Sustained by Tradition: A Prisoner's Journey of Discovery (Part 1)

How a criminal serving a life sentence has found new life in traditional prayer and penance, offering it up for a criminalized Church

Late in September of 2018, I received a letter from an inmate at a federal prison. After the calendar date at the top was a precise notation: “Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost.” (To respect his privacy, I will say nothing that could reveal his identity or his location. The writing style and grammar is left as it’s found on the handwritten pages.) The prisoner told me that, having discovered the mailing address of Wyoming Catholic College in a newspaper he subscribes to, he decided to write to me:

I write this letter with great apprehension. I know you are a busy man, but I hope you will allow me a few minutes to offer you some words of thanks…. I was sent up to N., to a medium institution. The Holy Spirit began to break my heart. The first crack came on [date] when I, along with my parents, consecrated ourselves to Mary. Getting back to Mass, praying the daily rosary, I encountered a man. For some reason this guy began to discuss our shared faith. But the more we talked, he began to reveal to me that he was not only Catholic—but a traditional “Latin Mass” Catholic. I was repulsed! What ignorance this man must have! After all, “Vatican II” was my rallying cry. And wasn’t Latin a dead language and who wanted to look at the priest’s back during Mass? But I, I was the ignorant one. To my chagrin he presented me with all these back issues of The Latin Mass journal. I told him I would never read these but I’d look at the art. Looking at the art led to reading them all, cover to cover. And my heart melted! I realized how wrong I had been. The articles that gave me pause—the articles that brought tears to my eyes—that challenged my entire belief system—that opened my eyes—they were yours.

Imagine getting a letter like that. My own heart melted, and my eyes were not free of tears either.

He continued:

I just want to say thank you. The Holy Spirit, Jesus, Mary, they are using you to change lives and open hearts. I’ve now read some of your books and am lucky enough to get printouts of some of your articles from 1P5 and NLM sent in. I ask you to please keep writing. Our Church, in these terrible times, needs men like you to proclaim truth, to speak of tradition, to write about the beauty of the usus antiquior. Please be affirmed that there is a huge contingent of men in prison who desire the old rites. I, we, are praying much for you and those that share the task of renewing Holy Mother Church. Even though our world—and sadly those in the Church—work to discredit you and the true faith: I know, as the Introit for the Mass today proclaims, you will be proved true. Thank you again, Dr. Kwasniewski. Please pray for me. Remember me at the Holy Sacrifice.

Whenever I read something like the foregoing passage in a letter of his, it makes me think: “You enemies of tradition in Rome: you have NO IDEA what kind of spiritual forces you are up against.”

Needless to say, I wasn’t about to let such a letter go unreplied to. Initially, I typed my letters (as was my habit with any mailed correspondence), but, as time went on and I received handwritten letter after handwritten letter from the inmate, I realized it would be more meaningful, a more personal gift to him in his confinement, if I were to take the time to write by hand. At the end of 2019, I switched to fountain pen and have kept at it ever since. The prisoner always writes with ballpoint. His verbal mannerisms are now very familiar to me; most of all, his deep thoughts, kindheartedness, and childlike willingness to ask questions make his letters remarkably pure, fresh, humble, and honest.