I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH
I met Patrick McCarthy, a patient at the prison hospital, five years ago. He was being treated for stomach cancer. He was about 60 years old but, as is common with other prisoner patients, he looked 10 years older. Although no one had been killed during his crime spree, Mr. McCarthy had committed a violent sex crime in his youth. “I am discouraged. After 30 years in prison, I feel I have paid my dues. What I wish for is to have some family time and a normal meal with my relatives.” Mr. McCarthy was discouraged. This happened soon after the Medical Social Worker at this prison informed him his Medical Parole petition was unlikely to be approved based on the response of the Parole Board members. Mr. McCarthy had been sentenced for a 100 year prison term for his crime. He could not realistically expect parole. He talked about accepting his prison status. “When I was young, I was irresponsible which also included my sex habits. I have not had sex for 30 years and now I don’t miss it. I was led astray by the rebellious attitude of the young in the 60’s. My parents failed to guide me. They had problems among themselves. This is how I landed in prison”. Pat came from a Irish catholic background. At one time he told me, ”I did not have much contact or relationship with my father. He was too busy. I missed his companionship. I missed this normal relationship with my father. But I have no resentments as to what happened to me while growing up. I do not resent what I missed not having a normal family. Jail time has given me the opportunity to be closer to my Creator.” One of his uncles, a Franciscan priest from Chicago occasionally visited him at the prison. At the time of his crimes, Mr. McCarthy mentioned that he was being treated for mental illness. This had not been brought out during his trial. The fact is that Mr. McCarthy was being treated for schizophrenia for many years during his prison term.
“I don’t know what my mission in this life is. Perhaps it is to continue my ministry here in prison attending to other inmates in need. What does God want me to do?” Mr. McCarthy mentioned how he was counseling a fellow inmate spiritually. This fellow inmate murdered his two children by putting them inside an incinerator. Also during one of my other visits with him, Mr. McCarthy showed me letters of affection from a spiritual group of inmates in his former facility. “While in prison, I personally knew of at least 10 distraught inmates who committed suicide.” I stated that his eloquent prayer invocations, his popularity with other spiritual inmates in the prisons, and his counseling sessions were probably his mission in this life. “Since you have much closer contacts with these prisoners who’ve have had similar experiences, you may be the person who can most help them”, I added. While in prison, Mr. McCarthy also earned a psychology degree. We arranged for a catholic local priest to give him regular communion per his requests. “God bless you, Tony, for visiting us prisoners here in this hospital. We are the last people the general public wants to associate with. Most everyone wants to avoid associating with us prisoners. In fact one of the nurses in this ward is treating me like dirt. I am glad you decided to do this (Hospice Ministry) after you retired from your profession.”
Mr. McCarthy’s medical problem is that he was having a constant battle with stomach cancer. His symptoms were the usual stomach pains, acidity forming in his digestive system, gas pains, constipation, diarrhea, water retaining in his body, swollen abdomen, swollen feet, etc. To complicate matters he had also developed a hernia and due to poor dental hygiene, eventually all his teeth had to be extracted. During those years, his medical condition progressively got worse. At one time an X-ray showed a lump the size of an apple in his intestines. Again he was sent to the city hospital for an operation. Mr. McCarthy eventually was sent back to the prison hospital with tubes attached to his stomach and abdomen. One tube was to feed him his nutrients and the other to drain off his urine and bowel excretions. However Mr. McCarthy always had the attitude he would recover. Like a roller coaster ride he did periodically get better but only to go back to a more deteriorated condition. Mr. McCarthy was able to have his feeding tube removed and thereafter was able to take the usual solid meals given to these prisoner/patients at the prison hospital. But the extracting urine and bowel tube and bag remained. This bag attachment was a great deal of discomfort to him. Moreover Mr. McCarthy was constantly cleaning his abdomen from liquids, using gauzes and towels to absorb these liquids that would leak around the tube area. As usual, infections would periodically develop around the tube opening, one time becoming so bad he again had to be sent to the city hospital. Mr. McCarthy told me about an irritable ward nurse who said to him upon entering his room, “You stink. This room smells foul.” Also there were prisoner/patients who refused to share the same room with him because of this sickening odor. At one of my visits Pat said, ”I know Tony, this room stinks like shit. I have no bag right now and I’m using these gauze and towels to absorb the drainage from my intestines,The nurses in the ward tell me they can only come to help me with a clean bag according to their schedule.” Eventually Mr. McCarthy was so determined to have the doctors remove this bag and have the hole in his body sewn up. This was a point of aggravation to him that he consequently filed a grievance report on the prison system. What we later found out is that the doctors were concerned about closing this hole. They maintained this procedure could be fatal and kill him. Pat calmed down when he was told this fact. On his last emergency trip back to the city hospital Mr. McCarthy finally died.
On several of these serious setbacks, followed by reasonable recoveries, I always wondered what was keeping Pat alive in every one of these ordeals. Most probably it was because of his strong belief in God and catholic religious rituals he regularly followed. However his beliefs and his confidence in his catholic practices, once in a while, bordered on some prejudices. For example, he believed Islam is a religion which practices violence. But his good works included praying for the dying inmates in this prison hospital and even praying for the hospital staff and security guards within. At one time a non-catholic inmate was near death and severely disturbed because the prison authorities misplaced his personal belongings since he had to be sent to the city hospital due the seriousness of his condition. Apparently a catholic priest who visited this non-catholic patient gave him a rosary. He was discouraged that this rosary was also lost. So Pat gave this patient one of his rosaries and was continually concerned of his dying status. My co-Hospice volunteer worker, Judy, who also happens to be a catholic, would regularly give Pat a Communion Host. Pat requested regular visits from the priest since he also wished confession and the occasional Last Rites, a sacrament for the dying. I sometimes wondered, given his current medical condition, what sins this guy had to confess to a priest, if any. I made it a habit to “steal” a Sunday catholic quarterly missal at my church so as to give it to Pat. With his 9 inch black and white TV in his room Pat would follow the catholic mass using this missal on hand. There came a point that it was a waste of time handing Pat some Bible excerpts or catholic prayers as he knew them all. So I would read to him some famous poems which were religious in context. In particular he liked the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow entitled “A Psalm of Life”.
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
There was not much more to rehash during my later visits, so we made it a practice to say a decade of the rosary before the visit was over. And while saying the rosary Pat had a lot of included petitions such as the war in Iraq, fellow dying prisoner/patients, the Holy Father in Rome, and even for my regular driving trips with my wife visiting our children and grandchildren in the Midwest, East Coast, and South. Pat had religious pictures of saints posted all over the walls in his room.
In my judgment this man died a saint. No, he had no religious eulogy nor any catholic rituals when he died. Pat has no chance of being canonized as a saint in Rome, let alone recognized he ever existed. When a prisoner/patient dies, the Corrections Department has to comply with procedures on what to do with the body. Unbeknownst to me, Pat did a have a daughter who obviously was estranged from him for many years. Since no one claimed Pat’s body, he was buried at the prison cemetery close by. How ironic! Even in death McCarthy has not gotten out of these prison grounds.
Rest in peace, Pat!
I met Patrick McCarthy, a patient at the prison hospital, five years ago. He was being treated for stomach cancer. He was about 60 years old but, as is common with other prisoner patients, he looked 10 years older. Although no one had been killed during his crime spree, Mr. McCarthy had committed a violent sex crime in his youth. “I am discouraged. After 30 years in prison, I feel I have paid my dues. What I wish for is to have some family time and a normal meal with my relatives.” Mr. McCarthy was discouraged. This happened soon after the Medical Social Worker at this prison informed him his Medical Parole petition was unlikely to be approved based on the response of the Parole Board members. Mr. McCarthy had been sentenced for a 100 year prison term for his crime. He could not realistically expect parole. He talked about accepting his prison status. “When I was young, I was irresponsible which also included my sex habits. I have not had sex for 30 years and now I don’t miss it. I was led astray by the rebellious attitude of the young in the 60’s. My parents failed to guide me. They had problems among themselves. This is how I landed in prison”. Pat came from a Irish catholic background. At one time he told me, ”I did not have much contact or relationship with my father. He was too busy. I missed his companionship. I missed this normal relationship with my father. But I have no resentments as to what happened to me while growing up. I do not resent what I missed not having a normal family. Jail time has given me the opportunity to be closer to my Creator.” One of his uncles, a Franciscan priest from Chicago occasionally visited him at the prison. At the time of his crimes, Mr. McCarthy mentioned that he was being treated for mental illness. This had not been brought out during his trial. The fact is that Mr. McCarthy was being treated for schizophrenia for many years during his prison term.
“I don’t know what my mission in this life is. Perhaps it is to continue my ministry here in prison attending to other inmates in need. What does God want me to do?” Mr. McCarthy mentioned how he was counseling a fellow inmate spiritually. This fellow inmate murdered his two children by putting them inside an incinerator. Also during one of my other visits with him, Mr. McCarthy showed me letters of affection from a spiritual group of inmates in his former facility. “While in prison, I personally knew of at least 10 distraught inmates who committed suicide.” I stated that his eloquent prayer invocations, his popularity with other spiritual inmates in the prisons, and his counseling sessions were probably his mission in this life. “Since you have much closer contacts with these prisoners who’ve have had similar experiences, you may be the person who can most help them”, I added. While in prison, Mr. McCarthy also earned a psychology degree. We arranged for a catholic local priest to give him regular communion per his requests. “God bless you, Tony, for visiting us prisoners here in this hospital. We are the last people the general public wants to associate with. Most everyone wants to avoid associating with us prisoners. In fact one of the nurses in this ward is treating me like dirt. I am glad you decided to do this (Hospice Ministry) after you retired from your profession.”
Mr. McCarthy’s medical problem is that he was having a constant battle with stomach cancer. His symptoms were the usual stomach pains, acidity forming in his digestive system, gas pains, constipation, diarrhea, water retaining in his body, swollen abdomen, swollen feet, etc. To complicate matters he had also developed a hernia and due to poor dental hygiene, eventually all his teeth had to be extracted. During those years, his medical condition progressively got worse. At one time an X-ray showed a lump the size of an apple in his intestines. Again he was sent to the city hospital for an operation. Mr. McCarthy eventually was sent back to the prison hospital with tubes attached to his stomach and abdomen. One tube was to feed him his nutrients and the other to drain off his urine and bowel excretions. However Mr. McCarthy always had the attitude he would recover. Like a roller coaster ride he did periodically get better but only to go back to a more deteriorated condition. Mr. McCarthy was able to have his feeding tube removed and thereafter was able to take the usual solid meals given to these prisoner/patients at the prison hospital. But the extracting urine and bowel tube and bag remained. This bag attachment was a great deal of discomfort to him. Moreover Mr. McCarthy was constantly cleaning his abdomen from liquids, using gauzes and towels to absorb these liquids that would leak around the tube area. As usual, infections would periodically develop around the tube opening, one time becoming so bad he again had to be sent to the city hospital. Mr. McCarthy told me about an irritable ward nurse who said to him upon entering his room, “You stink. This room smells foul.” Also there were prisoner/patients who refused to share the same room with him because of this sickening odor. At one of my visits Pat said, ”I know Tony, this room stinks like shit. I have no bag right now and I’m using these gauze and towels to absorb the drainage from my intestines,The nurses in the ward tell me they can only come to help me with a clean bag according to their schedule.” Eventually Mr. McCarthy was so determined to have the doctors remove this bag and have the hole in his body sewn up. This was a point of aggravation to him that he consequently filed a grievance report on the prison system. What we later found out is that the doctors were concerned about closing this hole. They maintained this procedure could be fatal and kill him. Pat calmed down when he was told this fact. On his last emergency trip back to the city hospital Mr. McCarthy finally died.
On several of these serious setbacks, followed by reasonable recoveries, I always wondered what was keeping Pat alive in every one of these ordeals. Most probably it was because of his strong belief in God and catholic religious rituals he regularly followed. However his beliefs and his confidence in his catholic practices, once in a while, bordered on some prejudices. For example, he believed Islam is a religion which practices violence. But his good works included praying for the dying inmates in this prison hospital and even praying for the hospital staff and security guards within. At one time a non-catholic inmate was near death and severely disturbed because the prison authorities misplaced his personal belongings since he had to be sent to the city hospital due the seriousness of his condition. Apparently a catholic priest who visited this non-catholic patient gave him a rosary. He was discouraged that this rosary was also lost. So Pat gave this patient one of his rosaries and was continually concerned of his dying status. My co-Hospice volunteer worker, Judy, who also happens to be a catholic, would regularly give Pat a Communion Host. Pat requested regular visits from the priest since he also wished confession and the occasional Last Rites, a sacrament for the dying. I sometimes wondered, given his current medical condition, what sins this guy had to confess to a priest, if any. I made it a habit to “steal” a Sunday catholic quarterly missal at my church so as to give it to Pat. With his 9 inch black and white TV in his room Pat would follow the catholic mass using this missal on hand. There came a point that it was a waste of time handing Pat some Bible excerpts or catholic prayers as he knew them all. So I would read to him some famous poems which were religious in context. In particular he liked the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow entitled “A Psalm of Life”.
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
There was not much more to rehash during my later visits, so we made it a practice to say a decade of the rosary before the visit was over. And while saying the rosary Pat had a lot of included petitions such as the war in Iraq, fellow dying prisoner/patients, the Holy Father in Rome, and even for my regular driving trips with my wife visiting our children and grandchildren in the Midwest, East Coast, and South. Pat had religious pictures of saints posted all over the walls in his room.
In my judgment this man died a saint. No, he had no religious eulogy nor any catholic rituals when he died. Pat has no chance of being canonized as a saint in Rome, let alone recognized he ever existed. When a prisoner/patient dies, the Corrections Department has to comply with procedures on what to do with the body. Unbeknownst to me, Pat did a have a daughter who obviously was estranged from him for many years. Since no one claimed Pat’s body, he was buried at the prison cemetery close by. How ironic! Even in death McCarthy has not gotten out of these prison grounds.
Rest in peace, Pat!
posted by Antonio at 9:16 AM
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