Two prisoners — one of them a former member of Comando Vermelho, a major Brazilian criminal organization — received the sacraments of Christian initiation (baptism, Eucharist, and confirmation) on Sunday, July 26, at the Gameleira 2 maximum-security state menʼs penitentiary in Campo Grande, Brazil.

Both men received the sacraments after two years of catechesis provided by the prison ministry of the Archdiocese of Campo Grande.

“What is the primary objective of prison ministry? Education, celebration, and life in the faith,” explained Said Brandão Sayd, the ministry’s coordinator, in an interview with ACI Digital, the Portuguese-language sister service of EWTN News.

“Our principal goal is to have a Catholic community within the prison — to ensure that people, even amid all those difficulties, receive the Church’s help and can effectively leave that place or live there in a state of grace,” he added.

The sacraments were administered by Father Álisson Muryel, the ecclesiastical adviser for the prison ministry in the Archdiocese of Campo Grande, an area that, according to Brandão, has 11 prisons and nearly 10,000 inmates. The ministry is “present in all the prisons,” he said.

Without going into details regarding the personal information of the prisoners who received the sacraments, Brandão noted that one of them is single and “due to leave soon.”

“He wants to rebuild his life; he wants to do it differently,” Brandão said.

The other man, “who is staying longer,” is in “a stable relationship but wants to receive the sacrament of marriage.”

The coordinator explained that “in the second half of the year,” they are going to “prepare him for this sacrament.”

Brandão told ACI Digital that there is a team of catechists, supported by a parish, at every prison in the archdiocese. “Our meetings always follow this pattern, prioritizing catechesis,” he said. “Above all else, the Catholic Church needs to go in there [into the prison] and proclaim the message,” he added.

According to Brandão, it is not enough simply to “offer a hug” or “be deeply concerned about human rights, important as that is ... But if you don’t speak about Jesus in there, who will?”

“Without that, there is no conversion,” he affirmed.

According to Brandão, there are prisons where the pastoral team is able to be present every week, while in others, due to scheduling restrictions, meetings take place every two weeks.

“Since it is organized by cellblock, the blocks cannot be mixed. So, we go in, visiting two blocks one week, another two the next, and carry out the work there in that way,” Brandão explained.

Through this process, the inmates follow a program lasting one or two years, depending on the frequency of the monthly catechesis sessions.

During the meetings, they work on the four dimensions of the faith: the creed, the commandments, prayer, and the sacraments. That period of preparation, Brandão noted, is intended to ensure the inmate “is aware of what he is receiving, and embraces it ... it is a great responsibility to prepare them so they understand what the faith is.”

However, Brandão pointed out, providing good catechesis is pointless without the sacraments, and that is why a monthly Mass is held at the prison. At Gameleira 2, Mass is celebrated once a month in one of the four cellblocks. “So, each block has three Masses a year,” he explained.

Mass is preceded by a time of confession for those who have already received the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist.

After the prisoners are released from the correctional facility, pastoral care workers encourage them to continue attending a parish near their homes.

“We do not know what is happening in each person’s heart, but the Word is reaching them, and the Gospel is being proclaimed,” Brandão concluded.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.