Anti War Resister-Frank Cordaro Reflects On & From Prison

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Saturday April 08, 2006 04:51

by Ploughshares

He's in There for Us, We're on the Loose for Him!

Frank Cordaro addressed an anti-war meeting last Summer in Dublin. Frank is presently serving a 6 month sentence for trespass at Offcut Air Force Base, Omaha Nebraska, USA. Offcut is the HQ of the U.S. Air Force Base. Although a Federal prisoner of the U.S. federaL Government, he is thus far doing his time in county jails given the crowded nature of U.S. Prisons (2 1/2 MILLION INSIDE AT LAST COUNT).

How to do "good time" in six month intervals

A month down and I'm still in the Pottawattamie County Jail. I did
not expect to be here this long. The last time I came through
Pottawattamie County Jail was four years ago and it was less than a
week before Federal Marshals drove me to the for-profit Federal
holding facility in Leavenworth, Kansas. Then it took the Bureau of
Prisons three months to assign me to the Federal prison camp in Duluth
from Leavenworth. I traveled Con-Air to Oklahoma City then to the
U.S.P. in Terre Haute, IN, for a week in the hole. From there we were
bused to FPC in Oxford, WI, for an overnight. Then on over to FPC in
Duluth. So it's still very early in the process and I could end up
anywhere at this point. For now, the US government is paying
Pottawattamie County $75 a day, not counting meds, to house me in
their jail.

The challenge for me is to live each day making the time serve me
instead of me serving the time. So far, I'm winning but not without a
plan.

This is my eighth six-month bit in my peacemaking career. So I
consider myself an expert in doing 180-day stretches. The most
important thing is to make sure your significant personal
relationships are solidly behind you. They need not agree with your
peacemaking ways. Few of us peacemaking outlaws can boast of total
support of our nonviolent resistance actions from family and friends,
yet to have the love and support of family and friends is most
helpful. All of my significant relationships and family are solidly
supporting me. It cannot be overstated how helpful this is.

It's also important that your outside jail work and responsibilities
are not hurt or significantly diminished while you're locked up. In
this regard, I am greatly blessed. As a member of the Des Moines
Catholic Worker (DMCW) community, we are committed to supporting
community members who risk jail time for nonviolently resisting war.
These last few years the DMCW community has been able to afford the
loss of a few community members to serve jail time while the everyday
work of hospitality carries on. As DMCWer Ed Bloomer is fond of
telling me, "Frank, we're out here for you, brother, so you can be in
there for us." Spoken as a true Catholic Worker!

It's important to have a good support system in place before you get
locked up. Best not to assume it will just happen. Support needs to
be thought out and prepared beforehand. Everybody's needs and
circumstances are different, so what goes for support will vary from
person to person. Again, past experience has helped me put in place a
support system that makes my doing "good time" possible.

My first support principle is never to go to jail alone. Bring as
many people as you can into the experience. The reason being that
should you be unjustly treated while locked up, your friends and
support people on the outside can come to your aid. This was the case
last year in the Polk County Jail when I was not given needed heart
medicines. There are lots of ways to bring people into the jail
experience. One way we are doing this this time is through my 460
plus email support list in which friends and supporters are receiving
my written journals and lectionary reflections and updates when
needed.

Key to any support system is to have people designated and assign
specific tasks. People you can count on to do what they said they
would do. In this regard, I am doubly blessed! Fellow DMCW and
Berrigan House resident, Fran Fuller, is serving as my main support
person. This is Fran's third tour of duty with this assignment.

Fran is doing double duty. She has taken over job responsibilities I
have at the Catholic Worker while I'm gone. These are managing the
DMCW data base, editing our newsletter the via pacis, and making sure
it gets in the mail, doing the Berrigan House books, and paying its
bills, overseeing the DMCW web page, overseeing my mail and email
account and, with Brian Terrell, being point persons for our planned
October National Catholic Worker Gathering and most importantly, she
is caring for Daniel and Phillip, my cats!

She is also the person who keeps tabs of my whereabouts and well being
while I'm locked up. If I am in trouble and need help, Fran is my
first responder. She knows who to call and if she does not, she will
find out. She edits my prison journals. She is in charge of my email
support list and emails my prison journals and lectionary reflections
and updates. She makes sure I have enough money in my jail account.
I call her twice a week. Fran Fuller is doing this six month sentence
just as much as I am and I'm blessed for her unsung efforts and
support.

Once locked up, a disciplined life that gives meaning and focus to
each day served is most helpful. For me, this begins with paying
attention to my physical, spiritual and emotional needs.

When I was younger, the main issues in doing jail time were social.
How well would I handle living with an inmate population? As I've
gotten older, my physical concerns have become critical. My first
physical concern is getting my needed heart meds. I am getting them
and I am grateful. Exercise is another physical concern and even
though we never get outdoors, I walk three hours a day: 2 hours at Rec
time and another hour in the unit. This is hard on my feet. The
shower shoes they give us are not the best walking shoes. If I wear
three pairs of socks and band-aids on critical toes, I get by. Within
a few weeks, my feet have adjusted to the regiment. Diet is important
also for physical well being. As I mentioned earlier, the food here
ain't half bad for a county jail. A major discipline effort is needed
to avoid eating too much junk food from the jail store.

I've discovered that dealing with futures in commodities can be just
as risky in jail as out of jail. My desire for fresh fruit is well
known in the Mod. During the week, a number of deals are made for the
future apples and oranges that come on the weekends. A hamburger,
chicken on the bone, a couple of hot dogs and two honey buns were
given up in exchange for weekend fruit. During a cell shake down on
Sunday night, I got caught with a bag of apples and oranges. I not
only lost the fruit, I was locked down in my cell for 24 hours.

Meeting spiritual and emotional needs are perhaps most important to
doing "good time". This is best done for me through a discipline
routine of praying, reading and writing.

Prayer:
I used to say I was a better priest in jail than out of jail. One
reason for this is my prayer life was much better in jail. This is
because my immediate needs and challenges are greater. Jails and
prisons are not easy places to be, even the best of them. The
separation from loved ones, the lose of freedom and personal control,
living in close quarters with other men, many of them with serious
personal and social problems, the noise, the smells, all are hard on a
person emotionally. And though you are never alone, loneliness is the
most common experience because everyone does their own time, with
nothing but "time" to reflect over and over, week after week, day
after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, the circumstances
that land you in jail. Prayer on the outside is often optional.
Prayer on the inside is a necessity for survival.

My formal prayer is the Liturgy of the Hours, the prayer that priests
are supposed to pray daily. I confess I was not very faithful praying
the "Office" while an active priest. However, in jail, it's a perfect
prayer for me.

I first got introduced to praying the Psalms while in jail in 1983.
They are powerful, personal prayers with a full range of human
emotions and needs expressed. In recent years, I've been troubled by
all the violence found in the Psalms, especially the violence
attributed to God. Like all human prayers, they are flawed. These
days I make efforts to overlook the violence in the Psalms and focus
on the heart and spirit of the voice in the Psalm with its human
anguish, need and trust in God.

When I learned how to pray the Liturgy of the Hours as a priest, it
was a natural prayer for me in jail. Because the Liturgy of the Hours
is best prayed in a monastic setting and the jails and prisons I've
been in are by design monastic-like environments. And unlike the
"Office" I prayed on the outside, inside jail I'm not rushed to get
done. I have plenty of time to pray, stop and reflect on a verse,
re-read a line or two. And now that I find myself alone in a two-man
cell for the last two weeks, I can even begin singing the Psalms. I
also have a Catholic missalette here and since I have plenty of alone
time, I've taken to singing the songs I know from the back half of my
missalette. In short, my prayer life has never been better.

Being locked up really brings the Catholic part of me to the
forefront. This is especially true when it comes to the Eucharist.
Not having access to it makes my need and desire for it stronger.
I've received Holy Communion four times so far. Three times from the
lay Catholic bible folks who come weekly and one time from Fr. Jack
McCaslin who visited me last week. Each time it's been a real
spiritual high. I miss it terribly when its not available and I'm
ecstatic every time I get it.

Reading:

Good reading is not easy to come by in these places. More often than
not in county jails you are not allowed to have any books sent in to
you. You are limited to what is available in the jail. It is no
different here. We are limited to a small book rack in the Mod with
no more than 200 books and most of them I would never read even while
locked up. When I first arrived, I read the three best books on the
rack: two John Grisham books, The Testament and The Painted House and
James Michener's Chesapeake. After these three books, it was slim
pickings.

The lack of good reading material might have been a major downer for
me if it were not for the jail Chaplin, Rev. Dick Arant. Rev. Arant
is really a good jail Chaplin and I hope to write more about him and
his ministry here in my next journal reflection. One of the things he
has done for me is to allow friends to send spiritual and religious
paperback books to him and he, in turn, lets me read them. This is
how I got the Liturgy of the Hours sent to me. So far I've read a
book on Oscar Romero and I am reading a book on St. Francis and Mark
and Louise Zwik's book on the Catholic Worker movement. Without
access to good books, my time here would be greatly diminished.

I thing I sorely miss here is access to the news. We get little to
none here. The best it gets for me is watching the first 15 minutes
of the 5:30 pm national news on TV before our 5:45 pm lockdown. We
can't hear the TV over the noise in the Mod. We have to read the text
in closed-caption. This has all changed for me this last week. I
started receiving the New York Times in the mail. Glory be to God!
It just don't get any better.

Writings:

The most self-indulging thing I do is to enlist my selfless support
people to take my prison journals and lectionary scribbling in their
raw handwritten form, edit them, type them into cyberspace, and have
them emailed to my prison support list. Fran Fuller you already know
does my prison journals. Barbara Hans and Andrea Molinari, the
Director of the St. Joseph Education Center in West Des Moines, Iowa,
edits my weekly lectionary reflections. Barbara takes my raw
handwritten text and does the first edit and emails it to Andrea who
does the second finer edit before he sends it to Fran to be emailed to
my list. These good people are doing a Herculean feat and I am
eternally in their debt.

The discipline of writing a reflection for the Sunday Lectionary text
reminds me of a song in the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, that Tavia,
the main character, sings called "If I Were a Rich Man." In one of
the verses, Tavia sings if he were a rich man he would not have to
work very hard and he would have time to study the Holy Book. I am
living out this verse in Tavia's song for I am truly a rich man who
does not have to work very hard and has lots of time to study the Holy
Book. This discipline more than anything else I do enriches my soul
as I'm doing my time here in Pottawattamie County.

As good as all this is, I know it can all change in a moment's notice.
All I need to hear is, "Cordaro, roll it up. The US Marshals are
here to pick you up." And when that happens, my whole world changes.
I could easily go to a more difficult place. It could take weeks to
get situated into a new jail with its own routine and schedules,
pluses and negatives. And to re-create the self disciplines of
prayer, writing and reading is never easy. Even so, I am confident I
have the building blocks in place to make any new jail or prison work
for me and not against me.

In my next Prison Journal, I hope to address the other side of doing
time, the communal side. And why I see it as a Gospel mandated
ministry to visit the imprisoned. And sometimes with the help of God
you actually see a captive or two set free from bonds that hold them
down.

(Note: Shortly after this was written, Frank was moved to much less
favorable conditions. You can write to him at: Frank Cordaro,
Jackson County Jail, 210 US Hwy 75, Holton, KS 66436.)

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Comments (8 of 8)

Consider Writing a Solidarity Letter or Sending a Postcard to an Anti-War Prisoner

Sat Apr 08, 2006 13:50

More Anti-War Prison Addresses

MILITARY RESISTER
(Refused deployment to Iraq after tour in Afghanistan)
Kevin Benderman
P.O. Box 339536,
Ft. Lewis, WA 98433-9536
USA

Nuclear Resisters
Helen Woodson 03231-045
FMC Carswell - Admin. Max. Unit
POB 27137
Ft. Worth, TX 76127 (Protest at federal courthouse, Kansas City, Missouri, 3/11/04 violates parole following 3/9/04, sentenced to 106 months)

SOA Watch Prisoners

Christine Gaunt, #91356-020 (6 months, May 19 release)
FCI Pekin
Satellte Camp
P.O. Box 5000
Pekin, IL 61555

Donald W. Nelson #92559-020 (April 14 release)
FCI Memphis
Satellite Camp
P.O. Box 2000
Millington, TN 38083

Louis Vitale (6 months: release in May)
Crisp County Jail
196 South Highway 300
Cordele, GA 31015

Overseas, These Nuclear Resisters Are Known To Be In Prison:
Igor Sutyagin #427965, (15 years)
Respublika Udmurtiya
g. Sarapul ul Raskolnikova
53-A, YaCh-91/5, 14 otryad
Russia
(imprisoned since 10/27/99, now convicted of espionage for researching public nuclear weapons information for disarmament research)

Dr. Rafil Dhafir #11921-052
FCI Fairton
Box 420
Fairton, N.J. 08320
USA
( Because he provided humanitarian and financial aid to Iraqis in violation of US sanctions, his medical billing practice was scrutinized and he was charged on various counts)

Update on Frank Cordaro

by Fran

Sat Apr 08, 2006 23:46

This week Frank was moved to a different jail. He was able to call
tonight and this new place sounds like the total opposite of the
Pottawattamie jail.

He said the average stay in his current location is 3 months. It is
very crowded and he's sleeping on the floor. He shares a small cell
with 3 other men and in the previous jail he had a large cell to
himself.

He no longer has opportunities to exercise or read. And no more good,
healthy food. Frank suffered a major heart attack about 3 years ago and
subsequent heart surgery

It sounds just plain awful and I'm sure he can use our prayers and
letters to keep his spirits up.

He can have one 30-minute visit per week. The hours are noon - 5 pm
on Saturday and Sunday. You need to arrive at 11 to get in line to
visit. To arrange a visit, call Officer Buck at 785-364-4121.

Here's his new address again:

Frank Cordaro
Jackson County Jail
210 US Hwy 75
Holton, KS 66436
USA

Update #2 on Frank Cordaro

by Fran - Des Moines Catholic Worker

Tue Apr 11, 2006 00:09

Hello, everyone

I have heard many expressions of concern since my last update on
Frank's jail conditions. I asked his friend, Laney, who has talked
with him several times since for an updat

Here is a synopsis, if you want to send it. I don't think it would be
at all helpful to have people protest....he is not being treated any
differently than all the others.

Having received the first phone call from Frank, upon his arrival
at the Jackson County Jail, which was dismal, I can assure you all
that his second call, (and the one I just received moments ago), was
like night from day. Seems as though he is learning to make great
lemonade from the lemons they are serving up in Holton, KS.
We laughed about a number of things: 1) the delapidated
condition of the jail - burnt out light bulb in cell; only window in
cell is boarded up; cell door doesn't close..stuck (four of 8 cells on
his mod have this problem!) 2) food: all canned, no fresh fruits or
vegetables. But, lots of food, so he's not hungry at bed time ( which
he was in the last cell ) fried foods, mostly - chicken is the prize,
so he has a plan to sell his fried chicken to his 30 something cell
mate, doing 12 years for drugs, who has "friends" on the outside who
are keeping him flush with cash for commissary, and, hopefully, for
Frank's fried chicken! Frank will use the money to buy canned tuna
fish. 3) sleeping on floor - not that bad, actually. He was the last
one in the cell, so got the bottom bunk, which is a 3-tiered stack,
and with his broad shoulders, makes for a claustophobic condition. He
just drags the mattress onto the floor at night. Much better!
As I indicated, Frank just phoned in the middle of this writing,
so here is an update: At midnight last night they put a light bulb in
his cell ( midnight?) which means he can read, now. And, as of this
Wednesday, he can begin to purchase items at the commissary. His
first items will be socks, which he layers and wears with his
slippers. This allows him to walk for long periods of time ( albeit
in a small space) for exercise. Plus, his brother Bill came to visit
on Saturday, in person, and Fr.Rick Halvorson, from Holton, came on
Sunday to give him communion and a Bible! He was very grateful for
having seen them. Things are looking up!
He says there is a "comaraderie" amongst the inmates, which was
not true at the last facility - a good thing ( all for one and one for
all, I guess!) . He is 20 years older than any other inmate, and they
call him "Pops!", which he kinda likes, actually. They think he is a
bit of an oddity, due to his voluntary incarerations, I suppose, so he
is trying to maintain a low profile ( can you imagine?).
Last week I cancelled the old NY Times mailing address, and it is
now set up to be mailed to him on Thursday, April 13th. He should
have it next Monday. Happy Happy Joy Joy!! However, I am about to
send another card to him, and that, combined with the start-up of his
NY Times, should prompt his immediate transfer from this jail, to the
next!!
I passed along all of your love and concern. Laney ( Elaine)
Green

-- Fran Fuller

Frank Cordaro Easter Reflection from a County Jail in Kansas

Wed Apr 12, 2006 12:18

Holy Thursday – April 13, 2006
Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14
First Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-15

THIS DAY SHALL BE A MEMORIAL FEAST FOR YOU, WHICH ALL YOUR GENERATIONS
SHALL CELEBRATE (Exod 12:14)

The feast of Passover is one of the most significant feasts in the
Jewish calendar. It is the feast when the Jews celebrate being freed
from slavery in Egypt and the beginning of their being a people and a
nation set apart as God's chosen ones. This Holy Thursday's first
reading from Exodus comes at the time in the story when the Jewish
people ate their first Passover meal. By the style and manner in
which it is written, it is clear that the text is not a direct account
of what happened at that first Passover meal, but an already
established instruction on how to celebrate the yearly Passover meal.
When the author and final editor of Exodus came to this part of the
story, they simply inserted already existing instructions on how the
feast was to be celebrated.
The most important thing to remember about this feast of Passover and
its relationship to our Holy Thursday celebration is that when Jews
celebrate the Passover meal every year they believe they are not
simply remembering an important event in their history that took place
over 3000 years ago. They believe that when they are celebrating the
Passover meal they are literally incorporated into the very first
Passover, experiencing the same liberation the original Jewish
community experienced back in Egypt 3000 years ago. They become one
and the same people.
When I was attending St. Anthony's Grade School and Dowling Catholic
High School in Des Moines in the years before the 2nd Vatican Council,
I remember what we were taught about the real presence of Jesus' body
and blood in the Eucharist. All of our attention was directed to the
elements of the bread and the wine. Our discussions centered on how
the bread and the wine could be the body and blood of Jesus. I
remember well the hours we spent distinguishing the difference between
the Catholic ('transubstantiation'; i.e., the reality of the bread and
wine is changed into the reality of the sacramental body and blood of
Christ) and the Lutheran ('consubstantation'; i.e., the reality of the
bread and wine continue to exist alongside the reality of the
sacramental body and blood of Christ) understandings of the real
presence of Jesus in the blessed bread and wine.
Our Catholic point of view was backed up by how we celebrated Mass.
The altar and the priest were separated from the people by a communion
rail. When the canon of the mass was said, the priest had his back to
the people, he only spoke in Latin and everyone's focus was on the
elements of the bread and wine. When it came time for communion the
people could only receive the bread and it was placed on the tongue.
The hosts were made in such a way, thin and small, that they could be
swallowed whole, almost immediately after receiving. We were taught
never to chew the host lest we hurt Jesus … and God forbid that the
host fall on the floor! Only a priest could pick it up and the area
on which the host fell had to be cleaned thoroughly! (Pre-Vatican II
Catholic joke: It takes a greater act of faith to believe that the
wafer is bread than it does to believe that it is the body of Christ!)
The problem with placing the focus of the discussion of the real
presence of Jesus in the elements of the bread and the wine is that we
end up with a very limited, narrow and unbalanced understanding of
what the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is all about.
Reframing the question of the real presence of Jesus in our Eucharist
in light of a Jewish Passover perspective might be a better way to
understand what the real presence means for us. The first thing we
need to know is that the first mass that was celebrated either as a
Passover meal or as a meal on the day before Passover. The new
covenant that Jesus started on Holy Thursday replaced the old covenant
of the lamb's blood from the Passover feast. Though the two covenants
are radically different, the understanding and meaning of what happens
at their celebrations stays the same. The Jewish people believe that
whenever they celebrate the Passover meal they are literally
incorporated into the historical reality of liberation from slavery in
Egypt as if they were among the original Jewish community in Egypt.
Every time we celebrate Eucharist and receive Christ's sacramental
body and blood, we participate in the saving events of Christ's death
and resurrection.

"THIS IS MY BODY THAT IS FOR YOU. DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME" (1
Cor. 11:24)

This text from 1 Cor. 11:23-26 is the earliest account of the
Eucharistic liturgy that we have in the New Testament. By the style
and form of the words and phrases it is clear these are not Paul's
words but a text that came to Paul intact as words already being used
by Christian communities in celebration of the Eucharist. Paul wrote
1 Corinthians about A.D. 55 roughly twelve years after Jesus' death,
which means that believers in Jesus were repeating these words very
early in the formative years of the church.
What I find most telling about the text is not the verses themselves
but the context in which they are found. Paul is reprimanding the
Corinthians for neglecting a basic and central Christian duty directly
connected to the meaning of the Lord's Supper. Apparently, there were
social and economic divisions among the Christians in Corinth. When
they gathered to celebrate the Eucharist, the rich would bring a lot
of food to feed themselves while the poorer members had little or no
food and went away hungry after the celebration (1Cor 11:21). Paul
used the very words used by the early church to stand as a judgment on
the rich Christians who left the service full while their poorer
brothers and sisters went away hungry.
This section from Paul's letter is pointing to a very important
aspect regarding the Eucharist. It not only feeds the spiritual needs
of the believer and makes them one with the Lord in body and spirit,
it can also serve as a judgment on any believer who receives the
Eucharist yet lives life contrary to the ethic of love upon which the
Eucharist rests.
This is heavy stuff. It raises lots of questions in my mind,
especially for those of us who live in a country of such wealth and
privilege. Paul is telling the rich believers in Corinth that they
are responsible to feed their hungry brothers and sisters or have the
Eucharist they receive stand as a judgment on them. We in the USA
live in a country where a third of us are overweight, another third
are obese while half the world goes to bed hungry. In our Global Food
Economy these sobering realities should make us Catholics pause every
time we receive the body and blood of Jesus at mass.

THEN HE POURED WATER INTO A BASIN AND BEGAN TO WASH THE DISCIPLES FEET
(John 13:5)

True to the character of John's Gospel (which is very different from
the other gospels in many respects), when it comes time for the
account of the Last Supper there is no blessing of the bread and wine.
Instead, chapter 6 of John's Gospel serves as his discussion of the
Eucharist. Rather than having Jesus consecrate the bread and wine at
the Last Supper, John has Jesus acting out in a symbolic way what he
expects his disciples to be about after he is gone. John has Jesus
washing the feet of his disciples, a gesture of servanthood. It was a
shock to Jesus' disciples. At first, Peter was not going to let Jesus
humiliate himself in such a way!
Clearly, Jesus was making a point. Through his explanation, Jesus
told his disciples if he, who is their 'teacher' and 'master' washed
their feet, they should in turn wash each others' feet. The foot
washing not only reflected the 'service' Jesus is about to perform in
his death, it also sets a pattern for relationships among his
disciples in the age that follows his death and resurrection.
It is a sad commentary on the Catholic Church that we find ourselves
in the midst of an unfolding priest shortage which has become a
crisis. Many viable parishes are being forced to close and many more
do not have a resident priest. The availability of the Eucharist is
being curtailed because of a lack of priests. The root of the problem
stems from our Church's ordained governing structure's institutional
commitment to a narrow theological perspective that is more concerned
with who can preside at mass than why we have presiders at all. We do
not have a vocation crisis in the Catholic Church; we have a
leadership crisis. The example of Jesus washing the feet of his
disciples is as instructive today as it must have been when John wrote
his gospel.

Sent by Fran Fuller
on behalf of
Frank Cordaro
Jackson County Jail
210 US Hwy 75
Holtonh, KS 66436

Anti-War Prisoner Frank Cordaro Good Friday Refelction "Death is Personal & Universal"

by Frank Support

Fri Apr 14, 2006 03:01

*Frank Cordaro is presently serving a 6 month jail sentence for a nonviolent anti-war trespass at Offcut Air Force Base, Nebrasaka, Omaha, USA on the "Feast of Holy Innocents" (28/12/05)

*You can send support letters or postcards to
Frank Cordaro
Jackson County Jail
210 U.S. Highway 75
Holton
Kansas 66430
USA

Good Friday – April 14, 2006

DEATH IS UNIVERSAL AND PERSONAL

Death for us humans is both universal and personal. It is universal
because no one gets off the planet alive. It is also personal because
each one of us must experience our own death. No one can die our
deaths for us.
My first real experience of death came with the death of my father,
George. There was no one in the world I loved more than my dad. He
was a teacher, coach and athletic director of Dowling Catholic High
School at the time when it was the all-boys catholic high school in
Des Moines. His whole life was directed to serving and loving his
God, his family and his work at Dowling, in that order. I cannot say
too many good things about my dad. He was honest, true and a friend
to all. He lived his life passionately with a strong sense of purpose
and meaning. He was a gentle man with a contagious spirit. I lived
my life to please him. He was that good.
When my dad died of a heart attack my senior year at Dowling on
Easter Sunday morning April 6, 1969, my world collapsed. As he lay
dying in a room at Mercy Hospital they let his three oldest children
go in to see him, one at a time. There was no time left for my three
younger brothers to see him. I was the last in the family to see him
alive, though he was barely alive at that time. All I can remember
saying to him was "Don't worry Dad. God will take care of
everything." I must have said this at least three times. All my dad
could do was look at me and let his eyes speak. In them I saw his
fear, his love and his understanding.
It took me years to sort out the many layers of meaning of my
father's death. For a very long time I had a real fear of death. It
was not until I was a parish priest that I acquired some comfort
around death. Being a parish priest afforded me rich and meaningful
experiences with the dying. As a priest I could walk into the middle
of a dying person's last days, hours and even minutes and ask the most
important and personal questions. To ask a dying person if they are
ready to die is to ask a person to open themselves to the deepest
things in their hearts. It was often the most moving and humbling
thing I did as a priest, revealing to me, through others, what true
faith in God is all about.
My second most personal encounter with death was my own near death
experience of dying from a heart attack in September 2001. It was a
killer heart attack, the pain was unbearable. I was lucky I was five
minutes away from the hospital. Another 10 minutes getting to the
hospital would have cost me my life.
I remember being in great pain as I was being taken to the operating
room. There was no time to pray or think or do anything to prepare.
I managed at my last moment of consciousness to give myself over to
God. When I awoke after surgery, I was still in great pain, drugged
out on meds, with lots of tubes and needles in my body. As I
gradually got my wits back, the first thing I realized was that for me
death had ceased to be a metaphor. It had no meaning for me. All I
remember was coming out of a kind of darkness, though calling it
darkness is saying too much. It was more like nothingness. It was
weeks before I was able to use words to explain this experience and
months before I thought in metaphoric terms about death again.

MY GOD, MY GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME? (Mark 15:34)

Nobody knows for certain what was on the mind of Jesus when he was
dying on the cross. No one ever will. I am certain I know what was
not on his mind. I do not believe he was thinking he was the
sacrificial blood offering demanded by his Father, God, for the sins
of the world. All such sacrificial language used to give meaning to
Jesus' death came after his death and resurrection, a kind of
theological "Monday Morning Quarterbacking", where the meaning for
events is given in hindsight.
Furthermore, I do not believe that Jesus' goal in life was to get
nailed to a cross. Certainly, the fact that he foresaw in his
continued public speaking and acting out of the Kingdom of God's
demands that he was putting his life in jeopardy was no great divine
insight. Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Oscar Romero all foresaw
their probability of being killed for their peace and justice work.
None of these modern martyrs lived to die, not do I believe did Jesus.
Jesus' crucifixion was a consequence of his being faithful to his
mission and call from God. Jesus set out in his life to correct the
faults of his own tradition; in the process he realized the old
covenant based on law could not be fixed. What was needed was a new
covenant based on love. This covenant was based on a truer
understanding of the nature of God and God's relationship to humanity.
This covenant's two working principles were unconditional love and
unlimited forgiveness. Jesus believed that God operated under these
principles and that human beings could do the same. Jesus
instinctively knew that worldly powers would violently resist this new
covenant and he knew he risked his life to follow it as would others
who joined him.

WAS JESUS' SUFFERING SINGULAR OR UNIVERSAL?

The way we answer this question will greatly determine our
understanding of who Jesus is. There are many who believe Jesus'
suffering and death was a singular event in human history. (Mel
Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, comes to mind as an example
of this thinking.) Because Jesus was taking on the sins of the world,
his suffering and death are unmatched by any other human suffering and
death. Though countless others had suffered the same fate as Jesus
and countless more have suffered longer and more gruesome forms of
torture and death, none can compare to Jesus' suffering and death.
This line of thinking placed in our modern context is not helpful. It
is hard to take Jesus' humanity seriously if you believe that Jesus'
suffering and death were singular and beyond all ordinary human
suffering.
The hardest thing facing the New Testament authors was convincing
people of their time that Jesus was the Son of God and there were no
others beside him. That God had sons was not a problem for first
century people. Greek mythology is full of stories that involve the
father god Zeus' many affairs with human women and the various 'sons'
that were produced (e.g., Hercules, Dionysius, etc.). In addition,
everyone knew that god had a very famous 'son.' They knew his name
and where he lived. His name was Caesar and he lived in Rome.
Convincing people that a poor Jewish peasant, a vagabond preacher who
fell afoul with the Romans and got crucified in Jerusalem, had a
greater claim to God's sonship than Caesar greatly affected how the
New Testament was written, especially the four gospels.
The problem we have today is exactly the opposite. For most
professing Christians, the divine side of Jesus is a given, it's his
human side that is not seriously believed.
One way to take Jesus' humanity seriously is to understand his
suffering and death as all too common and universal, a reality that
people lived with in Jesus' day and in our own. The truth is anywhere
the poor and oppressed exist we'll find violent political repression.
This is a common human experience. Just as Jesus did, we can find
people who are nonviolent, justice-seeking peacemakers in these poor
and oppressed communities. Many of these people end up suffering
from the same violent political repression that dominates the poor and
the oppressed. This is how the saints and martyrs throughout history
have joined in Jesus' redemptive work to heal and restore our broken
world.
This does not mean only the suffering that ends in martyrdom is
redemptive. All human suffering can serve a redemptive purpose.
However, the suffering that comes with those who die for the faith
and/ or die as a result of their nonviolent resistance to injustice
and oppression represents the normative kind of suffering in the
manner that Jesus suffered. The Catholic Church recognizes this
hierarchy of redemptive suffering when it officially certifies a
person a martyr who died for the faith.
Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Romero are good examples of how
redemptive suffering works today. After each one of their deaths,
countless people were inspired by their lives and have tried to follow
their example. These are examples where true blood sacrifice can be
redeeming.
Not all blood sacrifice inspires people to do "good." The "powers"
and "principalities" (Rom 8:36) are also sustained by blood sacrifice.
These are the people who believe in redemptive violence as a means to
serve God and country. In this regard, the 2000 plus U.S. soldiers
killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and the suicide bomber martyrs from the
middle east die for the same theological reasons, only on different
sides of a win/ lose struggle.
When I think of the Middle East, the lands of the Bible, and all the
violent forces at work there and our own U.S. contribution to the
violence, my heart breaks. Is it as hopeless as it seems? Only with
New Testament eyes do I see signs of hope. When I call to mind two
Americans who tried to bring the nonviolent love of Christ to the
region at the cost of their lives -- Rachel Corrie and Tom Fox -- I
say, "Amen!" Rachel Corrie was run over and killed by a U.S. made
bulldozer trying to stop the Israeli Government from destroying a
Palestinian family's home. The body of Tom Fox, who was one of the
four Christian Peace Makers who were kidnapped by Islamic Terrorists,
was found in February tortured and with fatal bullet wounds. These
two U.S. peacemakers hardly match the 2000 plus deaths of U.S.
soldiers sent to make war in the Middle East. Then I'm reminded that
Jesus died alone on the cross, abandoned by all his friends and
disciples and that the Roman Empire and its heirs are firmly in
control of our world despite the truth of the first Easter Sunday
Resurrection claims. This is the case despite a long litany of saints
and martyrs known and unknown. Then it dawns on me just how big a
leap of faith a person has to make to truly believe in Jesus' new
covenant of love.

Frank Cordaro Reflects on Conditions in His "Run for Profit" Kansas Jail

Sat Apr 15, 2006 23:52

Prison Journal #4 – April 6, 2006

Jackson County Jail

Just as we anticipated, Monday, April 3rd at 7 AM the word came,
"Cordaro, roll up." I left Pottawattamie County Jail with what I
brought in with me. All the correspondence I had received the past 40
days was trashed. All the books I had sent in to me stayed in
Pottawattamie County including my Divine Office. A check was cut for
the money I had on my books, less the $25 for the last order I made
but never received. So it goes…

The US Marshals picked up four of us from Pottawattamie County and
drove us to the Omaha Federal Court House where we met up with five
other Federal inmates. A couple of hours later, a van from the
Jackson County Jail in Holton, KS, came to pick us up. Shackled and
handcuffed, nine of us were shuffled into the van. The van was
rigged with a steel box divided in two from front to back by a thick
steel wall with a long steel bench in each unit. Once entombed in
this tight, dark, airless space for the 2 ½ hour drive, I sat by an
inmate who lamented the whole time, "Not Jackson County! Dear God,
say it ain't so!" He previously spent five months in the Jackson
County Jail on his way to a Federal Penitentiary. A probation
violation earned him a return trip and my first intro to the Jackson
County Jail.

Located in Holton, KS, in the northeast corner of Kansas, 50 miles
from Leavenworth, KS, and 90 from Kansas City, MO, the county seat,
the Jackson County Jail serves as a holding facility for inmates from
the Kansas City area and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. There are
almost 120 inmates in this facility, less than 25 come from Jackson
County. This jail is clearly a revenue-making enterprise for this
poor rural Kansas county. Holton has less than 3,000 people and is
the largest town in this county.

This is not uncommon across the country. Many poor rural counties are
operating larger-than-they-need jails to serve as holding facilities
for non-county inmates as a money-making project. And like most
for-profit ventures, the bottom line sets the standard. Here at the
Jackson County Jail that has meant cramming as many inmates into their
jail as they can.

Here in "C" Mod, the unit where I am housed, that has meant the
original two-man cells are rigged to house three men. I'm in a jail
cell two-thirds the size of the Pottawattamie County jail cell I just
left with two other guys and we're sleeping on a three slab bunk bed.

I must confess I was a bit taken back my first night here. I've been
assigned the bottom bunk that has no more than a two foot clearance
from the middle bunk. I tried sleeping in this small space the first
night but had a panic claustrophobic attack. With permission from my
two cell mates, I set up my thin sleeping mat on the floor up against
the door along side the toilet. That's where I'm sleeping now.

The small window in our cell is boarded up so no sunlight is allowed
in the cell nor is there any sunlight in our dayroom which is half the
size of the one I left at Pottawattamie County. The walls are painted
purple and the light bulb in our cell is burned out. All we have for
light is the dim night light. The first day I filled out an ICF,
Inmate Communication Form, asking that the light be fixed. The guys
in the unit wished me luck. The steel toilet-sink combo has a slow
leak. My cellmate let the guards know some time ago but nothing has
happened.

There are four steel tables with four small round steel seats
attached. When we eat, eight of the 24 inmates eat standing up,
sitting on the stairs leading to the second floor tier or in our
rooms. Whenever I do use a steel seat at one of the tables, I need to
sit on my thin blanket. I'm not the hard ass I used to be. The
jail-issued clothes and bedding are so worn thin and raggedy that when
I go to sleep I feel like I'm sleeping in "swaddling clothes" (Luke
2:7)

This is also one of the most unclean jails I've been in. The
two-stall shower in our unit is scary. They give us no cleaning
supplies to clean our cells. No access to paper towels. The hot
water is tepid at best. The limited toilet paper we get must double
as our paper towels. There are rumors of a staph infection going
around in this jail. It's just a rumor yet it says something about
the conditions here.

The strangest thing about our unit is that half of the eight cell
doors do not work. They cannot be locked down. Our cell door's
hinges are so badly bent that our door can't even be closed. With no
guards in the unit as there was in Pottawattamie County, it raises
issues of security and safety in my mind. We see guards seven times a
day: three times a day to serve meals, twice for meds, and twice for
head counts. These are the only times you can ask for things you
need. The unit is supposed to be locked down between 1:30 pm and 4:30
pm and between 10:30 pm and 6 am. I say "supposed" because half the
cell doors do not lock.

There is a rec space in the facility. It's the only place where I can
get sunlight filtered through a fiberglass ceiling. It's a very small
area. With a 4 on 4 basketball game going, no place is safe to even
stand and watch. I went out once. The roughest basketball I've even
seen. No fouls unless blood is drawn and anything off the walls is in
play.

Another drawback for me is that there are no good books to read. The
selection of books here makes Pottawattamie County Jail's books look
like a fully stocked library. No books are allowed to be mailed in
period. There is little room for walking. Most of the guys are happy
with the food. That's because there is plenty of it. Problem for me
is most of it is not good for me. There is no fresh fruit. All
vegetables and fruit are canned. There is a lot of rice, pasta and
potatoes and plenty of meat. They have a larger commissary selection
than most county jails. From my perspective, it's a greater selection
of bad food. And with no jail Chaplin, it's harder to get any
spiritual issues addressed.

On the plus side, I get along with the guys in my unit. Most of us
are Feds waiting to get assigned in the Bureau of Prisons (BOP)
system. The average say here for Feds is three months. I am again
the oldest guy in the Mod. They call me "Pops". One cellmate is a
20-year-old kid from the Kansas City area doing 90 days for a
marijuana charge. My other cellmate is a 30-year-old guy from Omaha
doing a 12 year bit for drug dealing. They are both good to me.

The challenge for me there is the same challenge I will have wherever
I'm placed: making the time work for me and not against me.
Physically, I'm getting my heart meds and for this I am thankful. I
am going to need to discipline my food intake and do the trading and
food exchange necessary to eat what is good for me and get rid of what
is not. Right now, I pass on bread and deserts for salads and some
canned fruits and vegetables. I will need to be careful of what foods
I buy from the commissary also. Once I buy a few pairs of socks from
the commissary, I will start a walking regiment. It will be limited
given the space and number of inmates yet I will need to do something.

Getting some good reading in is going to be a problem. It just ain't
going to happen. I'm going to be getting the New York Times starting
next week. This will be a big plus. I intend to keep my writing
discipline going, writing a regular prison journal and my weekly
lectionary reflections. Luckily, I'm a couple weeks ahead with my
lectionary reflections. I'll need that time to get a list of the
weekly text sent to me. Right now I only have a copy of the King
James Bible. I hope to get the Catholic New American translation.

Meeting my spiritual needs may be the biggest challenge I'm facing.
It does not look like I will be able to get a Divine Office into this
jail to pray. Being in a 3-man cell makes finding any alone time next
to impossible. There are few religious programs offered and no jail
Chaplin. Getting a clergy visit regularly is unlikely also. I do not
know when the next time I will receive the Eucharist again. My hunger
and desire for it grows. I did find a 2005 Advent/Christmas Mass
Catholic Bilingual Missal with songs in the back half to sing to
myself. They are mostly Advent and Christmas songs but I'll make the
best of it.

Perhaps the best thing I've got going for me is the possibility of
doing one on one ministry. There seems to be a good comradeship with
the guys in my Mod right now. The population here is 40% Black, 40%
White and the rest Hispanic and American Indian. We all seem to get
along well in this hard place. And my past experience tells me that
the longer I'm in any one place, the more opportunity I have for one
on one ministry. And, I guess the hardest thing about leaving
Pottawattamie County is leaving the close relationships I was
developing there. I was hoping to write this journal entry on the
subject of my social communal relationships in Pottawattamie County
Jail. My sudden transfer changed all that. I will try to write about
this in a future journal.

Today is a special anniversary for the Cordaro Family. April 6, 1969,
Easter Sunday morning, we lost our dad, George, to a heart attack.
Just another reminder for me of how blessed and lucky I am to have had
such a great father who loved me so unconditionally and set the mark
for me of what being a good and faithful man is supposed to be.

You can write solidarity messages to...
Frank Cordaro
Jackson County Jail
210 US Highway 75
Holton, KS 66436
USA

Frank's Reflections on Easter Sunday

by DM

Sun Apr 16, 2006 00:04

EASTER – April 16, 2006

Pilate said to them, "THE GUARD IS YOURS; GO SECURE IT AS BEST YOU
CAN." SO THEY WENT AND SECURED THE TOMB BY FIXING A SEAL TO THE STONE
AND SETTING GUARD (Matt 27:65-66)

If there is any doubt of the outlaw nature of primitive Christianity,
one has only to read the facts surrounding Easter morning as told in
Matthew's Gospel. In Matthew's Easter story, Pilate assigned a Roman
guard to watch Jesus' tomb, lest his disciples steal his body and
claim that he had risen from the dead. The guard affixed the seal of
Rome on the tomb.
On Easter Sunday morning as the women reached the tomb an earthquake
struck the area and an angel appeared and rolled the stone from the
tomb. When the angel did this, the seal of Rome was broken. To break
the seal of Rome without authorization was a criminal act, an act of
civil disobedience. Yet, more than a seal was broken and a far more
serious threat to Roman power was initiated. For when the state
condemns a man to die, goes to the bother to put him to death, he is
supposed to remain dead. To rise to life again poses the greatest of
threats to the power of the state. The state has no greater power
over its people than the threat of death. To rob the state of this
ultimate power is to threaten the state at its most basic level.
Easter made Jesus the ultimate threat to a death-based state and
anyone who professes to follow the risen Lord ought to be seen as a
co-conspirator in this criminal enterprise. Simply put, the very act
of rising from the dead was an act of civil disobedience.
Matthew's text says the Roman guards were so filled with fear at the
sight of the angel they became like "dead men." The term "like dead
men" is an ironic phrase in this context. Roman soldiers were men of
war. They were the best killers in the world at the time. It was
they who instilled fear into others throughout the known world. Yet,
at the sight of Jesus' resurrection and at the sight of an angel of
God, it is they who are gripped by fear. So much so, that they, the
living, become the dead while the one they killed became the living.

WOMEN AND THE RESURRECTION
That women were the first to witness and testify to the Resurrection
of Jesus is one of the oldest and surest traditions in the New
Testament. Along with the empty tomb, the presence of women to
witness and testify about the Risen Lord is in all four gospels.
In the Gospel of Mark (Mark 16:1-11), argued by many New Testament
scholars to be the first gospel, it is Mary Magdalene and Mary, the
mother of James, and Salome who get to the tomb to anoint the body of
Jesus. Once there they discover the stone's been rolled away, enter
the tomb and see a young man (in Greek a neaniskos; not an angel
[angelos] or angels [angeloi] as in the other canonical gospels) who
tells them Jesus "has been raised." Then the young man points to the
empty tomb and tells them Jesus is not there. He tells the two Marys
to tell the disciples and Peter to go to Galilee where they will see
Jesus. The original ending closes with the two Marys fleeing the tomb
saying "nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."
A later added ending to Mark's gospel has Jesus appearing to Mary
Magdalene (cf. John 20). Then she goes to announce the Good News to
Jesus' "companions" who did not believe her.
In the Gospel of Matthew (28:1-10) it is Mary Magdalene and "the
other Mary' who go to the guarded tomb. Upon their arrival an
earthquake strikes the site, an angel appears and rolls the stone
away. The Roman guards are immobilized from fear. The angel tells
the two Marys not to be afraid and to go tell the disciples the Good
News that Jesus has been raised and that he will meet up with them in
Galilee. On their way to the disciples, Jesus appears to them. The
two Marys kneel and embrace his feet. Jesus tells them not to be
afraid and to tell the disciples they will see him in Galilee.
In Luke's Gospel (23:55 – 24:12) a much larger number of women
witness and testify to Jesus' resurrection. There was Mary Magdalene,
Joanna the wife of Herod's steward, Mary the mother of James and an
untold number of women who accompanied them. Some of these women are
the same ones mentioned in Luke 8:2-3 who bankrolled Jesus' ministry.
These women followed Joseph of Arimathea on Good Friday to be sure
they knew the location of Jesus' tomb. Then on Easter morning they
returned to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body. When they got there they
found the stone rolled away, they entered the tomb and found it empty.
While they were "puzzling over" the empty tomb, two angels appeared
to them. They told the women that Jesus is risen just as he foretold
he would be. The women remembered Jesus' words and they believed.
Then the women returned to the disciples to announce all they saw and
heard. Upon hearing the women's testimony the "Apostles" did not
believe because "their story seemed like nonsense."
John's Gospel is thought by scholars to be the last to reach its
current form (i.e., it went through a series of editions which would
help to explain its two endings in 20:30-31 and 21:25). In John
20:1-18, only Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb on Easter Sunday
morning. When she sees the stone has been rolled away she runs back
to tell Peter and John, the author of the gospel. She reports that
someone has stolen Jesus' body and she does not know where they put
him. Then Peter and the 'other disciple' (i.e., the 'beloved
disciple'; whose actual identity is not known) run to the tomb. The
other disciple gets there first and stoops to look inside the tomb.
When Peter reaches the tomb he immediately enters. He sees that the
tomb is empty, the burial cloths and the cloth that covered Jesus'
head in separate piles. The text says at this point the other
disciple "saw and believed." (The 'beloved disciple' is claimed to be
the source of these traditions [21:24] and 'authorship' [not
necessarily in its final written form but at least in oral form] does
have its privileges.) The text says they did not understand the
scriptures that supported that Jesus had to rise from the dead. They
returned home.
Meanwhile Mary Magdalene was outside the tomb weeping. After the two
disciples leave, she looked into the tomb and saw two angels. The
angels asked, "Woman, why are you weeping?" Mary replied, "They have
taken my Lord and I don't know where they laid him." After she said
this, she turned around and saw Jesus, though she did not recognize
him. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you
looking for?" Thinking Jesus was the gardener she said, "Sir, if you
carried him away, tell me where you laid him and I will take him."
Then Jesus said, "Mary!" Upon hearing her name, Mary immediately
recognized him, embraced him and said, "Rabbonni (i.e., 'my
teacher')." Jesus told her, "Stop holding on to me, for I have not
yet ascended to the Father." Jesus told Mary to go and proclaim his
resurrection to his disciples and immediately she does precisely that.

JESUS, THE RADICAL FEMINIST
By the standard of his time Jesus was a radical feminist. His
relationships and encounters with women were nothing short of
scandalous. The equality by which Jesus allowed women to operate in
his community of disciples was truly revolutionary. It all stems from
Jesus' basic Kingdom of God principle of egalitarianism, a beloved
community of equals with no hierarchy of power, privilege or status.
Fromthe very small and personal to the very large and institutional,
the human groupings of family and clan, tribe and nation, no one is
better than anyone else. If there be a hierarchy in the Kingdom of
God it was with those seeking the lowest standing, being servants to
all. In this upside down, 'last shall be first' social arrangement,
the poor and oppressed, women, slaves and servants and children are
the big winners. Because in Jesus' day males ruled and the richer and
more powerful they were, the more they ruled.

WOMEN FIRST PROCLAIMERS OF THE GOSPEL
The most surprising thing about the gospel accounts of the
Resurrection is the central role women play in the narratives. This
is especially striking given that the testimony of women in the
societies of the first century was of little or no account. Yet, in
all four gospels, it is the women who are first entrusted to proclaim
the good news of the resurrection of the Lord.
It is a sad irony that in the Catholic Church today women are not
allowed to read the Gospels at Catholic masses. Were it not for the
first women who witnessed and proclaimed Jesus' resurrection, men
would have no gospel to proclaim.

MARY MAGDALENE, FRIEND OF JESUS, FIRST AMONG THE DISCIPLES

The book The DaVinci Code has stirred a lot of controversy regarding
Mary Magdalene and her relationship to Jesus. The novel reports that
Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children. Truth is it
does not matter whether or not Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene or
anyone else. Nor would it matter if he had any children. Such issues
are incidental, not essential to the faith or to the gospel we are
called to proclaim and follow. If they were, the New Testament
writers would have said so.
However, Mary Magdalene was a close friend of Jesus, as close as any
other of his disciples. John's account of their intimate encounter on
Easter Sunday morning demonstrates their close friendship. Plus, Mary
Magdalene was a disciple's disciple of Jesus, with no equal, if
loyalty and faithfulness has any bearing. For not only did she
accompany him during his ministry in Galilee to Jerusalem, she was at
the foot of the cross witnessing Jesus' crucifixion, something only
the disciple John could claim to have done. Finally, she is the only
person recorded in all four gospels to be present at the Resurrection
of the Lord and with the other women, the first to proclaim the Easter
message.
--
Frank Cordaro
Jackson County Jail
210 US Hwy 75
Holton, KS 66436

Frank Cordaro Reflects on Visiting the Imprisoned

by FC5

Wed Apr 26, 2006 07:44

Frank Cordaro is presentl serving a 6 month sentence of a nonviolent ANTI-WAR trespass at Offcut U.S. Air Force Base, Omaha Nebraska U.S.A.

**You can send solidarity letters or postcards to
Frank Cordaro
Jackson County Jail
210 US Hwy 75
Holton, KS 66436
USA

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~

Prison Journal #5
4-16-06 Easter
By Frank Cordaro

Visiting the Imprisoned

One of the few directives Jesus gives his followers in the Gospels is
to visit the imprisoned. With over two million Americans behind bars,
you would think every parish would have a "Visit the Imprisoned"
ministry. Sadly, this is not the case. It is the Catholics' most
under-practiced Work of Mercy.

The lack of interest in prison ministry by Catholics and most
practicing Christians in the USA has to do with our standing as good
citizens. Good citizens are law-abiding citizens. USA Christians are
law-abiding citizens because they see no conflict in their faith with
their allegiance to the State. This was not the case for the
Christian communities that produced the New Testament. Their faith in
Jesus and the reign of God put them at odds with the State of the day.
Outside the law, they were often imprisoned themselves. The New
Testament directive to visit the imprisoned had an urgent and personal
bias for many of those they visited were their fellow believers.

I consider the time I spend in jail a way of practicing this
under-practiced Work of Mercy, visiting the imprisoned. I have found
that the communal and social dimensions of doing time can be both the
most challenging and rewarding experiences of being locked up. This
was especially true after I became a priest. I used to tell people I
did some of my best priestly ministry when I was locked up.

The imprisoned are spiritually desperate souls. Separated from
friends, family and the way of life that most often is the reason for
their imprisonment, they are seeking answers to their life problems.
Being in jail affords them the personal time and motivation to seek
the spiritual insights they would not find on the streets.

It inevitably happens that once I'm locked up, work gets around that
the new "old" guy is different. He says he's a protestor locked up
for doing good, not bad. Then the word gets around he's a preacher,
too! (It matters little to the guys I'm locked up with that I am a
resigned priest. To them, I'm still a man of God.) And I'm not shy
about my protesting ways and the reasons I protest. Nor do I hide the
fact that I am a man of faith, a believer in Jesus, admittedly a
radical nonviolent Jesus. A Jesus few of them have ever heard of or
thought of. It is upon his bias that opportunities for prison
ministry happen for me when I'm locked up. And the longer I am in one
place, the greater the opportunities.

Pottawattamie County Jail:

Back in Pottawattamie County Jail where I spent my first 40 days, I
made it a point to attend all the weekly bible study sessions offered
in our Mod. There were four to five a week. Most offered by
volunteers from nondenominational evangelical fundamental
congregations, the "Are you saved?" Jesus is my personal savior crowd.
A Catholic bible study was offered every Friday where we read and
discussed the Sunday readings and Holy Communion was offered in which
I was most grateful to receive.

Rev. Dick Arant, the Jail Chaplin, led a weekly Chaplin's Study Hour.
I was most impressed with Rev. Arant. He genuinely cared about each
inmate and had their best interests at heart. And even though he came
from an evangelical fundamentalist perspective, his pastoral practice
was much broader and more directed to the needs of the inmates. I
have not experience a lot of good jail chaplains but Rev Dick Arants
is one of them.

It soon became clear that I had knowledge of scriptures and that I was
a resigned priest. Individuals started asking questions about God and
religion. Then some started sharing their personal stories and
spiritual struggles. What impressed them the most about me was that I
was in jail for what I believe, that I did not have to be there, but
freely chose to be there. They welcomed my sharing at the bible
studies, how I prayed with and for them. Mostly they counted my
presence with them a plus. I tried to make myself available to anyone
who came to me. My one-on-one time with these men was some of my best
work and I was grateful for the opportunity.

Freeing the Captives:

Freeing the captives is also a New Testament directive, a sign of the
reign of God. It is also a much harder thing to do than visiting the
imprisoned. Mostly because the vast majority of the men I meet in
jail are captive and imprisoned souls whether they are locked up in
jail or free on the streets.

Scott Peck, a psychiatrist and author of The Road Less Traveled and
People of the Lie, wrote about four stages of faith development. (I
write this from memory. I'm not sure what book of Peck's it comes
from or if I am exactly correct in wording and explanation of the four
stages.) Each stage builds on the one before it except for the first
stage.

The first stage of faith development is a world in chaos. In this
stage, people have no control over their lives. They are in constant
spiritual confusion with no real bearing or sense of security. Their
understanding of God or themselves is non-existent. There is nothing
they can trust either within themselves or outside themselves.

The second stage of faith development is a world where absolute trust
and faith is found in black and white, two-dimension truths. It's a
world where rights and wrongs are clearly known. It is a law and
order world where all you need to do is follow the rules and you will
be right with God. In this world, following God's laws will get you
into heaven. If you don't follow God's laws, you go to hell.

The third stage of faith development is a world of doubters. These
are folks who know nothing but a stage two world and they are reacting
against it. The doubter's world is filled with more questions than
answers. They know insecurities about themselves, about God and the
world they live in but they are not the same kind of insecurity found
at stage one. People often bounce between stage two and stage three.

The fourth stage of faith development are people who go beyond the
world of the doubters to a world of acceptance of themselves, others
and the divine as being good and holy. Their own faith in themselves
and their God and religious tradition is not shaken or diminished by
others who believe in different things and different truths. They are
nonjudgmental. They see the good and truth in others yet they are
fully vested in their own faith and beliefs.

No one is completely located in a single stage of faith development at
any one time. Most of us live our lives in several stages at the same
time yet all of us are in one or another dominating stage at any given
time.

Peck says that at least 20% of Americans are stuck primarily at the
first stage of spiritual development in a world of chaos. From my
experience this percentage goes up to 80% for people in jails and
prisons.

In making this assessment, I'm not putting myself above, ahead or
better than others. There are spiritual dark sides for all four
stages. And in my life, I've known all four stagers. What this model
for faith development does for me is help explain where most of the
men I meet in jail are coming from spiritually.

It helps explain why many in jail embrace a fundamentalist evangelical
faith perspective. And it also explains why there is a lot of what
they call "Jail house conversions", because when they are set free,
their newfound faith is set aside and they return to their lives of
chaos on the streets.

This is not really the fault of the evangelical fundamentalist faith
perspective. Truth is, nothing works well with this population. Ask
any rehab or drug program and they will tell you that the percentage
of people who really get cured or bring their addictive lives under
control is very small.

Each and every one of these out-of-control lives is a human tragedy to
be grieved and mourned their individual human tragedies add up to
collective patterns that reflect larger societal illnesses. My life
as a Catholic Worker has taught me if you really want to know the ugly
hidden truths of any society start seeing it through the eyes of the
poor and imprisoned. I've come to see each desperate out-of-control
life I encounter in jail reveals our larger society's equally
desperate out-of-control freefall into chaos through our addictions to
war, violence and greed.

Ronnie:

I met Ronnie at Pottawattamie County Jail. He is a 48 year old black
man who's been in and out of jails and rehab programs most of his
adult life. The guards, the chaplain and bible study volunteers all
knew Ronnie well; he was a frequent visitor. Ronnie was one of the
guys I helped when store day came. He had no money on his books so I
bought him a couple of honey buns and two candy bars in exchange for
his vegetables off his plate. It was a fair deal. I know I can't
help everybody in need but I make a point to help at least somebody.
In the process, we shared a lot about our lives and situations. I
told him about the Des Moines Catholic Worker (DMCW) and the
hospitality we do.

I remember a bible study we attended together and the question was
asked where we thought heaven was. When it was Ronnie's turn to
answer, he said heaven was where his great Granny was because she was
the only person who loved him unconditionally; and if there is a
heaven, she would be there. His answer really impressed me.

So when he came up to me a few days before he was set free and asked
if he could join the DMCWer, I took his request seriously. I thought
to myself, it's a long shot. These things rarely work out. Still
everybody deserves a chance especially if this is Ronnie's redemptive
moment, when he was really ready to turn his life around. Ronnie knew
he had to make a clean start someplace. He also wanted to do
something to pay back for all the helping hands that he had along the
way. The DMCWer hospitality and communal life appealed to him. I
called the DMCWer folks and asked them to give him a chance if he
showed up. They agreed and when he got set free, he showed up in Des
Moines at the Worker.

When word got back to me that Ronnie made it to Des Moines, I shared
it with the guys in the Mod. It was good news received. All went
well for a couple of weeks, I'm told. Then last week I asked Fran how
he was doing. She told me he missed a couple of shifts and it looked
like he started drinking again. Bummer…..he may not last much longer
in the community.

The Kingdom work of freeing the captives is a whole lot harder than
visiting the imprisoned. It goes directly to the heart of redemption
and the healing of our broken and fallen world. And even though it's
a hard thing to do and rarely happens, we can't afford to quit trying.
To quit trying is to turn our back on what our Easter faith is all
about and leave the body of Jesus in the tomb.

Jackson County Jail:

The scene here at Jackson County is very different than Pottawattamie
County. More than half the men in my Mod are Feds awaiting place in
the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Many are facing long prison sentences
and the time spent here is just a way station on their journey to a
Federal penitentiary. Two weeks into the experience, I'm just
beginning to get the lay of the land. I'm in a small unit with no
more than 23 guys. I'm 20 years older than most. By now, they all
know why I'm with them and that I was a Catholic priest. I am
heartened by the respect they are showing me. And I know, as time
goes by, I'll have my share of opportunities to visit the imprisoned
here and maybe, with the grace of God, liberate a captive or two in
the process.

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