Chaplaincy Services

National Chaplains' Conference,
June 2001

Artisans Of Justice In Mercy And Compassion

Father Jean A. Patry

I Introduction

My Dear Friends:
I consider it a privilege to be able to share my thoughts with you on the occasion of your national conference.

The first thing you should know is that I come to you with my life experience and my background as a prison chaplain for the past 32 years. My point of reference in speaking to you today is the Roman Catholic Church and the Judeo-Christian tradition, which have marked my whole life; but I also speak to you out of respect for all faiths, with which we have many things in common.

When Michel Beauchamps told me the theme of your conference was Artisans of Justice, the first thought that came to my mind was that, as a Christian and a prison chaplain, it would be impossible for me to talk about justice without talking about mercy and compassion. For they have been the driving force in my life and served as my greatest motivator throughout my 32 years as chaplain to the Bordeaux Jail in Montreal.

II Our ministry: An adventure in love

Being an artisan of justice in mercy and compassion in our prisons is a great adventure, a vocation of love.

The people we serve and have the privilege of working with in our prisons and penitentiaries are people who have experienced human justice, not the justice of God.

In view of the limitations we each have, it seems to me that we should approach these prisoners with humility, mercy and compassion so that we may share their suffering and empathize with them in our heart. That does not mean that we have forgotten about the victims, for we should show the same attitude toward them. I was myself a victim of six home robberies in the same year. Such violations of our home mark us all. I can only imagine what physically violated persons or abused children must go through. Such violations are what I call murders of the soul. I often say that while I do not condone what offenders have done, I want to be the ally of the good that is in them.

For a Christian, justice that is devoid of mercy and compassion is tantamount to justice that is devoid of a soul.

III Jesus' approach

- Jesus

1) While fervently denouncing the social and religious injustices of his time, Jesus always treated everyone with mercy, compassion and tenderness.

The sermon he delivered at the beginning of his ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth in reference to Isaiah 61:1-2 is a message of justice, freedom and mercy. This is what he said: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poo. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Lk 4:18-19)

To those who demand justice devoid of a soul, he said: "'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come not to call the righteous but sinners." (Mt 9:13)

2) Justice, in the biblical sense, means righteousness of the heart. For Jesus, this meant living through love, mercy and compassion. As Saint Paul tells us in Romans 13:10: "Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law."

For example, Sister Lucille, the head of the Carmelite Convent in Montreal, understood what the Law of Love is. She allowed Sister Murielle to meet Claude in prison, even though the rules allowing carmelite nuns to leave the Convent are very strict. Sister Murielle left to found a Carmelite convent in Mauritius, so she will never again see Claude, who is still in prison.

The New Justice envisioned by Jesus is the justice of mercy and compassion. He said: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for thse who abuse you." (Mt 5:43; Lk 6:27)

"For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 5: 20)

- John Paul II

In his encyclical Dives in misericordia (Divine Mercy, Nov. 30, 1980), Pope John Paul II wrote in many different places and many different ways that mercy is the root of God's justice. As the Pope expressed it, "True mercy is, so to speak, the most profound source of justice." (Dives in misericordia VII,14)

- God's justice

All in all, we may say that God exercises His justice by making us fit His mould, meaning that he makes us become Love and Mercy just as He is Love and Mercy. "Be merciful, just your Father is merciful." (Lk 6:36)

IV How I came to be a chaplain

As for me, my entire life has been marked by the mercy and compassion of God, expressed through people and events.

It is no accident that I became a prison chaplain: it was my personal choice. And as one of the prison volunteers told me, it became my vocation because the Lord, Our God, called me to it. I heard the call gradually, not all at once, and little by little this calling took root in my life.

As the youngest in a family of 13, I was raised in a Christian home, but one in which we were given a great deal of freedom. My parents never forced us to go to Mass on Sunday, even though it was an obligation in those days.

As a boy, I was such a troublemaker that one of my mother's sisters-in-law Thérèse, who was expecting a baby, told my mother, "Mrs. Patry, if I knew my baby would turn out like your André, I'd rather not have a child at all".

For two years, I'd go to the convenience store every day and steal a chocolate bar. It was the rush the stealing gave me that made me do it. I wasn't doing it just to get candy.

While still very young, I was attracted to prayer and to everything that was considered socially unacceptable.

My interest in prayer and in social outcasts led me to pray at bedtime for the most desperate person in the world, knowing in my heart that through my prayer in Christ I might save that person.

When I was 12 or 13, I saw a movie on TV, "Les Anges du Péché", about the lives of the Dominican Nuns of Bethany, a community in France founded by Father Lataste, a Dominican priest. The order was made up of former prisoners who had entered contemplative life as nuns.

I was drawn to the worker-priests in France. I had read an article in a French magazine, Paris Match, about how a person could become the spiritual sponsor of a prostitute in the Pigalle neighbourhood of Paris, through a group founded in France by Father Talvas, called "l'Amicale du Nid". I wrote the group, and I received a prostitute named Liliane as my spiritual niece, for whom I have prayed ever since.

I used to enjoy writing articles about social misfits for the school paper at the college I attended.

In 1962, I found out about the Order of the Holy Trinity. The members of that order care for prisoners, among others. I joined the Trinitarians in 1962, hoping specifically to become a prison chaplain one day. I was ordained in 1966, and after three years in various ministries, my superiors sent me as chaplain to Bordeaux Jail in Montreal on January 31, 1969. My dream had come true.

Many people have had an influence over me: Jean Vanier, Mrs. Vanier, the Little Sisters of Jesus, Sr Aline, a Carmelite nun, Father Benoît Lacroix, OP, etc. But one woman in particular has left a special imprint on my life; our meeting was a gift from God.

In June 1969, at the beginning of my prison ministry, I was watching a TV program on the French CBC network and learned about Baroness Catherine de Hueck, who was banished from Russia in 1917. Catherine became my friend and spiritual guide. She recounted her fascinating life and told about how she came to New York and had to wander through the streets looking for a place to live. She was turned away by convents and churches, and then she saw a Neon sign saying Jesus Saves. She was taken in by two "big fat matrons" as she says who made her strip bare, gave her a bar of coarse soap and made her shower in front of them. Catherine, humiliated, said "As I washed, I could feel the dirt run down my body along with the soap, yet I felt all my human dignity washing off with the filth". And she added, "Lord, how You are scorned". Catherine was identifying with Christ.

Catherine's phrase "Lord, how You are scorned" - which evokes Jesus' words at the Last Judgment, "For I was hungry and you gave me food…"(Mt 25:31-46) - moved me very deeply and became the spiritual foundation of my prison ministry for the next 32 years.

V    Every prisoner is Christ

1) Jesus said: "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me, I was naked you gave me clothing, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison, and you visited me." (Mt 25:35-36)

As artisans of justice in mercy and compassion are we aware that when we meet a prisoner in our institutions we are meeting Christ Himself? It is Jesus' words that allow me to claim this.

I wonder if we are truly aware of the profundity, the gravity, of these words of Jesus when he tells us that we will not be judged on how strictly we observe religious practices but on our love for our brothers and sisters, especially on our love of the "least of these", the poor, the social outcast.

Jesus said: "I was in prison and you visited me. Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." (Mt 25:36,40) And this is important: Jesus did not say it is as though you had done it to me. He said, "You did it to me."

Jesus genuinely identified with the hungry, the homeless, the prisoners, the sick. So it is Jesus Himself who stands before us in the person of the poor or hungry, the sick or the prisoner.

And it is Jesus himself whom we are really serving in mercy and compassion when we serve "the least of these". It is an unfathomable mystery of love and faith.

St. John Chrysostom, with other Church Fathers (St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Caesar of Arles), said to his contemporaries:

Through these words, St. John Chrysostom denounced, in particular, members of the clergy and those who scorned the poor.

For example, St. Camille of Lellis felt so strongly that the sick were the personification of Christ that he kneeled before the sick to confess with the deep conviction that his sins were forgiven in so doing.

Example: St. Vincent de Paul told the Sisters of Charity that if they were called upon to tend to the sick while they were praying before the Blessed Sacrament, they should not hesitate to abandon their time of prayer because they would find God in the sick they would visit.

One day I was asked to give Holy Communion to an offender who attempted suicide by slitting his wrists and who was in a segregated cell in the infirmary. When I gave him Communion, I told myself that the same Christ who was glorified and resurrected existed in the host I was holding and in the offender I was standing before who was disfigured by the suffering and pain of life.

2) When I meet with the prisoner who repulses me the most in my office or in his cell, I tell myself, "It is Christ who appears before you to convert you."

Indeed, God often works through the inmates to convert us, to evangelize us. As I often like to say, they are the theologians of the Holy Spirit because they go right to the bare essentials. We see this when we have biblical study sessions; they enable us to re-read the Gospel through their actions.

Gilles, a businessman who was just incarcerated, attempted suicide and, on his arrival, misjudged a Junkie from the same cell block. The junkie saved him and showed him a place of freedom (the chapel). The junkie acted as the Good Samaritan towards Gilles. (Lk 10:29)

During Eucharist, Nicodème, an offender, asked for forgiveness from another offender for thinking ill of him, using Jesus' own words: "So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave yourgift there before the altar, and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift." (Mt 5: 23)

When I was sick in 1982 and I stopped to pray at the Church of the Holy Sacrement in Montreal, the indigent sleeping on the church bench was the Lord himself to me, the same Christ that is present in the Eucharist.

VI    A message for all men and women, believers and non-believers alike

Coming back to Jesus' words: "I was hungry and you gave me food…" Don't think that these words were meant only for believers who know that they are serving Jesus when they serve the poor, the sick, or the imprisoned.

During the Last Judgment, the righteous ask the Lord: "'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food? … And when was it that we saw you sick, or in prison, and visited you?' And the king shall answer and say unto them, 'Truly I tell you, just as your did it to one of the least of these who are amembers of my family, you did it to me.as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me'" (Mt 25:40)

These words were meant for every man and every woman in the world, whether or not they are believers, whether or not they are aware of serving Jesus, any one who in any way serves brothers and sisters who are sick, hungry, injured or in prison. It is the anonymous character of the Love of Jesus, of the Love of God, that is expressed through the humanitarian action of every human being.

VII    Dignity of the person, image of God

1) Serving Christ in the person of the brother or sister who is an outcast or disfigured by the injuries of life, or who is a prisoner reminds us of the inviolable dignity of the human being. Human dignity can never be lost since dignity is part of the human condition. Sometimes, our dignity is buried under human misery and injury. We must lead the man or woman to find this dignity deep within himself or herself.

Human worth is not measured merely by what a person produces; it is measured by what that person is deep within.

During a speech to a group of very rich businessmen, to show the importance of human dignity a pastor asked one of these men to give him a $100 bill. He asked the businessman how much the bill was worth. He said $100. The pastor them crumpled the bill, threw it on the table and asked how much the bill was worth once again. The businessman said that it was still $100. The pastor then told him: "Even if a person in injured or disfigured by the miseries of life, their worth is still the same; their dignity is never lost."

We are created in the image and likeness of God. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us 'whose house are we'. (Heb 3:1-6) "You are God's temple," wrote St. Paul. (2 Cor 3: 16)

When someone commits suicide in prison, I always perform the sacrament of unction over and pray for the body of the deceased offender to make those present understand that this offender had dignity as a person, that he was a temple of God and that he deserves our respect.

2) I believe that we pastors do not go into a prison to judge or condemn but to love, accept and accompany prisoners unconditionally out of respect for what they are and what they are going through.

We are there to be an ally for all the good that is in them, without condoning the evil they may have done.

Jesus does not judge; Jesus loves and understands. "I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." (Jn 12:47)

Through his words and his acts of mercy and compassion, Jesus rehabilitates every human being in their own eyes and in the eyes of the community.

The healing of the lepers:

The woman caught in adultery:

"Woman, where are they? Has no on comdemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again." (Jn 8:10-11)

On this subject, Marianne Fournier wrote that the justice of the ancient laws of Moses has been supplanted by Jesus' new law of mercy. (Living with Christ, April 1, 2001)

VIII    Inhabited by God

We are the 'house' of God (Heb 3:1-6); we are the temple of the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:16) I am always telling the prisoners that they - that we all - are inhabited by God.

My conviction comes from a spiritual experience I had in 1963 during my novitiate with the Trinitarians and that I consider a grace of God. In a moment of great solitude, God enabled me to understand that he truly exists in me. I never again doubted that he was present in me, real and living, even if I could not feel him. What I believe for myself, I believe for others.

I keep telling the inmates that God is our prisoner. As St. Augustine said, "For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there." - St. Augustine, Confessions (X: 26-29).

I spoke to offenders about the existence of God in us. However, Denis, one of the offenders, did not believe that God could exist in him because "I am rotten to the core" he told me. I told him that the difference between God and us is that God accepts to dwell in places we do not want to.

IX    Contemplation: Looking beyond the wounded Face

Ministry of contemplation

1) Our ministry of mercy and compassion is a ministry of contemplation. We must look beyond the wounded, disfigured face to see a person of dignity and to see the face of Christ. We must love the wounded and disfigured one for the person that he or she is. This to me is for the glory of God.

God loves me as I am in the beauty of my being and in my misery.

2) Contemplation cannot remain on the superficial level of noble sentiments; it must be active; that is to say, we must fight any form of injustice and contempt for any person, whether coming from the staff or the other inmates.

I was asked to meet with an offender who was in a deathrow cell, in the 'hole' in A Block. When I got to his cell, the offender was lying there, nude; his feet and hands tied to the bed, without mattress. When he saw me, he said, "I'm thirsty."

Seeing him, I pictured Christ, crucified on the cross saying, "I'm thirsty". At that moment I was annoyed by the way this person had been treated, so I asked the supervisors to give him something to drink. I called the warden at home to have him do something so that this inmate would be respected and treated like a human being.

It was not enough for me to see the crucified Christ in this man in his cell. I had to act to ensure respect for his human dignity.

As artisans of justice, we must act to bring about change, whatever our environment.

I often tell inmates who use their time in prison to settle scores, "Hearsay is inadmissible in a court of law; yet in here, people are convicted on hearsay. You act as judge, prosecutor and executione,r but you provide no counsel for the defence".

Steve takes an inmate out of protection whom he himself has had placed under protection. Steve told me, "If God forgave me when I came to see you the other day, I must forgive also." Steve understood two things: that if we are forgiven, we must in turn forgive and that we should not judge and condemn others.

X Be the heart of God on earth

My friends, we must be the heart of God on earth.

On an icon of the risen Christ that I have in my own oratory and which is also in the little chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the jail, are written the words: "Be the heart of God on earth". I believe that each of us, in our own way, must use our ministry to make the face of God visible on earth, as Jesus did: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." (Jn 14:9)

We must be the heart of God on earth through the compassion, love, and tenderness we show to the prisoners we meet.

One day, I asked an offender named Michel how he could imagine a God of Lovegiven that he had been abused by his mother as a child. He told me that he was an unruly student and was often kept after class. One morning, he came back to school with marks on his bod and his teacher, Sr Agathe, asked him where the mark shad come from. He told her that his mother had beaten him because he was kept after class the day before. Sr Agathe, who was disturbed by this answer, took Michel tenderly in her arms and said, "Michel, God loves you." Michel then told me, "See Father, I understood that God could be a God of Love through the tenderness of this woman and in the face of her kindness." Sr Agathe became the face of God on earth for Michel.

XI    Believe in the God of the impossible: Ministry of faith

Our ministry as artisans of justice in mercy and compassion is also a vocation and a ministry of faith.

For all those who are considered irredeemable, we must believe against all hope that the God who dwells in us is a God of Love, that his love is greater than all our sins, all our misery, and that He is at work within the heart of every human being through his Spirit. "[We] will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything". (1 Jn 3:20)

Our God is the God of the impossible. "For nothing will be impossible with God," said the angel to Mary at the Visitation. (Lk 1:37) When His disciples asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus answered, "for God all things are possible." (Mk 10:27)

Donald was considered a lost cause. I met him in prison in Bordeaux in 1970. He converted in jail after 19 years of incarceration after having an authentic spiritual experience. One day, he was let out, though authorities were convinced that he would return to prison; but he never did. This was 25 years ago and he is still affected by this experience with God whmo he met in the 'hole' of Kingston Penitentiary. Later, he decided to help youth by holding seminars and publishing books.

André was considered a habitual criminal and was released after having served his entire sentence. When he was in his garage one day, he was attacked by someone settling an old score. When he felt he was about to die, he grabbed the little cross around his neck with his right hand and said, "Lord, I ask forgiveness for all the wrong I have done in life," and then lost consciousness. Fortunately, he did not die. I told André, "You see André, if you had died, they next morning the newspaper would have read: ONE LESS BUM IN SOCIETY; but they should have written: ONE MORE SAINT IN HEAVEN. Like the good thief on the cross, you repented at the last minute."

I also think of all those who "snuck into heaven" at the last minute. St. Dismas, the Good Thief crucified next to Jesus, Adrien Lebeau, Karla Tucker, Jacques Fesch.

Letter from Adrien to his brother-in-law and sister-in-law on June 6, 1955:
[translation] I am going to die. That is when I will begin to live. For our true life is not the earthly one, and I am glad to have Christ as my last Judge. He knows all, he is God, and I believe in Him. I am not afraid to die.

- Note from Adrien just before his execution, 11:15 a.m. on July 22, 1955:
[translation] "Adieu, dear Rolande, I embrace you and I will save a place for you in heaven".

- Excerpt from a letter from Father Yves, the chaplain, to Rollande Hémon, Adrien's contact on the morning after the execution:
[translation] In the seconds between the end of the Mass and the execution, he kept repeating "Holy Virgin, come for me"…and he died in holiness with Jesus in his heart and Mary on his lips.

- Jacques Fesch was a 27-year old executed by guillotine on October 1, 1957, for the murder of a policeman. He converted in prison.
[translation] "Just five hours more to live. In five hours, I will see Jesus. How good our Lord is! He calls me so gently to Him, giving me that peace that is not of this world. Happy is he who puts his trust in the Lord".

- The last words of Karla Faye Tucker, 38, who had been sentenced to death for murdering two people, before her execution on February 3, 1998 in Huntsville, Texas. She converted in prison. "I love all of you very much. I'm going to be face-to-face with Jesus now. I will see you all when you get there. I will be waiting for you."

The God of the impossible dwelled in and worked through all these people.

XII    Conclusion

- I find myself in them.

Every time a prisoner comes to me, I see a bit of myself in him.

Every one of us has our own inner prisons. All of us are prisoners of some inner dependency, bound by some inner chain.

When I see abuse of power, contempt for other human beings, or flagrant injustice, I sometimes want to take revenge. I think to myself, "They'll have to pay for this one day". But then I think better of it when I contemplate the infinite mercy of God and tell myself if they have to pay, it must be through love, that is, through a conversion to love.

Daniel, an inmate at the jail, told me recently that he wanted to make up for all the bad things he has done in life by serving the sick.

- Jesus

The trial, conviction and execution of Christ on the cross was a flagrant injustice, a 'frame-up' as our guys sometimes say. And yet, Jesus met injustice with justice through pardon, mercy and compassion.

He unquestioningly pardoned the thief, Dismas, saying to him, "Today you will be with me in Paradise". (Lk 23:43) He pardoned his executioners - "'Father, forgive them'." - and even found a reason to exonerate them: "…for they do not know what they are doing." (Lk 23:34)

He was the perfect artisan of justice in compassion and mercy.

- Martin Luther King

For two millennia, thousands of men and women have been imitating Jesus.

Martin Luther King responded to persecution of white segregationists with these words:

"To our most bitter opponents we say: 'We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you…Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you….One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory". (Strength to Love, Chapter Five: Loving your enemies, Fortress Press, 1963, page 54.)

Martin Luther King was a true disciple of Jesus. He is what I call a real Saint.

In closing,

I would like to tell you that after 32 years of my prison ministry, I still have the ability to marvel when an inmate turns his life around or frees himself from his inner prison. But I also have the ability to feel indignation at all the injustice I see in my environment and still have the desire to fight to bring about change.

So, as long as I can still marvel and still feel indignant, as long as God grants it and my health permits it, I will stay in prison.