Holidays in the Hoosegow: Thanksgiving with Some Not-So-Just Desserts!
. . . One day late last month, I turned a corner outside on the long, concrete ramp winding its way up to the prison mess halls. I looked up to discover a spot I never noticed before.It was a place amid the concrete and steel that afforded a momentary glimpse of a tree-covered hill in the distance beyond the walls, and the setting sun had fallen upon that very spot. For a moment, the hill was clothed in a blaze of glory with an explosion of fall color. It was magnificent! I felt a bit like Dorothy Gale, stepping for the first time out of the gray gloom of her Kansas home into the startling glory of the Land of Oz. . . .
At the Twilight's Last Gleaming: The Fate of Religion in America
. . . It's time for a revolution, and it should be a revolution of real faith in a modern world that values it not. It isn't going to be easy. But before we all sign up for remedial CCD classes, the bad news was offset just a bit by the reality that the United States as a whole flunked the test, and Catholics came out just three percentage points behind the national score of 50% - a solid "F." Other Christian denominations fared just slightly better than Catholics - but still flunked. Jews and Mormons both passed, though just barely, with scores slightly under the atheists. Weighing everything, my own conclusion is that the problem with religion in America isn't religion - it's America. Catholics should remember the value of being counter-cultural. . . .
These Stone Walls: More Loose Ends and Dangling Participles
. . . Somehow, at some point when I wasn’t looking, These Stone Walls became noticed, and it seemed to happen suddenly. In the last few weeks, some friends who keep track of such things have told me something astonishing. TSW is showing up on the first page in a number of Google searches. As a prisoner with zero access to the Internet, I can be forgiven for not having noticed. Google didn’t even exist when I was sent to prison, and the Internet was in its virtual toddlerhood. . . .
When Priests Are Falsely Accused Part 3: The High Cost of Innocence
. . . It's ironic that this same priest is often angry with me because he doesn't think I am angry enough. I assure you, he's wrong on that score. But being angry and feeling let down does not excuse me from doing the right thing. It does not excuse me from fidelity to the Gospel, fidelity to the Church, and fidelity to my own sense of right and wrong. At the end of the day, I am still wrongly imprisoned, but I have the freedom to choose the person I'm going to be while wrongly imprisoned. When I began this three-part post three weeks ago, I set out to write the nature and scope of the injustices that took place in my diocese. Now that it comes down to it, I can't. It feels too much like vengeance. There is far too much at stake for me to settle for something so unfaithful as vengeance. . . .
Does Stephen Hawking Sacrifice God on the Altar of Science?
. . . I do not count Stephen Hawking among them. Contrary to what the news media is lifting out of his latest book - and out of context - Stephen Hawking does not denounce God, nor does he claim to have proven that God does not exist. The exact quote that so many in the media now read into from his WSJ article cited above, and from his book is this: "The discovery recently of extreme fine tuning of so many laws of nature could lead some back to the idea that the grand design is the work of some grand Designer. Yet the latest advances in cosmology explain why the laws of the universe seem tailor-made for humans, without the need for a benevolent creator." . . .
Mirror of Justice, Mother of God, Mystical Rose: Our Lady of Sorrows
. . . I have never written of any of this before now. Those months awaiting trial became so stressful and depressing that I began to give up. I stopped accepting treatment for epilepsy, and ended up hospitalized at Albuquerque Presbyterian Hospital for a week. After a traumatic night, my good friend and co-worker Father Clyde Landry, came to see me. He brought from my room at the center a portable short wave radio to listen to. Later that night, I plugged in my earpiece and turned on the radio. It was close to midnight, and I was not even aware it was the Feast of the Visitation, May 31. I also didn't know my radio was on the short-wave band. Father Clyde must have moved the band by accident. I raised the antennae and played with the tuner, then stopped. I had stumbled upon EWTN's short wave broadcast from Birmingham, Alabama. As I lay there in the dark in that hospital room, I heard the Salve Regina intoned and chanted in my ear. . . .
Come, Sail Away! Pornchai Moontri and the Art of Model Shipbuilding
. . . The art of woodcarving and model shipbuilding were honed in Pornchai during his years in a Maine prison. Pornchai was 18 years old when sent to prison with a sentence of 45 years. The first five were a blur of despair, violence, and trouble for Pornchai. Then he met Mike Tribou, a fellow prisoner and carpenter who offered to teach Pornchai his skills with woodworking. Mike is out of prison now, with a new family and a new life, but he and Pornchai remain friends. I am proud to say that Mike is also a TSW reader. . . .
New on These Stone Walls: Loose Ends and Dangling Participles
. . . Another reader wrote that she liked "Saints and Sacrifices," but pointed out that it was my third post in 12 weeks about Adolf Hitler, and I'm "beginning to sound a bit like the History Channel." OUCH! There's a strange irony in that. There's no character in history that I loathe more than Hitler. The irony is that as my trial ended in 1994, the prosecutor compared me to Adolf Hitler in his closing remarks to the jury.It was the sort of inflammatory statement that usually isn't allowed in court, but it was allowed in that court. The jury looked visibly alarmed, and I can only imagine how I looked to them. As with the rest of that trial, the Hitler comparison like Hitler himself - had nothing to do with the truth or with justice. . . .
The Year Behind These Stone Walls
. . . Then I walked through three locked gates outside, passed a guarded check-point, then across the long, walled prison yard, up three flights of metal grate stairs, through three more locked doors, then another guarded check-point, then finally down the long infirmary corridor to the staff member's office. In the dream, I felt my heart beating faster, unsure whether it was anticipation of finally seeing TSW or the long trek getting there. When I walked into the office, the computer was on. "Sit down right here,” the woman said. I sat down and watched her carefully type http://thesestonewalls.com. I was smiling as the screen blinked into action. Then I saw in large print across the screen: "Page Cannot Be Displayed." I woke up just then feeling terribly disappointed. . . .