Along the Way: Diocese jail ministry offers inmates hope, support
When Ravenna’s Bill Barber accepted a 2024 Voice of Hope Award last May from Diocese of Youngstown’s Catholic Charities, he did so on behalf of all the diocesan Prison and Jail Ministry Volunteers.
His sharing the recognition with everyone engaged in the Prison and Jail Ministry was typical for Barber, someone who gets involved not for recognition, but for the mission itself.
Active in the ministry for 10 years, Barber served as coordinator of the volunteers from 2019 to 2022 and now remains involved. According to Rachel Hrbolich, executive director of Catholic Charities for the Youngstown Diocese, Barber strengthened the network of those serving in the prison ministry.
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“When you have volunteers involved in a prison and jail ministry across six counties, it is important to work as a team, and Bill helped us in team-building,” she said.
Barber made it clear he could not accept the award without recognizing the entire ministry.
“We are a loud and beautiful choir of Voices of Hope,” he said. “Our ministry is all about bringing the message of God’s love and reconciliation through Jesus Christ, and giving the incarcerated a sense of hope and trust.”
A retired geologist whose career was mostly with BP, Barber has been an active parishioner at Ravenna’s Immaculate Conception Church. His inspiration to get involved in the Prison and Jail Ministry came during a retreat at the Trumbull Correctional Institute 10 years ago.
Barber has served there ever since, and also picked up a second prison. Between them, Barber volunteers in the prisons eight to 10 days a month. He conducts classes and presides at religious services.
“It comes down to developing and enhancing our relationship with God,” he said. “God meets us where we are and helps us to enter into a deeper relationship with Him.”
The Youngstown Diocese includes Portage, Trumbull, Mahoning, Stark, Ashtabula and Columbiana counties.
In addition to serving the Trumbull Correctional Institute, a state prison in Warren, about 30 volunteers serve in the jails in Portage, Mahoning, Stark and Trumbull counties; Elkton Federal Correctional Institution in Columbiana County; Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown; Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown; and Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Conneaut.
Volunteers include lay men and women, women religious, priests and deacons.
In Portage County, among the volunteers are Anne Moneypenny and Tim DeFrange.
Moneypenny, whose day job is executive assistant at the Kent Area Chamber of Commerce, has been a prison ministry volunteer for 10 years at Trumbull Correctional Institute. She is an active parishioner at Immaculate Conception Parish in Ravenna. She said Deacon Russ Brode’s reading one Sunday of Matthew 25:36 (“I was in prison, and you visited me.”) is what led her to travel State Route 5 to TCI every Monday and Wednesday night.
Over the years, she has helped inmates read, write and engage in general discussions regarding their faith, thus instilling a sense of value, self-esteem and hope. She said she uses the Catholic Bible, Catholic Catechism and other Christian books, along with DVDs. Recently, The Footprints of God Series and The Chosen Series, which the inmates enjoy, has started many discussions.
“We are not just for Catholics,” Moneypenny said. “We welcome all inmates of any Christian or non-Christian faith.”
She said being in a classroom with convicted felons, some of whom will never leave prison, has never frightened her. The inmates, she said, respond positively to the volunteers who help them develop their lives in ways that might not otherwise be available.
She said her favorite saying is “Dear God, You have made a path for our Lives! ... Lead on.”
“And He did,” Moneypenny said. “He led me right into prison.”
Tim DeFrange, a retired school librarian who serves as a permanent deacon at Kent’s St. Patrick Church and Newman Center, became active in prison ministry 26 years ago in 1997 in the months before he was ordained. He said Ravenna’s Fr. Sabatino, director of the permanent diaconate program at the time, asked him to establish a Catholic presence in Portage County’s penal institutions.
At first, he said, the Portage County jail administrator said no open nights were available for Catholics to gather, and that he would need to come in with a non-denominational Protestant group.
He did so for four years until he convinced inmate services that 25% of his jail population was Catholic and needed to receive the sacraments. The jail staff offered Friday evenings for the Catholic ministry, he said. His wife and four children were supportive.
Twenty-plus years later, if it’s Friday night, DeFrange is still at the jail.
“Attendance is voluntary and used to draw as many as 25 in a room,” DeFrange said. Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski limits the group to about 10 per service. “I think it reflects his concern for our safety,” he said.
DeFrange’s team includes 12 men and women and Father Jim Lange, who offers Mass on alternate Fridays for male and female inmates. DeFrange plays hymns on his guitar during services. “Inmates from all Christian backgrounds come to pray with us and are grateful for the encouragement and comfort they receive,” he said.
Each Friday, inmates provide the names of persons for whom they are asking for prayers. DeFrange then sends the names to the women’s group at St. Patrick, which faithfully prays for them and their loved ones.
I asked if he ever was fearful. DeFrange said early in his ministry he was asked to speak alone to an inmate on trial for murder. He felt uncomfortably nervous as he sat alone waiting for the inmate to be brought in. When the inmate entered the room, he was surprised to see that he was a suspect the same age as his oldest daughter.
When the young man sat down across from him, DeFrange took his hand and prayed, “Lord, help me to listen with my heart to this good man.”
The young man started crying and said, “I’m going to hell.”
“No, you’re not,” DeFrange said he responded, and began telling him about the way Jesus forgives everyone. Since that day, he said he has never been afraid.
In addition to the Youngstown Diocese’s Prison and Jail Ministry, Barber a few years ago undertook a new effort, Kolbe Gatherings, that offers former inmates the opportunity to come together for mutual spiritual support. Former inmates, he said, face employment issues and other complications arising from life on the outside.
“While incarcerated, the inmates have a small faith-sharing community, which allows them to lean spiritually on each other,” Barber said. “But outside of prison, they lose that.” The initiative is named for Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest imprisoned at Auschwitz who volunteered to die for a fellow prisoner.
Barber said the volunteers know their limits.
“We cannot save anyone. Jesus Christ does that,” Barber said. “We see them as brothers and sisters in Christ, not defined by the worst period or worst acts of their lives.”
The volunteers he knows have a common experience. “We volunteer to help others, but we get more out of it than we put into it,” he said.
David E. Dix is a former Record-Courier publisher.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Youngstown Diocese jail ministry offers inmates hope, support
