PNCEA Prison Ministries seeks for all prisoners the peace that Christ’s love and truth alone provide. The Catholic inmates hunger for resources so that they can grow spiritually as Catholics. Many also seek these resources so that they can grow more knowledgeable about the faith to defend it against those who deride it and against the powers of darkness in prison. As one prisoner put it, “Prison is the devil’s playground.”
PNCEA Prison Ministries helps by serving the spiritual and religious needs of Catholic inmates in our nation’s prisons. We also serve other inmates, many of whom have no church family, who are seeking to know more about the Catholic faith and way of life. The Bibles, newsletters, prayer cards, and other Catholic religious material we provide are in both English and Spanish. Most of it reaches the prisoners through the chaplains and volunteers ministering in the prison.
Without these quality Catholic resources, Catholic prisoners are left alone in a sea of anti-Catholic literature and pornography. Catholic literature such as PNCEA Prison Ministries provides is truly a lifeline for Catholic inmates. It helps change lives, reducing the likelihood of a return to prison. Studies show that those prisoners most involved with religious activities while in prison have a significantly lower return rate than those not involved.
We currently serve over 800 of the approximately 4,500 prisons in the United States. There are over 2,200,000 men and women in the nation’s prisons. An estimated 28 percent or 588,000 are Catholic.
It costs approximately $295 per year to provide materials to each prison through the chaplains and volunteers serving there. Click here to see a table of the services provided and their costs.
Our services include:
1. Newsletters
Prison chaplains receive copies of our quarterly newsletter Let’s Talk! and its Spanish translation called ¡Hablemos! (Click here to see a copy of the newsletters and to download them to make copies.) The newsletters include several regular features in each issue, including a question and answer column with responses to questions sent in by inmates. In addition, Deacon Dennis Dolan, a prison chaplain in Connecticut, writes a column on prison spirituality based on his experience ministering to inmates. Other columns—on spiritual topics, prisoner saints, and on what to listen for in the season’s liturgies—also run in each newsletter. Each issue also includes an invitation to the readers to join with the pope in his monthly prayer intentions.
2. Bibles
PNCEA Prison Ministries provides English and Spanish language Bibles to chaplains for use in ministry. Depending on the situation in each prison, chaplains may keep the Bibles in a central location for group use or distribute them to prisoners for personal use. We try to re-supply chaplains with Bibles once every two years, depending on availability of funds.
3. Invitation: The Search for God, Self and Church
This 116-page Catholic learning guide for adults is especially popular with prisoners and chaplains. The question and answer format presents the truths of the Catholic faith in an appealing and easy-to-understand way. Chaplains use it for prison study classes on Catholicism and give it to individual inmates for personal use. Click here to see sample pages of Invitation.
4. Master sheets for prayer cards
These sheets enable chaplains and volunteers to make copies of the Daily Prayer for Justice and Mercy (click here) and the Guardian Angel prayer (click here). Both prayers are very popular with prisoners and their families.
5. Additional Services
PNCEA Prison Ministries sends out additional Catholic religious material as it becomes available.
