The Southern Cross | August 2024

I have been to prison a few times. Sometimes in my capacity as either chaplain or bishop, or as friend. Sometimes maximum security, sometimes minimum security or even ‘prison’ farms.

The reception is always one of welcome from both the authorities and the inmates. Security is tight, everyone is watchful. My experience has been that there has often been a great association between the local parishes wherein the prison is located, and the custodial institution. People like Fay and Barry from Sydney who, in their early eighties, each week make a visit either to the prison or to the local courts, bringing an encouraging word or some practical assistance such as Monte Carlo biscuits. Parishes provide practical experiences whereby they organise the morning tea after Christmas Mass, always a great hit, to say nothing of the prayer and accompaniment that happens, so often unremarked.

In North America, gaols/jails or prisons are sometimes called ‘penitentiaries’ or ‘penns’. That is, a place to do penance. By a set of curious chances, I recently had the opportunity to visit the now decommissioned Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario, Canada. Like all such institutions it is a sobering place, sometimes a soul-less place.

Like all such institutions it struggled to understand its role. Was it a place of retributive justice: you’ve done something wrong so you have to pay? Or one of restorative justice: you have done something wrong, let us take the time to return you back to society? Most likely it was a combination of both.

Each prison is a microcosm of humanity. No wonder they are popular places for tours and continued subjects of TV programs, novels and even journals. Is it some sort of macabre fascination that draws people? Or is it a genuine interest in what it could mean to live, even for a while in such a place?

Part of the fascination of this three-hour-tour I was on was hearing from people who had worked there. Their story was not the official ‘gloss story’, but rather the unvarnished one of genuine concern for what prisons seek to do. They told of the difficulties of dealing with people whose only experience of life is homelessness; of mental illness, of genuine desperation. They spoke of the callousness of organised gangs, of the graciousness of ‘lifers’. They spoke of the balancing act between being compassionate and seeking people’s highest good. Not an easy art, but a necessary one.

Three times in its long history there had been riots there, with much damage being done and thankfully few people being killed. There had been several escape attempts and all the other fascinating aspects of prison life.

Prisons can be dehumanising. The great cry in Les Misérables of prisoner 24601 was to be known not as a number but as Jean Valjean.

Bathurst, where I grew up, had a gaol. Over the main entrance was the head of a lion, in the mouth of which was a golden key securely held between its teeth. The local legend was that if you could get the key all the prisoners could go free.

Freedom. It is the unspoken word hidden in every prison cell, the haunting thought of every day of life in a penitentiary. A yearning for freedom; the lament at its loss. Some found a freedom within the walls of a prison for it made life manageable, others experienced the countdown of days until parole.

Sadly, the only place on the tour we were not shown, sign of the times, was the chapel.

Freedom is part of the Christian vocabulary. It is a yearning of the human heart. It is so often, incorrectly, used in debates about life issues, it is the constant call of adolescence, and right throughout life. Lack of it builds resentment, too much can be terrifying.

Disciples of Christ know that every person is captive to something. Disciples of Christ know that ‘four walls do not a prison make’, and yet there is, when we are honest enough in moments free from distraction, something to which  all of us are captive.

Hence our understandings of sin and forgiveness: of enacting the biblical injunction of ‘setting captives free’ (Luke 4:18). These are all tied up with the fact that by ourselves we cannot escape, we cannot be set free by ourselves. We need the gift of God in the Holy Trinity to bring us healing hope and, yes, freedom. This is not a sign of weakness but actually one of great strength. True freedom requires humility.

Questioned as to what signs of transformation the ‘guard’ saw in the prisoners in his 30 years working there, he thought for a moment and said two things: first, learning to work together again, and second, the value of the common good.

It strikes me that this is a great summary of what the Christian life is all about. We all long for freedom, to be set free from the captivity that binds us. We look to the One who can do that. In all our liturgy, prayer and celebrations of the sacraments that is what happens: we are drawn into the freedom of God: away from petty rivalry and into deep trust that all shall be well.

Freedom can be best expressed in the deepest Christian sense when we do work together. Trust is built, rough edges are sandpapered off, we are freed from fear. God is at the centre. We are drawn into communion.

Freedom can be best expressed in the deepest Christian sense when we do work together for the common good. No longer are we enclosed in the prison of our own self, but rather in sharing the deepest reality we have, life in God. God is at the centre. We are drawn into communion.

May the one who is true freedom, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, draw you into that freedom, for God is good, good indeed.