Photo Caption: Dwight Correctional Center is scheduled to be closed on Aug. 31. A town hall meeting took place July 16 in the parish hall of St. Patrick’s Church.

By: By Jennifer Willems

DWIGHT — What doesn’t show up on balance sheets in Springfield filled the parish hall at St. Patrick’s Church here last Monday night to continue the fight to keep Dwight Correctional Center open, despite Gov. Pat Quinn’s intention to see it close by Aug. 31.

People in this Livingston County village of 4,200 are concerned about lost jobs, a depressed real estate market where more than 100 homes are already up for sale, and disrupted family lives. They are also worried about the nearly 1,000 offenders at the women’s prison and the potential good work that could be undone if they are transferred to other facilities.

Among those closely watching the situation is Betty Sullivan of rural Bradford, who has overseen the Peoria Diocesan Council of Catholic Women’s outreach at the maximum security prison since 2005. For her there is no question that DCCW should be involved in ministry to the women there.

“It’s a work of mercy, is it not, to visit the imprisoned,” Sullivan said simply.

“WHAT CAN WE DO?”
The DCCW’s pastoral care for the women at Dwight started in the 1950s, when Anne T. Cahill of Henry encouraged members to send reading materials and religious items to the inmates. When the council established its prison ministry committee in 1980, Cahill was named its first chair.

“When she first went they didn’t have anything,” Sullivan said, noting that they used a room in the infirmary for their prayer services. “She even had ladies make curtains for the room.”

When it became known that Dwight was the only correctional center in the state without a permanent place of worship, the DCCW joined Church Women United in a decade-long effort to raise the $500,000 needed to build a non-denominational chapel. Ground was broken in 1991 and the building was dedicated in 1993. It includes a chaplain’s office and meeting rooms, where DCCW members held prayer services on the fourth Sunday of the month for several years.

Through the leadership of Jana Minor and Catherine Kudrick, the DCCW started to collect Christmas cards for the women and toys for their children when the youngsters came to visit at Christmas. An especially moving project introduced by Minor allowed the mothers to read short story books into a tape recorder so that the tapes and books could go home with their children.

“In this way, the mother’s voice is not forgotten by these children,” Sullivan told The Catholic Post.

Over the years, the DCCW has also sent Bibles, prayer cards, magazines and calendars.

And because Dwight Correctional Center has served as the reception and classification center for women entering the prison system, the DCCW has collected toiletries, toothbrushes and combs for the chaplain to give them while they’re waiting to be assigned to a facility.

“It took years to build up all the things they have there,” Sullivan said. “Is there any way we can continue helping the women? What can we do and how can we do it? What do we have to change? Right now we’ve quit collecting stuff because we don’t know.”

UNCERTAIN SCHEDULE
Father James Rickey, pastor of St. Patrick’s Parish in Dwight, has been celebrating Mass for the Catholic offenders at Dwight Correctional Center for 18 years and he said there are a couple of women who have never missed a Mass in all that time.

“They have real faith,” he said of the women he sees each week. “If they’re there for the rest of their lives, God is a great source of hope and strength.”

In addition to celebrating Mass, Father Rickey offers the sacrament of reconciliation and counseling to the inmates. Four catechists usually accompany him on his Thursday visits and he stays for several hours after they leave to visit as many of the 30 or 40 offenders who are referred to him for pastoral calls.

“My main focus is rosaries and scapulars,” he said of his work with the women at Dwight. “The very basics of the faith. They just don’t know hardly anything. I spend a lot of time explaining how to pray the rosary. They don’t know that.”

Because of the uncertainty of the situation, Father Rickey said he has been asked to call each Thursday morning to see if a chapel officer will be available. “If there is no chapel officer we cannot have Mass,” he explained.

He said he has heard that Sunday services have not been held for three weeks because there aren’t enough guards to cover the chapel. They are taking vacation time, sick time and days off before the prison closes and they start work elsewhere.

STRESSFUL TIME
Plans call for the offenders at Dwight Correctional Center to be sent to Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln. Because Logan is a men’s correctional center, the facility will have to be retrofitted to accommodate female prisoners.

Joining them will be the women from the Lincoln Correctional Center in Lincoln. That facility will be used to house the male inmates — in addition to other men’s correctional centers around the state.

Noting that a majority of the women at Dwight Correctional Center are from the Chicago area, Father Rickey expressed concern about the hardship their families will face if they are forced to drive another 90 minutes or two hours to see their loved ones. That interaction is key to their rehabilitation, he said.

Father Glenn Fontana, parochial vicar at Holy Family Parish in Lincoln, St. Patrick’s in Elkhart, and St. Thomas Aquinas in Mount Pulaski, currently offers pastoral care to the inmates at the Logan and Lincoln correctional centers. Providing materials is going to be a challenge, he said.

“I kind of beg and ask around and people have been kind,” he told The Post, “but I’m concerned for the women. We have to educate them in the sacraments.”

The women offenders are experiencing some stress, Father Fontana said.
“Nobody likes to move obviously, but the women are taking it pretty well,” he said. “I tell them, ‘No matter where you go, stay close to Jesus, treasure your faith and pray the rosary.'”

State Rep. Jason Barickman, R-Champaign, told those who attended the town hall meeting in Dwight that several options are being explored to slow or even stop the process of closing these state facilities. So far requests to delay the closing of Dwight until after the legislators can return to Springfield this fall and discuss the issue have been unsuccessful.