The inmates find themselves relating to family, friends, and community with caution, shame and guilt. Some no longer have the support of family, friends, and community. They are forced to reevaluate their priorities. Time becomes the focus for prisoners, as motivation and boredom fluctuate. Their thoughts often center on time for meals, recreation, their work or education detail, and perhaps time for chapel and religious activities.
Within society there are caring men and women who respond with great sensitivity to the inmates’ needs. Such a person was Fr. Thomas Comber, CSP (1926-1999), a Paulist Father, who founded PNCEA Prison Ministries in 1994 with outreach to 195 prisons. His efforts have led to a ministry that now reaches approximately 800 of the 4,500 prisons in the United States.
Fr. Comber was in all ways a priest with a mission. Always thinking of new ways to share the good news of Jesus, Fr. Tom was a joyful and sincere man who left those he touched with a lighter heart—and a stronger sense of Christ. Especially those in prison.
Fr. Tom began PNCEA Prison Ministries after retiring from active ministry. While living in retirement at St. Paul’s College in Washington, D.C., he responded to PNCEA President Fr. Kenneth Boyack’s request to answer letters from prisoners who wrote with questions about their faith. In three years, Fr. Tom’s efforts resulted in the creation of PNCEA Prison Ministries in 1994. He had a passion for serving those in prison, recognizing that in helping prisoners, he was serving Christ.
Fr. Tom was always busy. In the 36 years after his ordination in 1955, he served in four parishes and as a chaplain for students at UCLA. He spent nearly half his ministry—16 years—at Paulist Press where he was a tireless and creative promoter of Catholic books and literature. Later, while pastor of St. Lawrence parish in Minneapolis, he did double duty as publisher of the archdiocesan newspaper and tripled its circulation.
Then in 1991, he was forced to retire after the tuberculosis he contracted during wartime Navy service reoccurred. After a short period of recovery, Fr. Tom threw his efforts into prison ministry. Starting from scratch, PNCEA Prison Ministries grew under his care to serve 900 U.S. prisons. He began Let’s Talk! and ¡Hablemos! to reach prisoners more effectively.
Fr. Comber died at age 73 on September 25, 1999, after a two-year struggle with cancer. Not surprisingly, he worked until the last month before his death. He anticipated the prospect of heaven, where he had long set his sights. A Paulist priest for 44 years, director of PNCEA Prison Ministries for five years, and always tirelessly seeking effective ways to share the good news, Fr. Tom left this world better than he found it. May his life of charity and zeal inspire us to generosity and great things.
Since 1999, PNCEA Prison Ministries has continued its outreach to chaplains, volunteers, and inmates across the nation. We rely on the generosity of our donors and the support of foundations to provide this outreach. As we receive requests from prison chaplains who would like to receive our services, we include their prisons as funding permits.
PNCEA Prison Ministries serves the spiritual and religious needs of Catholic inmates in our nation’s prisons, as well as other inmates seeking to know about the Catholic faith and way of life. We provide this service through the chaplains and volunteers ministering in correctional facilities who receive the Bibles, newsletters, prayer cards, and other Catholic religious materials we supply for use in their work. Our material is available at no cost in both English and Spanish.
http://www.prison-ministry.org/
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