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Or follow the link to the PDF below:

Winter 2012 (click for pdf)

Please find our newsletter on the Adeodatus Facebook Page.

Or follow the link to the PDF below:

Spring 2011, Vol. 4, No.2 (click for pdf)

Winter 2011, Vol. 4, No.1 (click for pdf)

Oh baby, love, my baby love I need you, oh how I need you—Diana Ross

Turning Your Own Key

by Anthony

When I look back and take an honest assessment of myself in terms of standing on my own two feet—I’d have to say that I’ve been fully dependent on others. From my earliest memory—someone has housed and fed me. During my early childhood it was my mother who provided for me. Then, from the age of 10-13, a series of temporary foster homes/group homes sheltered me. From early teens (14 years old) until I was 40—I’ve been sheltered, clothed, and fed by institutions, such as St. Michael’s, St. Gabe’s and Vision Quest, or prisons—state and county—or by the many women who’ve entered into dysfunctional relationships with me.

As an adult, there have been a few periods when I was responsible for paying my own way, but lacking a foundation for being self-reliant and being an addict, I soon found myself overwhelmed and looking for someone to take care of me. Looking back, I realize this happened again and again without my even thinking about it. My being dependent upon others seemed as natural and acceptable to me as dependence on heroin.
Read more…

The following is a quote by Augustine, from the book Christian Faith and Criminal Justice, by Gerald Austin McHugh, Paulist press, 1978.

“St. Augustine…was known to frequently intervene in civil matters in an attempt to inject Christian values into legal and political matters. In one case, involving the murder of friends of his, Augustine wrote a letter to the judge which is one of the most remarkable witnesses to the Christian principle of “love of enemies” ever recorded. Fearing a death sentence, Augustine pleaded:

…by no means do this or permit this to be done. For although we might silently pass over the execution of criminals brought up for trial not by an accusation of ours…we do not wish the sufferings of the servants of God avenged by the infliction of precisely similar injuries in way of retaliation…Fulfill, Christian judge, the duty of an affectionate father; let your indignation against their crimes be tempered by considerations of humanity; be not provoked by the atrocity of their sinful deeds to gratify the passion of revenge, but rather be moved by the wounds which these deeds have inflicted on their own souls to exercise a desire to heal them…The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustine, Vol.I, Letter CXXXIII.” (my emphasis by bold sentence)

Christ of America

1 in 100 Americans are in prison today, 7 times the number in 1970.

Lord, have mercy!

The United States has 25 % of the world’s entire prison population

Christ, have mercy!

40% of the people in prison in the United States are African-American.

Lord, have mercy!

20% of the people in prison in the United States are Hispanic.

Christ, have mercy!

Two-thirds of those incarcerated in the United States are for nonviolent crimes.

Lord, have mercy!

Christ of Self-Defense

There are 250 million guns in the Unites States today; one third of them are hand guns.

Lord, have mercy!

25% of adults and one-third of households in the U.S. have at least one gun.

Christ, have mercy!

There are 30,000 gun deaths annually in the United States.

Lord, have mercy!

Christ of Children

1 in 28 children in America have at least one parent in prison.

Lord, have mercy!

1 in 9 Black children have at least one parent in prison.

Christ, have mercy!

65% of the women in Pennsylvania State prisons are mothers of children under 18 years of age.

Lord, have mercy!

55% of the men in Pennsylvania State Prisons are father of children under 18 years of age.

Christ, have mercy!

The children and siblings of those in prison are six times more likely to wind up in prison themselves.

Lord, have mercy!

Christ of Young Black Men

45% of the 250 murders in Philadelphia in 2010 are still under investigation

Lord, have mercy!

77% of the victims in these unresolved cases are black males.

Christ, have mercy!

79% of these unresolved murder cases are of black males under the age of 30.

Lord, have mercy!

Christ of Poverty

Philadelphia is officially the poorest of the 10 largest cities in the US (25% below the poverty line).

Lord, have mercy!

25% to 30% of prisoners in Philadelphia read at a second or third grade level.

Christ, have mercy!

The First Congressional District in North Philadelphia is one of the hungriest, second only to the Bronx, N.Y. in the United States.

Lord, have mercy!

Jesus said to his Disciples: “Give them some food yourselves.” (Mt. 14:16)

Christ, have mercy!

These figures are a compilation of recent reports: the Pew Center Study, 2009, the House Resolution Bill #203 in the State of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Inquirer, November 2010, and The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, an ongoing national poll done in conjunction with the Food Research and Action Center in Washington.

–From Adeodatus Prison Ministry

I didn’t know I was obsessed until it stopped. (Anthony) There are tears in the eyes of this 41 year old guy who sees through nonsense with his blue eyes and describes himself as not very religious “until I took a knee at a church in South Philly and then kept doing so at daily mass,” he tells me. “I substituted one ritual for another, Father,” Anthony explains in his offhanded way. “See, I used to shoot myself up with heroin every morning for fifteen years.” He holds open his arms to show me the dark spots from his punctured veins.

Serving as a Catholic chaplain in the Philadelphia Prison with its 8000 plus inmates, I hear a lot of ‘confessions.’ It is humbling to hear these men and women tumble out their sins as I sit across from them at a metal table in the cellblock. Holding their hands, I pray with them. At the same time I am struck at how their stories need to be heard by others. The wrongdoings yes, but about the dysfunctional families they grew up in also. The lack of fathering/mothering. The poverty. The lostness and sense of unworthinesss. About how they are being found as well, in of all places–a prison! These are God’s daughters and sons too, and they are being found by the Good Shepherd. If them, why not us?

Click here to read the entire Voices From Prison newsletter.

Ghandi’s example is what we need to consider as our country revs up in anger and fear.