Work in progress..... stay tune

About Us

The Roman Catholic Prison Ministry (RCPM) offers spiritual and pastoral support to inmates, ex-offenders, and their families through the administration of the Sacraments, Scripture, and Catechesis to help them know the love and mercy of God, promoting their human and spiritual development.

The Roman Catholic Prison Ministry (RCPM) is a vital component of the Catholic Church's mission to serve the marginalised and the forgotten. By providing a support system to prisoners, ex-offenders, and their families, the RCPM aims to help them reintegrate back into society with hope and dignity. Through its various initiatives, the RCPM fosters a sense of community, spiritual growth, and social rehabilitation. Additionally, the RCPM offers spiritual guidance and counselling, helping individuals find meaning and purpose in their lives. Ultimately, the RCPM's goal is to empower those who have been touched by the criminal justice system to live full and productive lives, with the love and support of the Church.

Our History

The Roman Catholic Prison Ministry was formed in 1977 when the then Archbishop, His Grace Gregory Yong, commissioned Fathers Brian Doro, and Fr. O’Neill of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer or Redemptorists (CSsR), and Sister Gerard Fernandez of the Good Shepherd Sisters (R.G.S.), to start RCPM, to “respond without fear and with quiet sacrifice to our Scriptural mandate”.

RCPM has expanded with more priests to provide chaplaincy. Religious sisters, seminarians and lay people complement the role played by priests. Many of the laymen and laywomen who come from different parishes hold full time jobs and while also involved in parish activities. Some RCPM volunteers serve full time in the ministry.

The volunteer base of the Roman Catholic Prison Ministry has grown over the years. We have 11 Priests, Religious Sisters and Brothers and close to 50 volunteers in the Ministry. Together, the ministry conducts close to 30 religious sessions in prison institutions each week.

Our Vision

Our vision is to share the love of Jesus with prisoners in order to help them:

i. to effect true conversion of heart by listening to and living the Word of God

ii. to continue the process of conversion after their release

iii. to live a crime free lives as responsible persons to family and community

iv. to be a living testimonies of the power of God

Our Mission

RCPM strives to be the compassion of our heavenly Father for our imprisoned brothers and sisters in Christ:

“I was in prison and you visited me”. Mt 25:36

To be ‘the compassion of Christ’ is to be Christ-like. We are called to be compassionate as Christ is compassionate. This is made possible by the fact that we are the Body of Christ.

Our Values

RCPM is a Catholic organization aimed at serving the marginalized and needy whose life of sin and crime have led to their imprisonment. The ministry is a service with a mystical dimension. It sees the inmates and volunteers as one in the Body of Christ. As both volunteers and inmates are One in the Body of Christ, volunteers strive to be Christ-like in the service rendered to the imprisoned. Our service is based on the values of Jesus Christ as handed to us by his Church, the Catholic Church.

Humility - We serve with humility when we relate with the people we minister to and work with.

Hope - We do not despair in the rehabilitation of inmates. We do not give up on them. Instead we bring them hope; that there is always a chance for them to redeem themselves both in this life and in eternity. Thus with hope, we are able to lead, encourage, teach and help them to change for the better.

Respect - We regard the dignity of the persons we minister to, keeping their confidence and treating them with the respect they deserve.

Sincerity - We deal honestly with those we minister to, never taking advantage of them and being true to our charisma as ambassadors of Christ.

Accountability - We are responsible to ourselves, our brothers and sisters who are our fellow volunteers, those whom we serve, the Ministry as a whole and the Church. We are responsible for our actions and will stand by the truth

Obedience - We serve with obedience because we are doing a work which is expected of us, our vocation as Christians Our calling as followers of Christ identifies us with Him in the poor", I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me." Mt 25:35-36

Discipleship - We are not volunteers who do what we want but we are disciples who do God’ will in our service for the incarcerated. We are available to be sent to whichever institution or correctional unit that needs our service.

Our Spiritual Goals

RCPM brings the Good News to those in prison. The basis of this mission is underpinned by the theological virtues of faith, hope and love.

RCPM volunteers journey with inmates, ex-offenders and their families in a relationship of faith, hope and love. These virtues are related directly to God, and are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as his children and meriting eternal life. They are the pledge of the presence of His Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being.

How is each virtue necessary for RCPM’s work?

Faith: RCPM strives to impart and share our belief in what God has revealed to us through the Holy Church.

Hope: RCPM helps to nurture, in those we minister to, the expectation of and the desire to receive the riches and promises of Christ in this life and the next.

Love: RCPM sets the example of loving God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.

RCPM endeavors to cultivate these theological virtues in inmates, ex-offenders and their families, as these virtues inform, animate and give life to all the moral virtues.

Thus from the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, RCPM’s Spiritual Goals are borne.

Repentance :

Repentance requires a “conversion of the heart” (ref. CCC 1430). This is an interior conversion which requires a reorientation of the inmate’s life, a return to God, an end of sin, a turning away from sin and repugnance of sin, with hope in God’s mercy and trust in the help of His grace (CCC 1431).

Healing & Return to the Father

Conversion is first of all the work of the grace of God who makes the heart return to Him. God gives the strength to begin anew. (CCC 1432).

Through our visits, we strive to achieve this conversion of heart and return to the Father and for the inmates to be fruitful members of the body of Christ.

Footnote: CCC – Catechism of the Catholic Church

Our Social Goals

Re-Integration

For inmates, prison visitations provide them support in their journey of conversion towards Christ. RCPM volunteers seek to impart the concept that one is valuable in a community that strives to know and love God intimately in order to be responsible members of society.

For ex-offenders, RCPM offers continued spiritual support in their journey of faith. RCPM seeks to provide them, in life after prison, with a continued sense of community and support. Integral to our mission, RCPM helps them in the material sense, in key intervention areas such as financial need, employment needs, relationship and in communication skills and parenting, through a formalized structure of information and referral.

Unlike a secular organization which focuses solely on material needs, RCPM brings salvation to the ex-offender and family by addressing the whole person - his spiritual, psychological and the material needs.

Inmates, ex-offenders and their families whom RCPM ministers to, come from a wide spectrum of society with differences in culture, age, spiritual maturity and socio-economic conditions. RCPM volunteers tailor the conduct of sessions to suit the needs and condition of those they are ministering to, and in this way, relate to them at a truly inter-personal level. We believe this approach facilitates deeper conversion.

Whoever teaches must become "all things to all men" (I Cor 9:22), to win everyone to Christ. . . Above all, teachers must not imagine that a single kind of soul has been entrusted to them, and that consequently it is lawful to teach and form equally all the faithful in true piety with one and the same method! Let them realize that some are in Christ as newborn babes, others as adolescents, and still others as adults in full command of their powers.... Those who are called to the ministry of preaching must suit their words to the maturity and understanding of their hearers.

Minimize the Rate of Recidivism

As an organization that is concerned for the spiritual well being of the inmate and ex-offender, RCPM seeks to affect true repentance and conversion in the hearts of those they minister to. RCPM nurtures their spiritual journey in the firm belief that it is solely through the power of Christ that anyone’s heart is transformed for the better. It is in this hope that RCPM envisions that those we journey with will turn away from a life of crime permanently, and their recidivism rate will be minimized.

Report abuse