I Was in Prison and You Visited Me. (Matthew 25:36)
By Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB

Getting a little bit short with Roman Catholicism these days. Why doesn’t “the Church” speak out against the evils of our time, such as torture by democratic regimes? What about the acceptability of lying? Can’t Holy Mom Church say “Enough already with media spin, and go wash your sorry mouth out”?

Why don’t curates use the pulpit to give kids a bit of the old fire and brimstone routine about their disgraceful treatment of their parentals? My main beef is that clergy don’t tie in obvious messages from the Gospel anymore. I am so sick of reading what goes on in prisons. For instance, the one at Vaccaville, California would put Japan’s war criminals to shame for human medical experimentation.

If you are a prisoner in Vaccaville you may as well say your body belongs to research, including research on pain and fear AS SUCH. And I’m only talking about the proper prisons. No one can say what happens to persons who get “rendered.” (Actually, Maher Arar of Canada did say what happened to him when we rendered him somewhere. And it was only his wife’s big mouth that saved him.)

In my “CDC” class – nah, seriously, I didn’t have to get “released time” to go to Christian Doctrinal C, whatever the word is; I was holding the fort in parochial land from grades 3 thru 12 and then, yes, college. Anyway, in catechism class we heard this: “I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was sick and imprisoned and you visited me.” It’s at Matthew, Chapter 25.

The gist was that you should do this for some poor, ragged bloke and Jesus would accept it as having been done for Him. It led to rules of the Church, in which we became obliged, I repeat obliged, to do such things as visit the sick and the imprisoned.

Well I’m well nigh on 68 years old and I have yet to visit a prison. (I visited Port Arthur prison in Tasmania after it was abandoned). This is terrible. The Church should have organized a bus every Saturday for parishioners to go do their duty.

What a difference that would have made to our sense of what life is like in a place where cruelty can’t be seen, where you are fair game for all bullies and perverts and sadists. Not to mention pan-opticon operators. Do you know what a stun-belt is? Apparently Jeremy Bentham would approve.

OK, Folks, it’s not too late. You can get on the bandwagon now and start to make your snoopy eyes felt. This rant on my part started when I only found out, by accident today, that a certain doctor named Aubrey Levin, who was famous for rather unspeakable human rights violations in South Africa, found his way to Canada and got himself appointed Forensic Psychiatrist in a prison. Translate: Forensic Dispenser of Whatever Cruelty He Felt Like on a Given Day.

That’s how it is, and that’s why Jesus H Christ said “I was in prison and you visited me.” Please see my discussion of how to deal with the Aubrey Levins of this world. It’s in an article entitled “Blame Doctors for Medical Crime” at gumshoenews.com.

Now here’s Johnny Cash at San Quentin. 17 milllion hits so far. Almost like parishioners making a visit:

Mary W Maxwell, awfully Catholic, is a graduate of Adelaide Law School in Australia. See Trine Day Press for her forthcoming book, Fraud Upon the Court.