Losing The War?
Copyright 2011: Eternal Truth Network. Rehabilitate Criminals. All rights reserved.
Does anyone think that we are winning the war against crime? Our big cities continue to become more dangerous. People continue to retreat into the suburbs. Was a war ever won by an Army which could only retreat?
When Jesus Christ in the body of Christ, the Catholic Church, is on the offensive using it’s most powerful weapons of truth and love which are actually more powerful than any nuclear weapons, it appears to be retreating. No evil power has ever and never will be able to effectively defend itself against the truth and love of God. That is the way all evil is overcome and victory for the most enduring benefit for all humankind is accomplished.
Police come after a crime has been committed. Deterrents are necessary. They may discourage some criminals from committing crimes in certain places. The police cannot watch any criminal all of the time or protect every home or business all of the time. The criminal will look for an unprotected home or business or a weak, defenseless, unprotected person, and the safest time to commit his crime.
The most effective time to rehabilitate and change the heart of a criminal is when he is in jail or in prison. Faith-based programs are most effective. The heart of the criminal must be changed. This is a matter to be dealt with spiritually. Psychological programs can help but they cannot touch the heart. The criminal must be attracted to the good Christian life. When he desires to do nothing but good, he is rehabilitated.
We will continue to fail as long as we only hate the criminal and punish him with long prison sentences or death. The way to change things for the better will not be to just put more laws on the books or to hire more police. Before we can help anyone else to change, we must change ourselves by following Christ in sincerity, truth and love. We cannot give what we don’t have to prisoners, our children, our families, or our friends.
I, Fr. Harold Paulsen, hate crime. I don’t hate the criminals. I pity them. In the five prisons, I have been serving for 20 years I have seen many criminals truly rehabilitated. They have a certain hope now that they can have a good and fruitful Christian life. I know ex-convicts who are doing very well.
The approach to prison ministry experienced by me which seems to work best is to make available to prisoners good Catholic literature(Living Faith, Word among Us, One Bread, One Body, Knights of Columbus booklets, my four books). Also prisoners are encouraged to study the faith with good Catholic correspondence courses which along with the literature mentioned above is free for men and women in prison.
The chaplain and some volunteers in the prison can and should request the above publications for the prisoners. They can receive quantities of books and other literature to be distributed to many prisoners. A prisoner can only receive one book or booklet in the mail at a time.
I encourage prisoners not to watch television or look at pornography. We can’t just tell people not to do things. We must supply something much better and more interesting for them. The Catholic Faith is most interesting. When devout and serious prisoners discover how interesting are the lives of the Saints, Fathers of the Church, the sacramental life of the Catholic Church, The Liturgy of the Hours, The History of the Catholic Church,The Catechism of the Catholic Churrch, etc., they are no longer interested in the harmful gossip and rumors and criminal concerns of the other inmates. Pornography and the TV soap operas and movies no longer interest them.
When it becomes possible in some of the prisons, a wonderful thing to do is to create a lending library of the great Catholic spiritual classics. This is not just a matter of raising money to purchase books. Most necessary and most difficult will be obtaining the approval of chaplains and possibly wardens.
I intend, when I learn how, to put sound on this website, to interview ex-convicts, dedicated prison volunteers and possibly some wardens and prison officials. These interviews would be very interesting, informative and educational.
We can and must change the trend and start winning some real battles against crime. Crime exists in the hearts and minds of criminals. We must begin to realize that there is no private sin. We are social creatures and everything we do, good or bad, affects others. In other words, to change the world, we must first change ourselves. We do that most effectively by working, with God’s help to imitate and embrace the values of Jesus Christ. The most powerful people who ever lived in this world and who have affected it for the better during their lives, and for hundreds of years after they lived in this world were the great saints. There was never a political or military leader, great philosopher or scientist who benefited mankind as much as the apostles, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and many other holy people.
I give my books free of charge to prisoners. Many have told me that they benefited greatly from reading the books. After they read them, they either share them with other prisoners or send them to their wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, brothers or sisters. The only way I can make these books available to other people is to sell them on this website. Although the books were written primarily for prisoners, they will benefit all people. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “We are all sinners. Sinners who have just been forgiven or sinners who need to be forgiven”.
