Towards a Theology of Prison Ministry

It was the Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde who said: “prison walls are being “built with bricks of shame.”[1] Wilde, who was a prisoner himself for two years, speaks in his poem, ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol,’[2] about the pain felt by prisoners, speaking of “the heart of stone”[3] which forms in prisoners as they shut down inwardly: “[T]hough I was a soul in pain, My pain I could not feel.”[4] This pain leads to the most pressing problem of prisoners: self-alienation, the capitulation to self-hate, and pervasive feelings of meaninglessness.^[5] This, then, is the reality of many people held in prisons today, the world in which prison ministry must operate, and the existential challenge that my research, i.e. from within the German prison system, attempts to find an answer to.[6]

Karl Rahner and “The Prison Pastorate”

Among Karl Rahner’s four thousand books and articles,[7] we find a relatively small and unnoticed piece on “The Prison Pastorate.”[8] This short essay, which initially served as a lecture to prison pastors, was eventually published in 1966 in Volume 3 of the collected works Mission and Grace.[9] In his lecture-meditation, Rahner states that we must “read the words of Christ, his incredible, provocative, thrilling words”[10] in Matthew 25: 34-40: “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was in prison, and you came to see me.”^[11] In view of this Scripture passage, Rahner argues that “in the prisoners entrusted to our pastoral care we find Christ our Lord; and in these prisoners we find ourselves, what we see in them being the concealed truth of our own situation.”[12]

His theological emphasis on Matthew 25, his central Scripture meditation provides universal insights for pastoral care in general up to this day, but also confronts us with the immanent and concrete limitations of his views on prison ministry. Such a ministry today deals increasingly with the existential needs, pain, and suffering in the lives of prisoners. My thesis argues therefore that Karl Rahner’s views on prison ministry, although valuable and of significance in their context, are not adequate to deal with the more complex needs and demands of prison ministry in the twenty first century. A central part of my argument is that significant pastoral aspects of prison ministry have been disregarded by Rahner. “The Prison Pastorate” does not take the suffering and world-view of prisoners into account. Moreover, Rahner’s Christian focus and rather priest-centred approach lack the kind of creativity, encounter and resources for group work and community building which is needed in the secular prison populations of today.^[13]

Consequently, I am convinced that a more contemporary approach to prison ministry, one which isn’t solely based on Matthew 25, is required. I argue that a greater pastoral appreciation is necessary of the traumas, conflicts and suffering experienced by prisoners, prison pastors, prison staff and, indeed, in the wider world. The subjective world of the prisoner needs to be addressed in an effort to engage with his/her innate human desire for meaning and fulfilment. Consequently, I claim in my thesis that a theology of prison ministry must be based on empowerment that can be found through a creative and meaning-centred response to the suffering of prisoners, as I illustrate by the lives of Viktor E. Frankl,[14] Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn[15] and Etty Hillesum.[16] Moreover, the fact that no extensive Rahner-study has been done before in relation to his theology of the prison pastorate, my thesis about his understanding of pastoral ministry in correctional facilities creates and advances the comprehension of a theological foundation for further scholarly analysis of a timely and imperative subject.^[17]

Contemporary Prison Terminology

In my study, I speak of ‘the prison pastorate,’ of ‘prison ministry’ and ‘prison chaplaincy.’ These terms refer to the emotional, social and spiritual support in prisons that can be subheaded under the wider category of ‘pastoral ministry,’ ‘pastoral care,’ and ‘spiritual care’ (where ‘pastoral’ is more broad, ‘spiritual’ is more specific). In clarifying the wider usage of terms, it is important to mention that “pastor,” “pastoral” and “pastorate” are mainly used in relation to Rahner’s theological understanding of the “Prison Pastorate.” A pastor, in Rahner’s sense of the word, is an “ordained priest,” a “man,” and a “leader” of a Catholic congregation. A person who gives advice and counsel, and maintains a careful watch for the spiritual needs of his people. Pastors in Rahner’s understanding are to act like “shepherds” by caring for the flock, and this care includes teaching (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:1; 1 Pet. 5:2). The term “chaplaincy” or “chaplain” is used in my thesis in a more modern institutional sense, referring to “a cleric” (such as a minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam), or “a lay representative” of a religious tradition, who is attached to a secular institution such as a prison, hospital or military unit. It refers to men and women, representatives of the Christian faith as well as to people of other religions or philosophical traditions. In recent times, lay people can receive, e.g., professional training in prison chaplaincy. The term “ministry” or “minister” (Latin: “servant”, “attendant”), however, is broader and represents the persons who are authorised to perform functions (e.g., leading services such as weddings, baptisms or funerals); and who provide spiritual guidance to the community. A German prison minister, for instance, who visits the inmates on a weekly basis may not necessarily be the official chaplain of that prison. So roughly said: “chaplain” refers to the position, “minister” to the direct performance, and “pastor” to the leading of the flock.

To Reverse the Effects of Incarceration

In my study, I present a practical approach to the existential frustration encountered in prisons together with an analysis of how this may be addressed by engaging prisoners in a search for meaning. I combine in this study, Rahner’s pastoral theology with the timeless insights of Frankl, Hillesum, and Solzhenitsyn, to work out a theology of empowerment that supports both chaplains and inmates by confronting the oppression and pain of incarceration as mentioned and seeking to reverse its effects.

I argue that Rahner has limited his anthropology in “The Prison Pastorate” by considering only how prison pastors themselves are to find God in prison.[18] He makes this important decision to strengthen the prison pastors so that they will see the value and meaning of such a challenging ministry. Due to this focus and the limited time-frame of his lecture,[19] however, he neglects a clear argument for the empowerment of the incarcerated. My study seeks a rejoinder and argues that we need both. That is to say, the thesis I defend, thinks through how prison ministry is to be made fruitful and beneficial especially for those entrusted to our care: the prisoners. Reality for them is seriously different, especially when viewed through the lens of a prisoner. This was something Rahner’s theology bypassed from the outset. Moreover, unless we can help prisoners to make “larger sense out” of this “apparently senseless suffering,”[20] as Frankl puts it, our ministry to the incarcerated will be empty and fruitless.

So to determine the contemporary relevance of Rahner’s theology on “The Prison Pastorate,” as well as to move towards a more contemporary theology of prison ministry, I have three main objectives: First, in my study, I review and critique Rahner’s theology of prison ministry; second, I identify areas where this theology fails to meet the pastoral challenges of today; and third, as a response, I develop an empowering theology of prison ministry. The situation faced by prisoners today in the German prison system and the suffering likely to be experienced by them is an important background to my thesis.

In my research, I trace Rahner’s theological views, outline his anthropology, and show some of his influences on Gaudium et Spes in Chapter One. Next, I give an analysis of “The Prison Pastorate” in Chapter Two and place it in the light of chaplains working professionally in prisons in the German-speaking world in Chapter Three; where I also identify six possible limitations in Rahner’s reflections. In Chapter Four, I examine the prisoner’s perspective in the works of Frankl, Hillesum and Solzhenitsyn in order to identify, based on their real-life experience of imprisonment, the needs and challenges likely to be felt by prisoners and possible ways to respond. Again, it is my thesis that Rahner’s work is valuable and of significance on its own terms but limited when confronted with the complicated development of our rapidly changing secular European communities. The final chapter aims to fulfil the last objective of the thesis which is to develop a theology of prison ministry that goes beyond Rahner with a more ecumenical, interreligious and less sacramental perspective. Moreover, it will demonstrate that Rahner’s theory continues to be of value and contemporary significance despite the limitations outlined in Chapter Three.

I seek to develop and enhance Rahner’s views with a lively pastoral theology that aims to strengthen and empower people in prisons through the adoption of a meaning-centred approach that acknowledges the role of prisoners as contributors in their own right to the process of rehabilitation. Using the pastoral principles found in our examination of Frankl, Hillesum, and Solzhenitsyn, of love, faith, and humour, as well as the spiritual dimension of art in all its forms, my work seeks to outline a theology that prioritises the cultivation of healing and hope in a way that respects and defends the dignity of each prisoner.

Theology of Empowerment (Theologie der Stärkung)

Finally, I propose in my study seven elements of a theology of empowerment – dignity, meaning, transformation, liberation, creativity, hope, and community – which I argue supports a more contemporary and pastoral approach to prison ministry and is better able to meet the needs of prisoners today. That is, by gathering “two or three” people in “my name,” (Matt 18:20) and experiencing the power and uplifting energy of the One who says: “I am among them.” This more community-based dimension of prison ministry is not addressed at all by Rahner in “The Prison Pastorate” but, for those with experience of providing pastoral care in a prison setting, it is essential. Thus, while accepting and greatly valuing the profound insights in Rahner’s understanding of Matthew 25, our theology of empowerment moves beyond Rahner in the spirit of Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I among them.”

Our theology of empowerment offers a framework of understanding and entails facing pastoral ministry in prison with spiritual confidence and social skill, with self-esteem and passion. Participating in empowering activities is for the incarcerated also an unrestricted way of dealing with the possibility of becoming a different person from the one who was sentenced to jail. Prison ministry thus becomes a mirror of Christian hope in the sense that providing pastoral care in a prison setting demands more than humans can do with their own abilities: only with the help of God whose “power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Eph 3:20) can we hope to work together with prisoners and others in the prison community to empower prisoners to find meaning and hope in life. Empowering theology begins where Scripture ends: “Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment, and of the ill-treated as of yourselves, for you also are in the body” (Heb 13:3). Echoing the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s poem “By Powers of Good” (Von guten Mächten) that was sent out from jail early 1945:

The old year still would try our hearts to torment,

of evil times we still do bear the weight;

O Lord, do grant our souls, now terror-stricken,

salvation for which you did us create. 

[…]

By powers of good so wondrously protected,

we wait with confidence, befall what may.

God is with us at night and in the morning

and oh, most certainly on each new day.^[21]

Notes

[1] Oscar Wilde, De Profundis: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Writings (London: Wordsworth Editions, 2020 [1999]), 135. The Irish poet and playwright Wilde was incarcerated from 1895 till 1897.

[2] Wilde, De Profundis, 117-138.

[3] Ibid., 137

[4] Ibid., 118.

[5] Cf. Dennis W. Pierce, Prison Ministry: Hope behind the Wall (New York, NY: Routlegde, 2013 [2006]), 81.

[6] Since 2016, I work as prison chaplain for the Catholic Diocese of Fulda in two German prisons (Justizvollzugsanstalten Fulda und Hünfeld). Keeping both academic theory and praxis together in a creative tension, I recently defended my four year research project and doctoral dissertation “Towards a Theology of Prison Ministry” at the Loyola Institute of Trinity College Dublin. See Meins G.S. Coetsier, Towards a Theology of Prison Ministry, Ph.D. Dissertation, Trinity College Dublin, School of Religion, Loyola Institute, 2021 [http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/96469]. The present contribution to The Furrow is a short introduction to the Thesis.

[7] For Texts in the original German see Karl Rahner Sämtliche Werke. Herausgeber: Karl-Rahner-Stiftung unter Leitung von Karl Lehmann, Johann Baptist Metz, Albert Raffelt, Herbert Vorgrimler (†) und Andreas R. Batlogg SJ. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1995-2018.

[8] The English quotations [abbreviated MG] from Karl Rahner’s writings are taken from: “The prison pastorate,” in: Mission and Grace: Essays in Pastoral Theology, Volume 3, tr. Cecily Hastings (London and Melbourne: Sheed and Ward, 1966), 74-97. For the original German text see the two main sources [abbreviated SW & SG]  that published the same transcript: (i) the 2005 complete and scholarly edition of Rahner’s Collected Works: “Gefängnisseelsorge,” in: Sämtliche Werke, Band 16, Kirchliche Erneuerung: Studien zur Pastoraltheologie und Struktur der Kirche, eds. Albert Raffelt, Roman A. Siebenrock, and Peter Suchla (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2005), 214-225.; and (ii) “Gefängnisseelsorge,” in: Sendung und Gnade. Beiträge zur Pastoraltheologie (Innsbruck, Wien und München: Tyrolia, 1966 [1959, 1961, 1988]), 447-463 [= Fassung C in: SW, 16: 214-225]. For the three available German manuscripts of the same text (Fassung A, B and C) see SW, 16 (Kirchliche Erneuerung): 567: – Fassung A: “Besinnung für Gefangenenhausseelsorger,” in: Der Seelsorger (Wien), 29 (1959): 460-469. – Fassung B: “Gefängnisseelsorge,” in: Karl Rahner Sendung und Gnade: Beiträge zur Pastoraltheologie (Innsbruck 1959), 452-468. – Fassung C: Karl Rahner: Sendung und Gnade. Innsbruck 4. Aufl. 1966, S. 447-463. – Abdruck nach Fassung C. For a French Review on Fassung B see: A. Janssen, Review of “Karl Rahner, SJ, Sendung und Gnade: Beiträge zur Pastoraltheologie (Innsbruck-Vienna-Munich: Tyrolia, 1959), pp. 561,” in: Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses, 36.1 (1960): 117.

[9] Ibid.

[10] MG, 3: 77. SW, 16: 215. SG, 449.

[11] Ibid.

[12] MG, 3: 89. SW, 16: 221. SG, 457: Wir finden in den Gefangenen uns selbst, indem wir in ihnen unsere eigene verborgene Situation erblicken.

[13] Cf. Alexander Funsch, Seelsorge im Strafvollzug: Eine dogmatisch-empirische Untersuchung zu den rechtlichen Grundlagen und der praktischen Tätigkeit der Gefängnisseelsorge (Schriften zur Kriminologie, 5) (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2015). Heinz Müller-Dietz, “Aktuelle Trends im Umgang mit Straftaten und Straftätern,” in: Lydia Gassner-Halbhuber, Werner Nickolai, Cornelius Wichmann (eds.), Achten statt ächten in Straffälligenhilfe und Kriminalpolitik (Freiburg: Lambertus, 2010), 45-73. Julia Martínez-Ariño and Anne-Laure Zwilling (eds.), Religion and Prison: An Overview of Contemporary Europe: A Contemporary Overview, Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies, Volume 7 (Cham: Springer Nature, 2020). Andrew Coyle et al., Imprisonment Worldwide: The Current Situation and An Alternative Future (Bristol: Policy Press, 2016). John D. Wooldredge and Paula Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Prisons and Imprisonment, Oxford handbooks in criminology and criminal justice (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018). Yvonne Jewkes and Helen Johnston, Prison Readings (New York, NY: Routledge, 2006). Coretta Phillips, The Multicultural Prison: Ethnicity, Masculinity, and Social Relations among Prisoners (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012).

[14] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (New York, NY: Beacon Press, [1959] 1985); Trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager (München: Kösel-Verlag, [1977] 2016);.

[15] For a detailed account of Solzhenitsyn’s life and experiences as a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag camp system see Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1-3: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (New York, NY: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2007 [1973, 1985]). The original Russian manuscript was written between 1958 and 1968 and first published in 1973.

[16] For Etty Hillesum’s writings see Het Werk (Amsterdam: Balans, [1986] 2012). Meins G.S. Coetsier & Klaas A.D. Smelik (eds.), Etty Hillesum: The Complete Works 1941-1943, Bilingual, Annotated and Unabridged, Vol. 1 & 2 (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2014). See also Meins G.S. Coetsier, Etty Hillesum and the Flow of Presence: A Voegelinian Analysis (Eric Voegelin Institute Series in Political Philosophy, Studies in Religion and Politics) (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2008); The Existential Philosophy of Etty Hillesum: An Analysis of her Diaries and Letters (Supplements to the Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, 22) (Leiden/Boston, MA: Brill, 2014).

[17] As far as I am aware, Rahner’s contribution “Gefängnisseelsorge” (“The prison pastorate”) has been occasionally referred to but not studied or analysed in detail. See the works of: Billy Farrell, “The Pastoral Care of Prisoners,” The Furrow Vol. 30, No. 3 (Mar., 1979): 168-173 [with a reference to Rahner on p. 173]; Wolfgang Hartmann, Existenzielle Verantwortungsethik: eine moraltheologische Denkform als Ansatz in den theologisch-ethischen Entwürfen von Karl Rahner und Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2005) [with a reference to Rahner’s Gefängnisseelsorge on p. 258]; Paul Eppe, Karl Rahner zwischen Philosophie und Theologie (Münster: LIT Verlag 2008) [with a reference to Rahner’s Gefängnisseelsorge on p. 189]; Andrew Skotnicki, The Last Judgment: Christian Ethics in a Legal Culture (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016) [with a reference to Rahner’s “The Prison Pastorate” on p. 6].

[18] MG, 3: 74. SW, 16: 214. SG, 447.

[19] Ibid. On Tuesday, 23 June 1959, Rahner lectured at a summer meeting of prison ministers (Tagung von Gefängnisseelsorgern) in Innsbruck.

[20] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, 11.

[21] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, DBW Vol. 8. Widerstand und Ergebung, eds. Christian Gremmels, Eberhard Bethge, and Renate Bethge with Ilse Tödt (Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser/Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1998), 607-608; DBWE Vol. 8. Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. John W. de Gruchy (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), 548-550.

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