By Gretchen Keiser

Last week the tall barricaded windows of the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary glowed with the light of fires set inside by Cuban inmates in the latest and most serious prison disturbance.

At the same time Father Joseph Fahy, a Spanish-speaking Passionist priest, and Max Munoz, a parishioner at Immaculate Heart of Mary parish and a Cuban, were inside the prison. It was the time for their regular Thursday visit to the prison, a schedule which had seen disturbances and a clamp-down by prison officials.

Normally Father Fahy, Mr. Munoz and a small group of other Hispanic laymen come to the inmates on Thursdays for Mass and a small Bible study and prayer meeting. The work, and other efforts by priests and laymen on other days during the week, are a small light burning in an area of the archdiocese overshadowed by great frustration, anger and difficulty.

There are about 1,500 Cuban men in the penitentiary right now, according to those visitors and the lawyers who represent the Cuban group. They are a tiny percentage of thousands of Cubans who fled the islands in 1980 in a wave of boats to Florida that became known as the Freedom Flotilla. Because they left from Mariel Harbor, those who came are also called “Marielitos.”

The refugee wave was unexpected by U.S. officials and hurried preparations to deal with it in Florida still resulted in confusion and difficulty. The numbers who came in are still disputed, estimated at anywhere from 115,000 to 150,000.

Out of that large number, it is the minority who have always attracted the most attention and negative publicity—the small number who have been in prison either from the beginning or in the years since they arrived in the United States.

The resettlement of the Freedom Flotilla is actually “one of the great success stories” of refugee resettlement, said Dale Schwartz, an immigration lawyer who was one of two appointed by a federal judge in 1980 to represent the jailed Cubans. He estimated that about 60,000 of the Cubans were resettled by the U.S. Catholic Conference alone.

Yet the good news of resettlement for over 100,000 people cannot help with the plight of those 1,500 who are in the federal penitentiary here.

Out of that group, an estimated 300 to 400 have been in jail since they arrived in Florida four years ago and are judged to be either criminally dangerous or mentally disturbed. The other 1,000 to 1,100 have been sent to the federal penitentiary from other parts of the country. According to Schwartz and others involved in their plight, these men generally have been arrested for crimes in other parts of the U.S. and have already served the terms they were given.

Then, after having served jail terms, their immigration status in the U.S. as “parolees” is revoked, and they are sent to the penitentiary in Atlanta indefinitely.

Their status and future are uncertain. The U.S. government has expressed a desire to try to return them to Cuba, but Judge Marvin Shoob of the U.S. District Court recently ruled in favor of the lawyers representing those jailed. The lawyers charged that the men would be persecuted if they were sent back to Cuba. The lawyers are trying to obtain political asylum status for them in the U.S. Judge Shoob has ordered the Immigration and Naturalization Service to reopen hearings on political asylum.

Even if their status is clarified, their release from jail is still in the hands of the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service. Each person is individually reviewed and considered for possible release by these agencies and, if rejected, must wait six months to a year for another review.

“Some have gone through three and four times,” said Sue Grescoviak, coordinator for the Cuban resettlement program for the U.S. Catholic Conference. “It’s a slow process.”

The U.S. Catholic Conference is one of a small group of agencies who have received grants for structured programs to aid released Cubans by the federal government. Right now, in one of the two halfway houses run by the U.S.C.C., they are waiting for seven men to be released from Atlanta. “Right now there are more slots available than there are men to fill them,” Ms. Grescoviak said. “We’ve been waiting for three or more months.”

The number at the penitentiary is not static. Hundreds of men have been released and resettled out of the penitentiary since 1980, but new arrivals have taken their place. This process is expected to continue as Cubans finishing jail terms elsewhere are sent to Atlanta.

Right now those who are judged ready for release are sent into structured programs either under the U.S. Public Health Service for those with acute mental problems or under the Community Relations Service for those who need to be living in a structured environment, but who do not need mental health treatment. U.S.C.C. operates two programs in the second category.

Among the problems hampering the release program right now are great community resistance to the establishment of new programs for those with mental health problems, said Gregory Smith, a spokesman for the Community Relations Service in Washington, D.C. Also during recent disturbances at the penitentiary, officials have not been able to get in to conduct their review hearings at all, he noted. And, perhaps most significantly, the number of men having their parole revoked around the country has risen, which has caused the population of the penitentiary to grow quickly in recent months.

All of this contributes to a sense of frustration and uncertainly, say those who visit the prison. The Catholic priests and laymen who go inside are permitted to visit two of four large cellblocks. Cellblock B, where the disturbance broke out last week, is not one of those they are permitted to enter.

One group visits on Monday evenings and has been showing a series of films on the life of Jesus. Another visits on Thursdays and a team of Father Fahy and a layman walk along the cellblock, stopping at each cell to talk and, if the man is agreeable, to say a brief prayer. There is also a group who attend Sunday Mass at the prison and who stay afterward to lead a Bible study and discussion group.

Father Walter Halaburda, the Catholic prison chaplain, “has been very generous in encouraging people to come in,” Father Fahy said.

Yet the numbers of those who visit compared to the needs and numbers of the Cuban men in jail make faith an essential part of the ministry.

“Walking down the corridor is an exercise in faith,” Father Fahy said. “You feel so inadequate. There are so many and those who are able to work with them at the moment are so few. You have to believe the Lord has ways of multiplying your efforts.”

As the team walks down the cellblock, the men ahead can see through their mirrors that the group is coming, he said, so they try to keep moving and reach as many as possible. Conversation centers around the man’s homeplace in Cuba, his relatives and family and a strong word of encouragement is given to him to attend English classes and vocational training in prison. Cuban laymen like Mr. Munoz and Adolfo Casal are often able to talk about the man’s hometown, even his street and neighborhood, Father Fahy said.

“Then we always pray with them and ask them if they would like to pray in their own way. The idea is that they will begin to pray and that the Lord is always present with them, never busy or distracted. And that prayer has its own way of healing.”

The cellblock ministry reaches hundreds. Perhaps 60 or 70 men leave their cells to come to Mass, Father Fahy said, and a smaller group stay for study and further prayer. Yet he sees a great need despite the small numbers.

“We’re trying to attend to almost the most spiritually needy in our midst,” he said. “Somehow we have to try to serve them and minister to them. The community is called to at least attend to them.”