The following comes from a July 17 story on the website of Catholic San Francisco.
California’s Catholic bishops are asking state officials to address “the egregious overuse of solitary confinement,” violations of treatment policies of prisoners in secure housing units and threats against prisoners participating in the current prison hunger strike.
Monterey Bishop Richard Garcia, chairman of the restorative justice committee of the California Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement July 12 concerning state policies on prisoner isolation and the escalating hunger strike that has grown to include nearly 10 percent of California’s prison population.
“The California Catholic Bishops and its conference staff have been in dialogue with the (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) for 12 years on the very issues being surfaced now, hoping that they would have been resolved,” Bishop Garcia said. “Sadly, this has not happened. Thus, we raise our voice with all other concerned citizens asking Gov. (Jerry) Brown to appoint an outside oversight committee to address and correct these human rights violations.
The bishops oppose the treatment because it is not restorative, Bishop Garcia said. “Placing humans in isolation in a secure housing unit has no restorative or rehabilitative purpose,” he said. “International human rights standards consider more than 15 days in isolation to be torture. The world is watching California and the United States.”
In their 2000 pastoral letter “Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice,” the California bishops wrote, “We oppose the increasing use of isolation units, especially in the absence of due process, and the monitoring and professional assessment of the effects of such confinement on the mental health of inmates.”
State prison officials said July 15 that 2,572 inmates in 17 state prisons were on a mass hunger strike disturbance, down from 12,421 inmates on July 11. An inmate is considered to be on a hunger strike after he has missed nine consecutive meals.
They declined to give numbers of strikers at affected prisons, saying the mass hunger strike is organized by prison gangs and publicizing participation levels at specific prisons could put inmates who are not participating in extreme danger.
To read entire story, click here.
It annoys me when bishops say things like “the world is watching, etc.” They are not agents of the “world” (translation: the left-wing elite that runs the EU and their toadies elsewhere). I could not care less what the “world” thinks of US policy. Let our bishops speak for Christ and His Church’s concern on these issues.
Why would the bishops be afraid of the world watching them? Corruption among the bishops? Why wouldn’t the bishops love to have the world watch them as they become holy? That is what they should be doing instead of hiding their sins from the world, and probably believing they can hide their corruption from God. What, I wonder, would it take for the Pope to find the holy clerics, kick out the unholy ones, and install the holy ministers of God? Isn’t it about time the laity look into this, especially since Pope Francis has asked us to help him rid the Church of the wicked clerics … including the corrupt members of the Curia? The recent report that the gay lobby pulled a fast one on the Pope, and got him to promote some sleaze bag to head the Vatican Bank investigation, means that our popes have been in dire need of support and help from faithful Catholics … Rise up and defeat the evil zombies infesting the Curia, and the Vatican, and the dioceses of the Church. Find a way to do it.
The bishops will never be able to “restore justice” to the millions of unborn killed by abortion – but then, they have never cared to try.
This is rich, Bishop Garcia asking Gov. Brown to look into a gang-related hunger strike. Next thing you know he’ll implement some Jesuit social action program he’s heard about and they can all sing Kumbaya or something.
This is sad, because I like Bp Richard Garcia, but it seems like all officials, ecclesiastical or political, as they ascend the ladder, become more and more alienated from reality and their own “constituency”. Two salient points: (1) Now, we define “torture” down to prisoners in isolation ( “International human rights standards consider more than 15 days in isolation to be torture.” ) I have been on a 30-day Ignatian retreat twice in my life and never realized once I was being tortured. So, since now isolation itself, which is employed to neutralize violent prisoners, is “torture”, this means (2) the Cal Bishops are joining other destructive forces (like the insane US Supreme Court) in pressuring the CA prison system to conduct wholesale release of violent felons, oblivious to the violence they will wreak on the CA populace. And these are also the people who don’t want us to have any guns to defend ourselves. It all makes sense.
If millions .. hundreds of millions of people all over the world dressed in authentic bishop suits and went about their daily business, would anyone be able to spot the real bishops?
Restoritive Justice or whatever it is needs to be given to Cd. Mahony for all those years of abuse cover ups.
It would be more useful to these souls if the Bishop were to ask them to offer up their jailers torments for reparation of souls in pagatory. Why is it Bishops never talk of this anymore. If you ask me, reparation for sins is true restorative justice.
Bwangi, sadly I believe that we rarely hear of the teaching that we need to make reparation for sins anymore because many of our Bishops and priests hold the belief that there is no Hell. If they truly believe the heretical lie that God would not create a Hell and therefore would not send someone there, then it might naturally follow that they would not consider it a justice to allow anyone to experience the “hell” of jail.
The politicization of our bishops never seems to take time out. If these men were less concerned about the environment, plastic bag bans, gun control, the death penalty, and similar issues best left to lay people, and more concerned with preaching the word of God in terms other than “social justice” and “environmental justice”, we would all be better off. I am beginning to feel completely alienated by my church; it seems to me that my church is on the WRONG side of every important moral issue of the day, and that their support even of the pro-life cause is tepid at best. Why would they support the democratic party program, universal healthcare, open borders, amnesty for law-breakers, massive wealth transfer from the productive to the non-productive elements of society in the name of charity, and now support criminals in their attempt to escape the consequences of their anti-social conduct?
Well, Anton, it was the Church that Lord Acton directed his famous quote that ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men’. Or I think of Ophelia’s ‘“We know what we are, but know not what we may be’ and when these men are chosen they could be humble and devoted men but when given a little authority they become corrupted. Who can predict one’s behavior when faced with having new powers and authority? I can say with real authority that when the current occupier of the Whitehouse was elected in 2008, I knew with absolute certainty that he was much too small and insignificant to be granted such power. Now he’s a busyhead stirring up racial unrest. Nothing is too small or petty for his attentions but the really important and larger issues are relegated to the dust bin because his shallow understanding and limited grasp of religious and philosophical issues have been thwarted by the way he was raised, educated and the wanton and amoral lifestyle he has led all his life. Getting back to the bishops, I am reminded of an excellent interview I heard recently on Al Kresta’s radio show (I like to listen to him while trotting away on my treadmill) with a man who had been wrongfully charged and imprisoned for 25 yrs in the Alabama prison system and was finally found innocent by the Supreme Court, but he said he never regrets his imprisonment for he became a Catholic, earned his master”s in theology, brought thousands of men to Christ and his many times in solitary brought him closer to God…his prison cell became a monk’s cell. These bishops should listen to this incredible man’s story. I can’t think of his name right now, but I think he has a book out.
The bishops seem to defy human nature by mocking God by mocking the nature of man. Maybe many of the bishops are man haters … feminist dupes … weak. What else would it be?
Other than Bishop Vasa, of course, do they support the Catechism of the Catholic Church?
Of course they do.
Not much evidence to your claim, Anonymous.
Anonymous, how do you know that most CA Bishop support the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition”? They do NOT publically encourage people to read or study it, and they twist teachings of the Church – so they do not adhere to the teachings themselves. (Church teachings on death penalty and illegal immigration are only two that they violate – teachings which can be found in the CCC.)
Really? Tell me about their insistence over the past 20 years that the CCC be used in all schools and religious instruction.
All prisoners can not be “restored” nor do they want to be “rehabilitated”, especially the sociopaths and psychopaths who are very very dangerous to guards and other prisoners. They will kill or maim others without any remorse, while most have high IQs. As usual this is outside of the CA Bishops’ area of expertise. (Of course Bishops do not open their own mansions to house these killers, and live among them. They just want to jeopardize the lives of others.)
Bishops need to get out of politics and get back to concerns about Sacrilege, Scandal, Hersey, Schism, and Relativism within their own Diocese. We need them to do their own jobs – which many US Bishops neglect.
The Bishops need to publically, actively, and continuously encourage people to mediate on the Bible and to study the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition” at home. If they and their Priests teach accurately and fully from the CCC, politics will take care of itself through the Laity. Bishops do your own job.
Pete, you make a good point. “(Of course Bishops do not open their own mansions to house these killers, and live among them. They just want to jeopardize the lives of others.)”
Maybe, we should learn from the Bishop’s positions and concerns and start insisting that the Bishops do open their own mansions to house these killers.
Any bishop or priest or lay person who supports the prisoner hunger strike should also go without food; otherwise they’re nothing but lazy hypocrites.
I just don’t get it anymore….mankind has lost it’s ability to reason. And I’m suppose to look up to those in charge? If these Bishops were stronger in their Catholicism, in their faithfulness, in spreading Christ’s mission, maybe some of these men would not be in this prison. Maybe if they would of reached out to the poor sinners first before the bad influences…maybe if the word of God was stronger in the way they conveyed, they could have reached out to one of these men in deeper level.
The Bishops have a tough job as it is but to distract Christ’s followers to other non salvation issues…..this is now a tragedy and it affects us all. It speaks volumes, it tells us what the minds of many in charge really think. I always hate it when people insult our intelligence, when they try to discredit our concerns, it is true what Fulton Sheen once said that right is right even when the majority is doing wrong ..and wrong is wrong even when everything seems right.
I don’t know how to face this generation, because we may show them a glimpse of the real Jesus but the world and even from within the church discredit the truth or at least confuse many away from discerning the truth.
Abeca, you are right. No one ever said ALL Bishops and ALL Priests will get to Heaven. Jesus showed us this by choosing Judas as an Apostle.
This is why it is so very important to study the Bible, ‘Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition’, GIRM, and Code of Canon Law at home.
We will never be properly and completely taught. We must become self taught, and the Magisterium has given us the tools to do so – if we do not have good and obedient Bishops or Pastors.
The Church is in crisis.
Our last 3 Popes have done everything they possibly can to get us to read the Bible and CCC – including providing plenary indulgences.
Far too many US Bishops have lost their true purpose – to teach the Faith and bring Souls to Heaven. Instead they involve themselves in a liberal type of social work which destroys people and society and has little to do with our Faith, concern over money and government handouts for their pet projects, pride mixed with affluent living practices, and power.
Let us all pray, educate ourselves, and spread the Faith accurately and completely. Our own eternity is at stake.
that is true…now more than ever have I been reflecting on what you just said and I understand even more why these precious tools you mention are truly important…it can help the undiscerning to discern better.
How about the egregious sins of omission on the part of the bishops? The bishops have been striking against and imprisoning their own sheep.
These are the sheep in their own flock who have been deliberately kept in prison hungry and starving for the fullness of truth for many years.
Catherine you are right, i agree……many are so hungry that non-Catholic Christian sects have reached them instead and we have more who are not receiving the sacraments, they have fallen for the fake pearls of sects…..
This saying from Bishop Fulton Sheen “”The Soviet Union is like the Cross without Christ, while American culture is like Christ without the Cross.”….I don’t know exactly what he meant by that but perhaps it could mean that many do not carry their cross as commanded by our Lord.
I believe our bishops are afflicted by hubris. When the second council established regional and national bishops’ conferences, the power conferred to them by Rome went to their heads. Every bishop now deems himself to be the pope of his diocese. I have remarks made by priests to the effect that the pope is merely the “bishop of Rome”, with no teaching authority elsewhere. The authority once exercised by the pope is hopelessly fragmented. The common bond that held the church of Rome together for centuries, the Latin language, is now inexorably dissolved. The holy mass is in shambles, abbreviated, truncated, bowdlerized, subject to the whim of the “presider” to alter it as he sees fit. The signs of disintegration are everywhere. Our Catholic institutions of higher learning are cesspools of apostasy and GLBT propaganda, if not outright heresy. We complain “why don’t the bishops do something?” In many cases the probably can’t, in many other cases they probably sympathize with what we old fogy traditionalist find so repellent.
” I have remarks made by priests to the effect that the pope is merely the “bishop of Rome”, with no teaching authority elsewhere”: Doesn’t square with the guarantee of Jesus to protect the Church, since He made St Peter the foundation.
Skai: That is precisely why such an assertion is preposterous on the face of it. But, as I have stated before: Once we had one Pope and a thousand bishops to follow his lead. Today, Cardinal Dolan as head of the USCCB swings a bigger club than the pope in Rome. The bishops’ conferences are essentially independent of the Vatican, for all practical purposes. A case in point: The “Nuns on the Bus” cruised through San Jose recently and got top billing in our diocesan newspaper, despite the fact that their left-wing political shenanigans and advocacy of gay marriage and “womyn” priests earned them the appropriate censure from our last two popes. By giving these women praise and kudos, our bishop poked a finger in they eye of the pope. Obedience? I think not!
Good Bishops can and must – teach completely in accord with the Bible and CCC.
No individual Bishop or Priest has the authority to make changes to the Mass, and GIRM is the tool provided by the Magisterium.
Bishops must never tolerate sin.
As individuals they will be held accountable for all the Souls they have lost – sins of OMISSION as well as COMMISSION.
Each Bishop is fully in charge of his own Diocese. There are no excuses.
The responsibility of the Laity is to make certain that the Diocese Bishop is informed of evil and wrong-doing within his Diocese.
Therefore we must all know the:
Bible;
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition;
Code of Canon Law (can be found on the Vatican web site);
GIRM – General Instruction of the Roman Missal (for the Ordinary Form of the Mass, and can be found on the Vatican web site).
If we have irresponsible Bishops who do not correct wrongs – we must also contact the US Papal Nuncio in Washington DC, and the Vatican. These people must never be named Cardinals.
Mia: I appreciate your noble sentiments and sage advice that lay people should inform the bishop of irregularities that occur in individual parishes. All well and good, but from all read in the very pages of this wonderful website, the bishops ARE the source of many of our problems. How often have parishioners petitioned their bishops and even the papal nuncio to stop a particular outrage and have gotten stone-walled?
So how do Bishops expect safety, order, and obedience to be maintained in a prison population – which includes murderers, drug dealers and addicts, rapists, etc?
Just by telling the violent criminals “don’t do that again” ?????
Make the CA Bishops complete their explanation of the process, and then they would see how silly they are behaving. If they have a BETTER and more accurate way of maintaining order and safety, they should provide their ideas to all of us.
Any idiot can complain about anything. It takes an intelligent and thoughtful person to come up with solutions.
Have you all heard the expression, “people get the kind of government they deserve?” The same is true of the Church. God has allowed in history corrupt church leaders in periods of general moral corruption. Read the Diary of Saint Faustina. This is the time of mercy the Lord is giving us before he comes with his justice. It serves absolutely no purpose in constantly bemoaning the state of the Church and world when most people have not followed what the Virgin Mary has told us to do. Do those things and God will remedy the condition of the Church.
“I want men who will believe in Me, even when I do not protect them; I will not open the prison doors where My brethren are locked; I will not stay the murderous Red sickle or the imperial lions of Rome, I will not halt the Red hammer that batters down My tabernacle doors; I want My missionaries and martyrs to love Me in prison and death as I loved them in My own suffering. I never worked any miracles to save Myself! I will work few miracles even for My saints. Begone, Satan! Thou shalt not tempt the Lord, thy God.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ
I think everyone knows the oft-quoted statement attributed to (some say) St Athanasius at the Council of Nicaea, others to S. John Chrysostom regarding the episcopal office: “The roads of hell are paved with the skulls of bishops.”