The Church is alive among inmates in Beeville prison

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St. Dismas choir leads community in Liturgical music.

Alfredo E. Cardenas, South Texas Catholic

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The day after Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of Mercy at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Bishop Michael Mulvey walked through the doors of the McConnell Unit in Beeville to offer God’s mercy to the inmates at the state’s correctional institution. What he found was a “Church alive” and well among the incarcerated.

In the book of Hebrews we learn to “Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment…(Heb 13:3).” In the Letter of His Holiness Pope Francis According to Which an Indulgence is Granted to the Faithful on the Occasion of the Extraordinary Jubilee Of Mercy, the pope was mindful of the imprisoned.

“My thoughts also turn to those incarcerated, whose freedom is limited,” the pope wrote. “The Jubilee Year has always constituted an opportunity for great amnesty, which is intended to include the many people who, despite deserving punishment, have become conscious of the injustice they worked and sincerely wish to re-enter society and make their honest contribution to it. May they all be touched in a tangible way by the mercy of the Father who wants to be close to those who have the greatest need of his forgiveness. They may obtain the Indulgence in the chapels of the prisons. May the gesture of directing their thought and prayer to the Father each time they cross the threshold of their cell signify for them their passage through the Holy Door, because the mercy of God is able to transform hearts, and is also able to transform bars into an experience of freedom.”

Mercy too was in the mind of Bishop Mulvey when he heeded the words of Scripture, “For I was…in prison and you visited me (Mt 25:35-36).” The love between the bishop and his flock at the St. Dismas Community is palpable. Upon his arrival, inmates would approach Bishop Mulvey, bow and kiss his episcopal ring, give him a strong embrace and often broke into tears. The bishop reciprocated with a strong embrace, blessings and kind words.

The Holy Father often tells us, the bishop told the inmates, to go out to the periphery. “I felt that way driving up, but not in here. This is not the periphery, it is the Church alive,” the bishop said to loud applause.

Bishop Mulvey baptized nine inmates during his visit to the McConnell Unit. Alfredo E. Cardenas, South Texas Catholic

While Bishop Mulvey made the rounds greeting inmates, Msgr. Louis Kihneman, Father Peter Marsalek, SOLT, Father John Gaffney, SOLT and Father Jerry Drolshagen, SOLT heard confessions and the St. Dismas choir joyfully led the more than 150 inmates in song.

The St. Dismas Community, named for the good thief crucified alongside Jesus who asked the Lord to remember him when he entered his kingdom, is in most aspects like a parish church. The choir provided music for the liturgy and other inmates served as lectors, altar servers, ushers, audio and video technicians, catechists, sponsors, etc. More than 150 inmates attended the Mass.

One inmate said he had told his mother that the inmates “get pretty loud” when singing to which she replied that her fellow parishioners also sang with enthusiasm. “But you don’t understand mother,” he told her trying to impress on her their commitment to worship, “we have to put up and take down the altar, chairs, choir stands, all of it every time we have Mass.”

In addition to the sacrament of reconciliation and Eucharist, 12 inmates also received the sacraments of baptism and confirmation.

The visit to the McConnell Unit has become an annual event for Bishop Mulvey. This year he also visited and celebrated Mass at the Garza East Unit and at the Trustees Camp.

Bishop Mulvey told the inmates to be an expression of the same mercy they are receiving. “Don’t just receive from God without giving back,” he said.