CATHOLICS AND PRISON STATISTICS

New Zealand Tablet, 24 December 1908, Page 12

CATHOLICS AND PRISON STATISTICS

By the Rev. Charles J. Venning, S.M. (Catholic Chaplain to the Wellington Prison). In a leading article in the New Zealand Tablet of December 10, 1903, appeared the following statement : 'It is, we believe, the experience of every priest who has been engaged in prison work in these countries — as we were for a time in three separate places— that many nonCatholic criminals have the habit of giving themselves Irish "aliases" and falsely designating themselves as Catholic. As for the rest, a very large percentage of them can lay claim to the name of Catholic solely by the fact of their Baptism. They live defiant to the laws of the Church; they assume a sham Catholicism when they find themselves within prison walls, only to shed it at the" moment that they sniff . again the air of freedom; and, so far as their lives go, their proper designation is not Catholics, but practical pagans. Is it not'. high time for sane people to abandon the controversial trick of making the Catholic Church, and her alone, responsible. for the sins and follies of those who never acknowledged her authority, or who having once acknowledged it, decline her guidance, reject her ministrations, and snap defiant fingers at her laws ? Our prison statistics furnish no reliable evidence even as

to the number of "drunks" or other offenders for which the Dominion, or any given religious denomination in it, is responsible.' . ' . ■ Every Catholic chaplain in New Zealand can vouch for the truth of these statements. He knows full well that many of those before him, in the gaol benches, on any given Sunday, are not Catholics, and never were Catholics. Yet the river (or, shall; we say, the Black Sea?) of calumny flows on for .ever. Ther« is at present no law by which these bogus 'Roman, Catholics '—these unscrupulous sons of Ananias—can be punished. They are at^liberty to put themselves down in the gaol records as ' Roman Catholics ' — you cannot say nay to them I Quite a number take ad-' vantage of this easy method of 'receiving themselves into the Church.' We hear much of the reading test for the admission of Chinese into this Dominion. Why not have some such test before a man could be admitted to the ' Catholic fold ' of our prisons? Let the test be ever so simnle, I am confident that many would not pass. The sign of the cross is a puzzle to some; the 'Hail Mary' is usually a 'poser •' and the 'Our J'ather '— well, yes, they often know that, but so many do persist in saying 'Our Father WHICH art in Heaven ' (the Protestant form), when we naturally expect them to use the Catholic form, 'WHO art in Heaven." Moreover, they are not satisfied with the nlatn Catholic ending, 'But deliver us from evil. Amen.' No. The tongues of these prison * Roman Catholics ' are impatient to tack on to the ' evil,' the familiar Protestant termination of the Lord's prayer : ' For thine is the kingdom the power and the glory, '- etc. ' On a recent Sunday, when addressing this Catholic-Protestant-no-religion-at-all-congregation, in the Wellington Prison, an expression escaped me to this effect: 'Those of you who are Catholics will understand what is meant.' After the Mass, a prisoner (Catholic, 1 presume) remarked to me: 'Quite right; not a dozen out of the thirty are Catholics at all. I hear them talking about it every day.' Surely, this man's word is jnst as reliable as the statements made by those who love to style themselves ' Roman Catholic ' only for the time they are in -gaol. Every Catholic prison chaplain is familiar with such Protestant expressions on the lips of alleged ' Roman Catholic ' prisoners as ' The evening Mass,' or "The only time I attend a Catholic service is when lam in gaol.' I remember one man, who was very anxious to receive Holy Communion while in gaol, asking me if he might have his breakfast first ! Such are some of the ' Roman Catholics ' who figure in the Blue Book. The answer that some have given for turning 'Catholics ' in gaol was that our service was not held so frequently as tlio services of other religious bodies. Hence they preferred tbe lessor of what appeared to them to be two evils. In Wellington we have increased the ' dose ' of religious services to three, and sometimes four, each month — with very fair results so far, we believe. Now for a few interesting facts. In March of tho present year (1908), I went to some trouble to verify statements made by prisoners as to their religious allegiance. At the time I made the inquiry, there were some thirty-six men on the roll as 'Roman Catholics.' Weigh these fewfigures, then form what opinion you wish as to the genuineness of ' prison statistics ' as given in the annual official reports. Of the thirty-six I found that three' had never been baptised at all by any priest, 'or any lay man or woman.' Yet these three were proud to be ' Catholics '— while in gaol. Two of the three were serving considerable sentences for most serious offences — rape" and indecency: Of tlie thirt3'-six, I found that only six had ever been inside of a Catholic school, and some of them had been there (so they said) only for a short time. These figures will be interesting to Catholic readers. Of the thirty-six, I found that twenty-five had not made their first Communion. It was news to some of thein to learn a few facts from the life of Jesus Christ ! Thus you see that three Out of thirty-six were not Catholics, and never were, and eight and a third per cent, were set down as ' Roman Catholic ' without the least claim to that -title ! And the far greater number of those who were baptised into the Church wore in gaol through the absence' of any^Catholic influence in their early lives— they had been without a Catholic home, Catholic companions, Catholic teacher, Catholic school. My latest experience took place on last Saturday afternoon. A 'Roman Catholic' came to see me during my visit to the gaol. He clumsily referred to some Catholic doctrine. My suspicions were at once aroused. On taxing him with deceit, in sailing under false colors, he owned up to the trick. He was not a Catholic: — never had been. He then frankly told me that he was art. Anglican, although I believe that he knows as much about the Church' of England as lie does about us. On asking him to make the sign of , the cross, he blushed — oh, what a rosy blush! Then he described a circle with his left hand, using, I

might say, the point of his nose as tho centre. Oh yes he TWrl?^ 0110 - rS Vi^ the y inite fascinated ttmf He thought he might as well be a Catholic as anything else I suppose he will remain on tlie books as ' Roman CathoHc' i n -rf "SmJ 7 - ? e ln , teU S *° S » end *™ Christmas days in gaol, if it so please his Majesty the Kiu<r! tho ■ nSSL 0 ; ? C 1 tha S \ h^ Ve V 1 my Passion 'the names of ton ani tw n ;? d t0 W **" ?° Urse of this oommunfc*required " Bmeß WiU ' be a ™Me whenever ™rW !? W - x P er i enc , es «iay Prove interesting to the readers of the Neiv Zealand Tablet by showing them how fand * ■T&*fl? ° 8 bell6fS arJ made i?i ZeaSet',. £ 1 lplal r6Cords are ' in thi « res P ect > absolutely TwS^l 1." f' B concerned - They prove nothing 7 They simply show that every criminal in New Zealand has is glorious 'liberty of speech > to say what he likes, as he hkes, when he likes, where lie likes in regard to, his re° hgius connection-the liberty to take up the role of 'Roma!, Catholic' as he crosses the threshold of the gaol, onVto throw it aside as he would an old moth-eaten garment when caving the gaol walls He goes into the gaSl as a visitor C%H,*i?> T T Tl d f the h ? S^ taL He lts on a 'Roman Catholic shroud to keep microbes from his sacred person and throws the garment away when it has served his purpose. So it has ever been. St. Mary's, Boulcott street, Wellington, December 17, 1908.