessary killing, and unnecessary burglary; it is terrible. I cannot say what is the end, the kind of system. I think it will go on on like this."

Father Vallooran demurred when asked whether he thought a more retributive system to be preferable to a restorative one. "I don't know much about this. I didn't do much study on this," he said. Father Baptista agreed that "the prison systems are based on retribution." However, "as a Catholic and Christian," he said, "I think that [restoration] is best, the ideal way to go about punishment, but I think it will take a long time to change the system here. If I were in a position to bring about the changes, I would do it, but I think it will take a lot to change that. I don't think anywhere in United States prisons that is happening. I know somewhere in Europe it is happening. [In a restorative justice system] the perpetrator and the victim, the family of the perpetrator and the family of the victim all meet. Everybody takes the responsibility of solving the problem. Given our judicial system, I don't think that's going to work."

Father Baptista said that being "new to this whole system... I'm still learning. This prison has made quite a lot of changes. It's a very mellow atmosphere, here, in the sense that there is a good communication between the inmates and the staff. There's a really friendly relationship, and that has been helpful in the prison in the past, as I hear. We don't have as many stabbings -- fights there are, but nothing serious. I want to see that, really. If we treat the inmates as human beings, regardless of what they've done, take them as they are right now, then they're going to behave as human beings. But if we treat them as animals, then that's the response we're going to get."

TOP