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Jesuit Father George Williams, then Catholic chaplain at St. Quentin State Prison, is pictured on Christmas Eve 2019 in the prison chapel with members of the prison’s Catholic community. (Photo by Lt. Sam Robinson/San Quentin)
Updated Aug. 4, 2020, 8:23 a.m.
Aug. 13, 2020
Lidia Wasowicz
Catholic San FranciscoOnce bustling with activity and booming with voices, the San Quentin Catholic chapel stands stripped and silenced, a casualty of COVID-19.
Decrying the death, disease and deteriorating living conditions in the state’s oldest prison, recently retired longtime chaplain Jesuit Father George Williams and volunteers from throughout the San Francisco Archdiocese lament their lockout at a time the locked-in need them the most.
It is a time of fear, frustration and fatalism at the 168-year-old penitentiary in Marin County.State data as of Aug. 14 showed 25 deceased and 2,233 infected at the prison, with only a handful of new cases in the previous two weeks, The fatalities included a guard, Sergeant Gilbert Polanco, who died Aug. 9 of COVID-19 complications.
Since early March, authorities have canceled programs, banned visitors, prohibited group gatherings and created makeshift space for physical distancing, quarantine and isolation.
The chapel has been emptied of altar, pews, chairs, sacred objects and religious icons and closed to Mass celebrations, choral concerts, Scripture readings, Bible studies, life-skill debates and other spiritually supportive services.
“It will take a while to put things back together,” said Father Williams, who personally took down for safekeeping the Stations of the Cross crafted by a prisoner nearly 60 years ago.
Such extra care and attention marked his decade of mentoring and ministering to his San Quentin congregation.
When the viral eruption engulfed his seven-Masses-a-weekend schedule, the chaplain continued to make cell calls, carrying Communion, comfort, consolation and communication from the community to the 250 churchgoers, until he tested positive June 24.
“Since I left, they have had nothing,” said Father Williams, who recovered from his “summer-cold-like” symptoms of headache and fatigue and partially regained his taste and smell in time to move to his next assignment July 28.
“I’m sad to be leaving San Quentin especially in the middle of this crisis because they need pastoral care more than ever, but I’m not leaving forever.”
The new pastor of St. Agnes in San Francisco intends to stay in touch by starting a prison ministry at the parish and going back to the correctional facility each month to say Mass, once the pandemic peters out.
Inspired by Father Williams’s example, others are equally eager to return.
“Father George was a wonderful shepherd for the San Quentin population, with an influence over the men who came regularly to the chapel that was an example of the miracle of grace,” said Brian Gagan, a parishioner at St. Ignatius in San Francisco with a masters in theology who joined the Bible study group five years ago.
“The work the Holy Spirit is doing behind those walls is so palpable, it engages you, it transforms you.”
So much so, some among the 25 “outsiders” attending Sunday liturgies considered the penitentiary their parish.
“They admitted, ‘If I didn’t have San Quentin, I wouldn’t even be going to church,’” Gagan said.
Members of the Order of Malta and visitors from as far away as Monterey numbered among the faithful, said Walter Mallory, the point person for a sizable prison ministry at St. Hilary in Tiburon.
“We all expressed the same thing, that this had become a part of our life, and we miss not being able to go,” said Mallory, a recipient of the Restorative Justice Ministry Award for 17 years of service at San Quentin.
“And if we who have other options are unhappy about not being able to go in, can you imagine how the guys who cannot go out, maybe for the rest of their lives, feel?”
Victor Perrella of St. Anthony Parish in Novato got a clue from eight letters he received within two weeks from men he’s met since his first visit in 1991.
“They tell terrible stories, filled with frustration and hopelessness, of limited showers, stuffy air, dry, cold peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made even more tasteless by the COVID-induced loss of appetite, restricted movement, lockdowns in 4.5-by-9.5-foot cells,” Perrella related.
“(To cope) you must try to convince yourself this will end one day and you’ll get out, and until then you must have determination and faith.”
To fortify both, Mallory and his St. Hilary team of nine wrote notes of support and reassurance for Father Williams to distribute during his rounds.
Denied even that small gesture with the priest’s departure, they pray for a rapid return to the rich repertoire of pre-pandemic programs.
“You name it, and we were doing it,” Father Williams said. “We had Bible study, men’s spirituality group, ecumenical fellowship, Christian-based life-skills program, restorative justice, meditation, Confirmation, rosary, RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults).”
Each Saturday, he celebrated two Masses on death row and one in the chapel. On Sunday, he held four separate services, for death row, mainline, Spanish-speaking and newly sentenced prisoners awaiting transfer.
Those wishing to gain deeper insights into the lectionary had the option to attend a one-and-a-half-hour Wednesday afternoon Bible discourse that delved into the historical context and current application of the upcoming readings.
At one session, for example, discussion centered on what Jesus meant when he admonished followers to “go sell everything you own.”
“Does that mean you empty your bank account?” Mallory had inquired.
Benefits from the encounters multiplied like the loaves and fishes in John’s Gospel.
At times, following Mass, men would pull Mallory aside to whisper gratefully, “I knew what the heck that reading was all about!”
Others, who kept copies of the reflections Mallory had passed out during the sessions, reported excitedly, “Hey! My celly started reading this when I left it on my bunk, and now he’s thinking of coming to church!”
As an added bonus, the group discussion often spilled over into such personal revelations, “we got closer in trust and dependence on one another, and the dividing line between those on the inside and outside was rather quickly erased,” Gagan recalled.
Ties also tightened Tuesday evenings, after chow, when up to two dozen men would join three or four volunteers to chew the fat for a couple hours on a topic presented the previous week as food for thought.
These spirituality sessions unified their diverse participants — most of them lifers, with one in his 45th year behind bars — with frank discussions of such core topics as forgiveness.
“It’s unusual to have races mixing in the yard, but in this group, they were holding hands and singing,” said Perrella, the sponsor and facilitator of the program he dubbed “open heart spiritual surgery.”
“It was a wonderful thing.”
He and many others are praying for the day the virus is vanquished and the chapel once again reverberates with such sights and sounds of hope and healing.
Father Williams has an even bigger dream: that out of the devastation arises a reformed system of restorative rather than retributive justice that recognizes “these guys cannot undo their crimes of the past but can be helped to become better people in the future.”
