Washington D.C., Mar 29, 2018 / 04:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- For the fourth time in his pontificate, Pope Francis will wash the feet of inmates at a prison on Holy Thursday this year.
The pope, who will celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at the Regina Coeli prison in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood, has previously spoken of the importance of reintegrating former prisoners back into society.
In the United States, 65 million people have a criminal record, which can limit access to employment, housing, and education, according to James Ackerman, the president and CEO of Prison Fellowship, the nation’s largest Christian ministry serving prisoners.
“Nearly 700,000 men and women will return to our communities this year alone. Thus, it is smart…for us to implement a more restorative approach for to criminal justice, re-entry, and, in particular, employment for people with a criminal record,” said Ackeman at a prison reform panel at the National Press Club on March 28.
Lily Gonzalez was one of the panelists at the “Second Chances: Removing Barriers to Returning Citizens” event. She shared the difficulties she faced in pursuing an education after being released from prison, in which she spent extensive time in solitary confinement.
Homeboy Industries, a ministry founded by a Jesuit priest, Father Greg Boyle, helped her through their “pathways to college program.”
“It really did take a village,” reflected Gonzalez, who said that the generosity of others helped her pay for her books and parking. However, she continued to face obstacles due to her criminal record after she graduated from college.
“I had a bachelor degree and no one wanted to hire me,” she said.
This barrier to employment and other necessities to reintegrate into society can often feel like a “second prison” after one has served their time, according to Ackerman. A conviction can become a life sentence to joblessness, which can increase the likelihood of future arrests.
This issue has led several U.S. states pass laws that “Ban the Box,” which prevents inquiries about someone’s criminal record on initial job applications, postponing the inquiries until later in the application process.
“I think that when you have a box on the application you are asking the person, ‘Tell me about the worst thing that you have ever done in your life,’ and then as a recruiter I’m going to judge you based on that. I wouldn’t ask anyone that, and I don’t need to know that at that point in the process,” said a human resources executive with Butterball Farms, Bonnie Mroczek.
She shared the positive results Butterball has seen hiring former inmates.
“We’ve been hiring returning citizens for 23 years. We’ve had tons of success with it and we are sharing information with other companies about the success that we’ve had,” she said.
“In states and localities where there has been an evaluation of Ban the Box programs, we see that there is about a 40% increase in people with records getting hired as a result of simply postponing an inquiry about their record,” added Judy Conti, who is the federal advocacy coordinator at the National Employment Law Project.
“If you haven’t met me, you haven’t had a chance to talk to me and get to know who I am,” said Dennis Avila, one of the former prisoners who shared his story.
“I have convictions that involve drugs and firearms … If you just look at some of the worst things that I have done, you would just think that I was this crazy person, which isn’t true at all …coming out of prison and trying to get a job to sustain me and my family was really really hard.”
Avila had a son when he was convicted, and he was not alone in that fact. There are 2.7 million children in the U.S. with a parent in prison, according to Prison Fellowship.
Avila eventually went on to found his own nonprofit organization that uses music to positively impact people from challenging backgrounds and circumstances.
“We are proud that today a full 25% of our field staff are people who were once caught up in the cycle of crime and incarceration, but today are now part of the cycle of renewal,” shared the CEO of Christian Prison Fellowship, who spoke of the importance of engaging prisoners in “a dignified manner and help them to become healthier and more productive citizens.”
Prison Fellowship is currently active in 428 prisons across the country. According to their website, the ministry is “founded on the conviction that all people are created in God’s image and that no life is beyond God’s reach. As Christians, we believe that Jesus – Himself brought to trial, executed, buried, and brought to life again – offers hope, healing, and a new purpose for each life. He can make even the most broken people and situations whole again.”
The fellowship was founded in 1976 by Charles Colson in 1976 after he served seven months prison for his involvement in Watergate as a former aid to President Richard Nixon.
Colson rediscovered his faith during his time in prison. In a book entitled “Loving God: The Cost of Being a Christian,” Colson wrote the following about founding a prison ministry that has impacted the lives of thousands of people:
“My life of success was not what made this morning so glorious — all my achievements meant nothing in God’s economy. No, the real legacy of my life was my biggest failure — that I was an ex-convict. My greatest humiliation — being sent to prison — was the beginning of God’s greatest use of my life; He chose the one thing in which I could not glory for His glory.”
[…]
Pffft…Clearly, “Catholic” Bob Ferguson never heard the story of St. John Nepmoucene.
Clearly.
Ferguson is NOT a Catholic. By approving this law from a position of authority, he is now an apostate, a traitor to the Faith. Disgusting. And REAL Catholics know that a priest will NEVER break the seal of the confessional. No matter what the crazed leftist nut jobs on the West Coast pretend to vote into law.
The left, hard at work again to prove they are more commie than the communists themselves in trying to destroy faith and religion in the US.
Ferguson is NOT a Catholic. By approving this law from a position of authority, he is now an apostate, a traitor to the Faith. Disgusting. As are the Catholics who voted for him. REAL Catholics know that a priest will NEVER break the seal of the confessional, no matter what the crazed leftist nut jobs on the West Coast pretend to vote into law. If people are ill-informed enough to vote Dems back into power over the next several years, this is an example of the very sick agenda we can expect them to continue pushing onto the American people. Add this piece of legislative idiocy to the same leftist basket pushing men into womens sports and locker rooms, trans surgery for minors and open borders.
He is “not a Catholic” when the Church says “he is not a Catholic “ . Do you go in and out between every confession? Are you no longer Catholic if you are still in grave mortal sin? Isn’t it the prerogative of the Magisterium to make such pronouncements iabout public figures? Many also made Such pronouncements about the late Pope. Are they not being Protestants?
Magisterium
Surely you know that certain actions result in self excommunication. I would think allowing passage of a law to undermine the sacraments would qualify. Some high churchmen cant see sin right in front of their nose. Thats how biden made hay with his supposed devout Catholicism.
Catholic Ferguson was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world (Wikipedia).
Indeed, ahead of his time. The new progressive Catholic who will reshape the Church to fit into its appropriate place in our world. An offshoot of the Biden, Pelosi, Durbin mindset. Although Ferguson is so advanced that even Cdl McElroy would condemn him on this matter. Apparently he’s well versed in the faith but obviously places his intellectual acumen above doctrine. All the more reason why the Church requires a saintly Roman pontiff with intellect to sufficiently address the challenges facing Catholic doctrine.
If I’m not mistaken, Donald Trump was also on that list! Birds of a feather?
TDS can be treated.
Did Ferguson consult a canon lawyer to see if signing such a bill, which attempts to undermine a sacrament, is grounds for excommunication? Is he ignorant enough to think that Catholic priests will comply with an unjust law?
One of the ways of sharing in another’s sin is “By command. Or, in other words, don’t force someone to do something sinful.”
So he certainly should qualify for the same penalty as the one that applies to a priest who breaks the seal of the confessional.
Right on.
This is a cock-eyed bill. What penitent would testify against a priest that he confessed abuse in confession? He would thereby incriminate himself. In the end, it would be a priest’s word against an abuser’s word.
That said, this law will likely cost the church a pretty penny, fighting and defending anyone charged through its enactment.
I live in Washington state. It has been my perception that in the Archdiocese of Seattle, there was not much rallying against the bill. There was more some seven or so years ago when the state legislature attempted to pass a similar bill and failed.
This time, private or ecumenical church-affiliated human rights grassroots groups did most of the heavy lifting against passage of the current law, to no avail. The fact that the institutional church seemed not too involved speaks to its complacency and failed zeal. It is perhaps preoccupied with consolidating parishes into families with the next step to determining feasibility–which properties and facilities are best de-sacralized and sold. That’s what’s happenin’.
For sure, this case will end in the Supreme Court. It infringes upon the free exercise of religion.
Sadly, in a worst case scenario, the Stalinist/gestapo/KGB state enforcers could send in “ringers” to the confessional, make a bogus confession, and then wait to see if the priest reports it in. If this bill is not suppression of religious freedom, I dont know what is. I think any Catholic who voted for the reps who approved this bill should be pronounced excommunicated immediately.
I would say now that priests will be in fear the law, as a recording can now be made of a confession by any number of small electronic devices, and a “reconciliation room” rather than blind traditional confessional particularly vulnerable since both parties can not help but be able to accurately describe one another.
As for who might do such a thing, a molester is already a twisted individual, and a recorded but unreported confession of molestation then leaves the priest vulnerable to manipulation/extorsion, and likewise vulnerable to any attempt by activist media who could make the rounds of confessionals with false confessions and then post “shocking exposés” on lack of compliance with the law.
These law attempts are clearly unconstitutional state attempts to regulate religious practices, and are bad juju for too many reasons to list. Hopefully, this will now make its way up to the Supreme Court. As without it being struck down, there is nothing to prevent the state from requiring recordings of all confessions, which would destroy anyone going at all, same as this law will stop molesters from confessing their sins.
This act could be a blessing in disguise. If the sacrament were to return to priest and penitent both shrouded behind a veiled screen, the priest could not know and could not certify the identity of anyone who confessed anything to him.
You mean to say that all confessions are not done behind the screen? How backwardist is that? Do those same people receive Holy Communion in the hand while standing as well?
Yes.
Very.
Yes.
😀
Actually, it’s what the late Pope would call “forwardist.”
I was thinking along the same lines. If X confessed behind the screen and the priest had no idea who he (or she — such things do happen) was, what’s the priest supposed to do? Go to the police and say, “Someone confessed to abusing a child.”
Police: Who?
Priest: I don’t know.
Police: Name of victim.
Priest: I don’t know.
Police: Where?
Priest: I don’t know.
Police: When?
Priest: I don’t know.
It might read like something from a Monty Python skit, except it’s not funny. Do people who craft such legislation even know how Confession works?
If I were a priest, I would go to prison before I would violate the seal of the Confessional!
Not to sound snarky, Karen, but if you were a Priest you would have NO CHOICE. To violate the seal of the confessional is to incur instant excommunication and your soul is in a state of mortal sin.
Any governor who calls himself a ‘catholic’ (small c) and who signs legislation like this has also excommunicated himself by an action like this, and if Bishop Daly doesn’t do the honors – ASAP – then he too is in serious (spiritual) doo-doo.
Are we to assume that perverts have such tender consciences that they will run to the confessional to seek forgiveness? Are there any cases of priests shielding confessed child abusers and freeing them to go on and on with their abuse? And how is the government going to discover what anyone confesses? Will the sinner blab to the police what he confessed? Surely the priest will not.
This law is an excuse for the government to intrude on the sacred, and an attempt to bully and intimidate the Church.
In a world where the price of truth is too often bartered in the marketplace of influence, we must all tread carefully among those who wield power — be they politicians, educators, or merchants of ideologies. Authority, when stripped of virtue, becomes an empty vessel, and titles, when proclaimed without deeds, ring hollow. If one professes to be Catholic, we should all learn to ignore the mere label affixed in conversation, “I am Catholic”. Instead, we need to evaluate each individual on the degree of light radiating through action — a faith lived, not merely spoken.
As an aside, I think this lens of seeking for Light should be used to evaluate all individuals; not to condemn, but to identify those that inspire and are empowered by the Holy Spirit to lead.
What’s disappointing is that Seattle archbishop Etienne has been relatively silent on this, whereas he was very vocal on his disdain for deportation of illegal immigrants (the three Washington bishops issued a joint statement that was read in all the parishes). He was also the first bishop to voluntarily close down parishes for covid. This mentality is rife in this diocese and Seattle Catholic schools are not helping tomorrow’s generation. Ferguson is a graduate of Bishop Blanchet H.S. so of course everyone thinks he’s adequately formed in the faith. Especially himself.
Any public comment yet from the apostolic successors in the Yakima or Seattle dioceses?
Spokane’s bishop did alert his diocesan parishioners to oppose the bill. I have not seen or heard Seattle’s archbishop say anything….the Heal Our Church group has been publicly calling for the archbishop to meet with them; he may have done so, and he may have urged parishioners to oppose the bill, but I have neither seen nor heard any such reports. I typically read bulletins and newsletters from three different Seattle parishes, and I have seen nothing in any of these in 2025. I do not read the diocesan newspaper, so perhaps there was something there….
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/262023/spokane-bishop-urges-voters-to-oppose-bill-that-forces-priests-to-break-seal-of-confession
This has the same likelihood of succeeding as seeing women priests in the future. They might as well sign in a law to do that too. Meaningless.
Kathleen. I admit that I am confused by your comparison of women priests and the proposed Washington state civil “law” on confessions. The Church has full control by suppressing gender specific prelates. I don’t struggle with the confession secrecy, but I object the not offering half of God’s creation and the heavy lifters’ Holy Orders.
Well, fortunately for all of us, Morgand,your objections, like your progressive ideology, are irrelevant to the discussion.
Here’s MorganD being patronizing again.
No, MorganB, the Church has absolutely no authority to ordain priestesses. It has never had the authority and never will. Our Lord did not will it or He would have made provision for it. And, please, spare us any “Oh, but it would just have been too much against the culture of the times and that’s why He didn’t!” drivel. Informing one’s followers that one is God the Son and that in order to have eternal life they must eat One’s flesh and drink One’s blood isn’t exactly in keeping with the culture of the times, either, and yet He did it. And many of his followers said what a hard teaching that was, and left him. Just as so many deeluded people now leave the Church because it doesn’t fit in with their particular culture of moronic feminism and mindless support of abortion.
God gave equal opportunity for salvation to men and women. Surprisingly, God, in His superior knowledge and will to morganD, created them in a manner to assume different burdens in life, even defining some specifics. Believing women are necessarily of greater burden than men is juvenile obsequious pandering, inherently insulting to women.
I, along with many others I’m certain, am eagerly awaiting seeing a Priest in handcuffs – which he should INSIST ON, on the evening news because he refuses to violate the seal of the confessional.
From there it will be quickly picked up by Newsmax, Fox News, MSNBC, and, I’m certain, those worthies on The View will be eager to share their wisdom on the subject with us – the gum-chewing public.
To quote Sonny & Cher – The Beat Goes On.
We could use a few martyrs these days. Persecution unites the faithful. Apathy & complacency have brought us to the low point we’re at currently.
Want to sign up to be one? Perhaps on some other issue?
A Catholic Reform Group called Heal Our Church gave testimony in the Wa. State Senate hearing, supporting the bill. Another member who testified in support of the bill was a priest, retired, from the Diocese of Milwaukee, who has publicly supported the breaking of the confessional seal in cases of abuse. Fr. James Connell was stripped by his archbishop of his faculty to absolve and hear confession in the RCC. You can find more info online about misguided Washington Catholics supporting this bill and subverting Catholic teaching, healing, reconciliation.
Members of the Heal Our Church group are about as Catholic as the Roman Catholic “Womenpriests” fringe group of radical leftist women attempting to seek “ordination”.
I am wondering how a confession can even be licit, if one’s Penance does not require that one makes restitution to the injured party when a criminal crime has been committed?
What, pray tell, is a “criminal crime”? That is, as distinct from a non-criminal crime, for instance.
Ferguson appears to be yet another ape in the ape of the church about which Fulton Sheen warned us.
There are a few hundred total priests in Washington State. It is very difficult to get a law passed. Note the maniacal focus on a few people. This is not a shot over the bow for Catholics. This a shot into the bow.
Wake up!
For the record, on May 4 Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle was quick to make a response (after testifying earlier). Part of which reads:
“Once the state asserts the right to dictate religious practices and coerce information obtained within this sacrament – privileged communication – where is the line drawn between Church and state? What else may the state now demand the right to know? Which other religious practices will it try to legislate? Why is this privileged communication between priest/penitent the only one singled out? Why not attorney/client? Doctor/patient? Spouses?”
There are laws that make exceptions to doctor/patient and attorney/client privilege. One issue here with Sacramental Confession is that it is not a civil matter but a soul matter. Those who have committed serious crimes, be they child abuse or murder or ? arson or …. and who may be legitimately struggling with remorse and fear will now be afraid to tell any priest to save his soul. A question I have for priests is what would you say to a penitent who confesses such crimes but has avoided civil responsibility for his crimes. A good priest may be the right person to guide such a sinner to true repentance and turn him/her self into the civil authorities to make restitution and accept his penance from the state as best can be so that he can be spiritually absolved from his sins.