Inmates, Officers, Catholics, and Other Benefit

“Sometimes we give them Bibles, and they tatter them so much from chronic use that we have to give them new ones,” said Deacon Corky Hecht. He is the former Director of Prison Ministry for the Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida. Deacon Corky continues as a volunteer corrections chaplain in prison ministry for 38 major prisons and 17 jails.

When appointed to the position in 2017, the first people he was introduced to were from the Order of Malta. They also introduced him to the availability of Order of Malta Bibles and Prayer Books. “Many times the story we hear from inmates is that their imprisonment was a wakeup call from God,” he said. “One of the things they get motivated to do is to use their time to draw closer to Him. For many inmates, the best way to do that is to have a copy of the Word that they can easily access.” The availability of Order of Malta Bibles makes that possible. “The joy we see on their faces from being able to highlight passages; oftentimes when we go to their cells, they’ll be quoting Scripture back to us, and many of them become very, very good Scripture scholars,” he said.

The books are not only available to Catholic inmates. Deacon Hecht and the volunteers who work with him give Order of Malta Bibles to other Christian inmates who ask for them, as well as the corrections officers working in the prison. “When officers ask us for an Order of Malta Bible, it really moves us,” he said. “We’re there for a few hours, but these guys are there 24/7. It’s great to be able to give them something that helps them get through their day and to keep them walking forward with the Lord.”

What Deacon Corky finds particularly moving is when someone wants to become Catholic. “We talk about the Mass, we talk about Christ’s gift of himself in the Eucharist as being the way that He can be alive to us generation after generation. The Scriptures are the retelling of Christ’s mission, and we are able to share that mission with them through the bibles from the Order of Malta.”

For more information about the American Association’s Prison Ministry Program, contact Craig Gibson, Chair of the Prison Ministry Committee at cbgibson@comcast.net.