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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF CEORGIA
WORK OF A FEDERAL PRISON CHAPLAIN
By REV. MICHAEL J. BYRNE.
Catholic Chaplain, U.
As requested by the Editor of The Bulletin, I shall
endeavor to give a brief outline of my work as Catho
lic Chaplain in the. United States Penitentiary at;
Atlanta, Georgia, to which post of duty I was ap
pointed on September 1, 1917.
Though my chaplaincy here covers only a period
of less than four years, it has been fraught with
experience. When I first came here I had not the
slightest conception of the nature of the work before
me beyond the mere fact that I was to be the spir
itual advisor of men of my creed who had broken
the laws of man. I had no predecesor to instruct
me and was compelled to map out my work with
time and experience as teachers, and from the very
first day I have had the hearty co-operation of the
inmates.
When I first took charge here, there was no Catho
lic Chapel. I had to say Mass on the stage of the
big auditorium on a small, portable altar that was
rolled out on Sunday mornings and immediately after
Mass rolled back into obscurity to make room for
the general services held shortly after. For Catho
lics accustomed to the devotional beauty of outsidd
churches and cathedrals, there was nothing in the
auditorium to lead the thoughts to God beyond the
priest at the altar in the anything but Catholic sur
roundings.
The inevitable result was that the attendance at
Mass averaged only something like seventy men, and
my weekly list of communicants seldom exceeded five.
It did not take me long to realize that, if I were to
accomplish any good as Chaplain, most radical
changes would have to be made, and my first fight
was for a separate Catholic Chapel. In this I met
with the hearty co-operation of the warden, Fred
A Zerbst. A large room just above the auditorium,
which formerly had been used as a tailorshop and
hospital, was, with the permission of the Department
of Justice, remodeled and made into a little Chapel
with a seating capacity of about five hundred. It
was opened and blessed on Anril 14, 1918, by Bishop
Keiley of Savannah, as the Chapel of Our ‘Lady of
Perpetual Help. While it was little more than a
large, white-painted hall with a small altar and a
bare sanctuary in one end, it had the immediate ef
fect of increasing the attendance.
There happened to be among the inmates an Ital
ian artist, and to him was given the task of beautify
ing the chapel. During the two years he remained
here, he turned the chapel into a wonderful little
place of worship. The windows were nainted in imi
tation of stained glass; the walls and ceiling of the
sanctuary were covered with canvas and decorated
in Louis XIV style, and the altar was enlarged and
beautified with an oil painting of Our Lady of Per
petual Help.
The Eagles of Savannah donated two beautiful
statues, one of the Sacred Heart and the other of
St. Josenh, and from other well wishers I received
a very fine set of stations of the cross and two kneel
ing angels for the altar, while the government gave
me a beautiful imitation pipe organ, for which a
choir loft was built in the rear of the chanel. I have
a very fine little choir of twelve voices chosen from
among the Catholic inmates.
As I look back across the vista of the vears, while
progress at times has seemed slow and discouraging,
I feel that it has been given me to accomplish a great
deal. My chapel is filled _ every Sunday morning,
though attendance at religious service is no longer
compulsory, and the number of weekly communicants
is so great that very often I am compelled to ask the
assistance of some outside priest to heln me hear
confessions. There are at present 660 Catholic in
mates in this institution and 90% of them have made
S. Penitentiary, Atlanta, Ga.
their Easter Duty.
I say mass at 8 o’clock on Sunday morning and on
all holy days of obligation, and we have about ten
High Masses a year, followed by benediction of the
Blessed Sacrament. Confessions are heard in the
chapel on Saturdays, and Tuesdays are set aside for
personal interviews with the men. Through these
private talks I strive to come into closer contact
with the men under my charge, endeavor to learn
their special needs and individual shortcomings, and
try to bring them back to the folds of the Church,
knowing full well that none of them would ever have
passed through the portals of a prison if they had
lived up to their Holy faith.
But the duties of a chaplain are not limited to
hearing confessions, saying Mass on Sundays, vis
iting the sick in the hospital and holding interviews.
In fact, the longer I stay and the older I get in the
job, the more duties seem to pile up on roe. Some
of the difficulties I am facing may be realized from
the fact that my congregation numbers men from all
parts of the world, and at present is represented by
twenty-one different nationalities, many of the in
mates being unable to speak a word of English.
And the prisoner himself is not the only one I
have to look after. There is the prisoner’s family,
bereft of support and protection by the father’s and
husband’s arrest and conviction. Many and many a
time, in truth hardly a day passes but some inmate
comes to me with a tale of the hardships the family
has to undergo, tales of starvation, of prostitution.
So.my work has come to include the families of tha
Catholic inmates and, through the St. Vincent de
Paul Society, I try to alleviate their sufferings.
Another and most important part of the work is
to assist the men when they leave here to find work
and take up the broken threads of their lives. Until
recently a prisoner upon his discharge received only
ten dollars with which to start life anew on, and this
small and inadequate remuneration has been the
cause of many a man being returned to prison.
Owing to his utter lack of references he finds it im
possible to secure work at once, and when the
money, insufficient to tide him over even a single
week, has gone, he must either starve or go back to
crime.
The unfairness of this has again and again been
impressed upon the powers that were without any at
tempt to remedy it, but since the new administra
tion has taken office, the matter has been taken uo
and. as an experiment, the men who work in the
Duck Mill, which employs the majority of the men
in the institution, are paid a certain amount for
their work. If the plan proves feasible, the pay
will be in due time extended to all the prisoners so
that, when a man leaves here, he will have a little
money to fall back on and thus his chances to secure
honest employment will materially increase. It has
been part of my job to endeavor to secure work for
many of the discharged men as well as to vouch for
those who are released on parole.
I have also inaugurated a Catholic library for cir
culation among the men under my charge. This
has been made possible only through gifts from pub
lishers and well-wishers, but we now have a seua-
rate library of more than five thousand volumes, in
cluding books in practically every language. It has
been my endeavor to svstemat.ize every branch of my
work, keeping an individual record of every man
under my charge, thereby making it possible for a
limited office force to obtain greater results. And,
without thought of self-glory, looking back I feel that
it has been given me to accomplish much in the field
of labor to which Almighty God has assigned me.