“Women Leaving Prison: Justice-Seeking Spiritual Support for Female Returning Citizens”Professor Jill Snodgrass, Loyola University Maryland The rate of imprisonment in the U.S. is higher than that of any other nation, and each year approximately 700,000 individuals face numerous barriers to successful reentry. This presentation offers insight into the spiritual and religious experiences of returning sisters and outlines how people of faith can welcome and care for returning sisters by engaging in Project Sister Connect, a model for revised prison ministry praxis that is grounded in the Two Feet of Love in Action and the Catholic Social Tradition. Project Sister Connect aims to facilitate successful reentry through spiritual care and the eradication of structural injustices.
“Moreau College Initiative: Preferential Option for the Incarcerated Poor”Sheila McCarthy, Ph.D. and
Alesha D. Seroczynski, Ph.D., Holy Cross College The problem of mass incarceration in America begins with poverty and race. According to the Brookings Institution (2018), rural, low-income Whites and inner-city Blacks and Latinos suffer disproportionate effects of American criminal justice policy. Holy Cross College and the University of Notre Dame have developed the Moreau College Initiative (MCI) to combat the disproportionate effects of race and poverty in the penal system by offering an excellent undergraduate liberal arts education to incarcerated men at Westville Correctional Facility. In this session, you will learn more about MCI and its efforts to combat poverty and racism in the penal system through education.
“A Preferential Option for the Incarcerated? Catholic Higher Education as a Potential Solution”Julie A. O’Heir, Saint Louis University This paper will establish incarceration as a predominant force in enforcing poverty, address what higher education inside prisons is and does, and call upon Catholic colleges and universities to create radically inclusive communities by providing access to higher education resources, thus providing a praxis for the preferential option for the poor so often taught on these campuses. An examination of the Prison Education Program at Saint Louis University will serve as an example for how this social institution prioritizes the needs of the poor and makes Catholic higher education accessible to those systematically excluded from this and similar institutions.
