Prison ministers take the word behind bars

Raymond Cordani writes in the Florida Catholic about the work of the Diocese of Orlando Criminal Justice Office, which coordinates prison and jail ministries in that nine county area. The office trains volunteers that visit facilities:

Seminarian Ben Lehnertz had never visited the inside of a correctional facility. He spent the first half of the summer teaching Bible camp to students at San Pedro Center in Winter Park. After Bible camp ended, he shifted gears into prison ministry when he was assigned to aid Connelly at the Coleman Correctional Complex.

Lehnertz recalled visiting the prison and said the setting reminded him of the movie "The Shawshank Redemption," but the prisoners he met contradicted his image of men and women behind bars.

"The group came in. They were smiling. They shook my hand. They were easy to talk to. I thought they would be socially inept, but it really allowed me to see them as people, not as objects or animals. They’re not caged because they’re bad people. They’re good people who have done bad things."

Lehnertz said a prisoner told him, "God wants me here for a reason." Afterward, the seminarian figured out what it was: to save the prisoners from themselves.
For Lehnertz, working with prisoners made him realize how important it is to reach out as a priest. Ministering to felons offered him a broader perspective of the church and his role as a future priest.

"The duty of the priest is to go beyond the parish," he said. "When a priest is ordained, he’s not just given the people of the parish. He’s given the people in the area. It’s allowing me to see the boundaries are bigger than I thought. The parish is much bigger than the four walls of the church."