It happens occasionally — that Ah ha! moment when it is obvious that a person has been touched by the Holy Spirit, and it’s enough for the men and women involved in prison ministry to keep going back.
Father Ernie Gauthier has kept going back to the jails, prisons and halfway houses to visit inmates, celebrate a Mass or a communion service, and bring God to the residents for more than 25 years.
The priest, a licensed clinical social worker who retired from parish ministry in 2002, has seen changes in the jails and the criminal justice system over the decades. Sheriffs ran the jails in the days before a charter form of administration took over. Buildings and facility campuses have opened and closed. One thing that has remained the same, however, is that it’s depressing.
“It’s not the inmates that are depressing,” Father Ernie said, “it’s the criminal justice system.”
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