Smuggling hope into prison
 Sister Amy Amadeus McKenna hugs Sylvia Hines, an inmate at Bedford Hills. Photo Claudio Papapietro |
By Claudio Papapietro
Sister Amy Amadeus McKenna stood outside of St. Gabriel’s Roman Catholic Church greeting parishioners as they arrived for Sunday morning Mass. But before the last arrived, she was northbound on the Saw Mill River Parkway, headed for another service held about an hour away at the women’s maximum security prison in Bedford Hills, N.Y.
Accompanied by church parishioners Helen Jansson and Pat O’Malley, Sister Amy, as she’s known, made her way through a metal detector and several checkpoints. They arrived at the prison chapel a few moments before about 30 prison “residents” — as the sister prefers to call them — sat down for a service smaller and less ornate than St. Gabe’s.
The visit was part of St. Gabriel’s prison ministry, a program formed in 2002 by the church’s then-pastor, Msgr. Thomas Kelly. After about a year of research to pick a facility, the church settled on Bedford Hills, the state’s only maximum security prison for women. Since then, about 15 members of the congregation have taken turns attending the prison’s Sunday services. They also make additional monthly visits to spend time talking with the inmates.
“I didn’t think of people in prison as worth visiting,” said Ms. Jansson, one of the three who made the trip, adding that being in the program has changed that view. The smiles and warm greetings exchanged between the free and imprisoned were easy evidence of the bonds that have been made.
“Our hope, our goal is to … be a source of encouragement, a source of support,” Sister Amy said, when asked how she thought the prisoners benefited from the visits. “[To know] that there are people outside the prison who really care about them. Who give of their time and their person to be with them, to share two or three hours on a Sunday.”
This is part of the December 31, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.
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