Prison Apostolates?

[bear06]

katybird:

I know this from being in military boot camp, actually… mail can be a BIG DEAL when your daily life is routine and devoid of pleasant diversion. And, it’s funny that you should bring this up… I have had this strange urge to become a pen-pal with a prison inmate because it’s one of the Corporal Acts of Mercy that most normal people never do. When I say “Pen Pal” I don’t mean writing to some con artist and falling in love with him - I mean writing to a female inmate, via the chaplain, so that my identity will be concealed. I don’t particularly want to overtly evangelize, even… I just think people enjoy getting letters in the mail and it could be nice to do that for someone.

I want to do it via a chaplain so that my identity and address can be concealed - that would be safer. Hmmmm… I wonder how to do it?

I’m not sure you actually need to provide a return address for jail mail. I know that some of the girls definitely didn’t provide any for outgoing mail since their relatives didn’t know they were there! They, at least in the jail I was in, opened all the mail to see what was in it. If it was benign we got it. You can have a chaplain ask the jail if return addresses are necessary and then maybe he can get you a name and you won’t need his delivery services.

 

[Deacon_Tony560]

I have been ministering in a state prison for 5 years. It is difficult to get volunteers to come in because you have to sign a paper saying that if you become a hostage, they will not bargan for you. We are in need of a Spanish speaking person who would direct a Catholic bible study, but this paper scares prospects. We have 3500 women in our facility. The ones that come to church have been to ALL the different demominations. They compare. Some continue to go to the services and still come to Mass. The Knights of Columbus send us a lot of good Catholic material for free. God bless them. A program called Kyros has helped some of our long term people. This is an interfaith program, but it’s administrator is Catholic. There is only a Catholic Sister for Chaplain as there are not enough priests anymore. The Church really needs help in the prison ministry. We require a background check for regular volunteers and training classes for long term volunteers like myself.

May God bless all that visit Him in prison,
Deacon Tony SFO

 

[Church_Militant]

bear06:

I’m not sure you actually need to provide a return address for jail mail. I know that some of the girls definitely didn’t provide any for outgoing mail since their relatives didn’t know they were there! They, at least in the jail I was in, opened all the mail to see what was in it. If it was benign we got it. You can have a chaplain ask the jail if return addresses are necessary and then maybe he can get you a name and you won’t need his delivery services.

Most prisons stamp outgoing mail as coming from a correctional facility. St.Dismas Guild has some of that. One simple solution is to rent a post office box & only use it for such correspondence.