Many
of us are familiar with these lines from the hymn Faith of Our Fathers: ‘Our
fathers chained in prisons dark, were still in heart and conscience free.’ One of the names given to a prison is The
Clink. The Clink was the prison of the
Bishop of Winchester in the days when bishops had a lot of temporal power. The Clink is situated in Southwark and is now
a museum but it formerly was one of the ‘prisons dark’ in London where
Catholics were locked up in dreadful conditions in the penal times. I have never visited this gruesome museum but
I have been told that it is well worth a visit.
When
the penal laws ceased to be applied in the 19th century and Catholic
dioceses were allowed to be re-established, one of the priorities of our
Bishops was to provide proper pastoral care and support for prisoners, a large
number of whom were Catholics. The first
Bishop to be responsible for this was the first Bishop of Southwark, Thomas
Grant. The Catholic community had to
struggle hard for the right to appoint chaplains to prisons – so strong was the
position of the established Church of England.
The
Catholic Church should enthusiastically support Prisoners Sunday. Cardinal Francis Bourne, a Bishop of
Southwark who became Archbishop of Westminster set up a Catholic charity to
support the Catholic ministry within prisons.
This was known as the Bourne Trust.
Now the Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT) – an ecumenical charity incorporates the Bourne Trust. PACT provides welfare and advice services for
prisoners and their families and can be found on www.prisonadvice.org.uk
Another agency is a social enterprise company called Prosper 4, which
arranges jobs and training for former offenders – details on www.prosper4.com
Catholic
Social teaching has much to say on the whole area of prisons and care of
prisoners and the Church has campaigned on specific issues and challenged
government policies on specific issues related to the running of prisons and
sentencing policies. Per head of
population Britain has one of the highest prison populations in Europe and it
is getting bigger all the time. At the
same time prison staffing has been cut by a third in the last five years. Facilities for education and rehabilitation –
never generous – are being continuously slashed. Prisoners are confined to their cells for
inordinately long periods. Hence the
huge incidences of re-offending.
In
the Holy Year of Mercy plans are being drawn up to ensure that our Catholic
prisoners are not forgotten. They are an
important part of our community and Christ speaks of his special love for
them. The word ‘Mercy’ is Misericordia’
in Latin. ‘Miseri’ means the poor or
wretched, ‘cor’ means heart. So it is a
powerful word expressing that our hearts
should go out to those who are afflicted. (I am indebted to an article by Father A Beck)
The
Rugby World Championship has been decided and the winners have received the
Webb Ellis Cup. Our friends in Scotland
understandably feel very sore about the manner of their exit from the
championship but such things happen in all kind of events. The trophy is named after a pupil at Rugby
School in Warwickshire who is associated with the origin of the game. One day in 1823 William Webb Ellis reputedly
lost patience with the kicking game and took the ball in his arms and ran
towards the opposing touchline. And so
Rugby Union came to be – and Webb Ellis became famous.
Later
in life Webb Ellis was ordained a priest and served in the Church of England as
Rector of St Clement Danes in the Strand.
This is the church featured in the Nursery Rhyme ‘Oranges and Lemons’
(say the bells of St Clement’s). In his
day the churches were hugely involved in promoting sport. A sponsor is being looked for in the setting
up of the Sussex Catholic Schools Football Cup.
I suggest that Bishop Richard and all the priests (and deacons!) in
Sussex parishes be approached to be joint sponsors of this enterprise.
