By Rita McInerney

Father Juan Alers calls his appointment as Catholic chaplain at the federal prison in Atlanta an “Epiphany gift,” because he learned of it on Jan. 6.

His experience in prison work began when he was a deacon in the Archdiocese of Boston. “I was called to teach English to the Latin population and I finished by teaching Spanish to the English-speaking,” he says with a smile.

Since then he has worked in prisons in his native Puerto Rico, a number of Central American countries, Spain and in several states in the U.S.

He made a promise to serve in the prison ministry when he conducted a Holy Week service in a Puerto Rican prison in 1969, the year of his ordination.

After studying spirituality and liturgy in Colombia, in 1985, he wrote to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons about a chaplaincy. When they talked to him about a post in the Atlanta prison, he called Father Jorge Christancho, parochial vicar at St. Philip Benizi in Jonesboro, who had studied in Puerto Rico. Father Christancho encouraged him to take the position if it was offered him.

When he did receive the offer, he was given encouragement and a welcome to the archdiocese from Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan.

Two of the women who worked with Father Alers on the first marriage enrichment program on Sept. 5 and 6 at the prison, spoke of his ability to make things happen for his “parishioners.” Mary Ellen Hughes, of the Office of Family Concerns at the Catholic Center, says “He is dynamite. He pushed me, he pushed us as a team, and he pushed the prison system. He pushes you like a concrete boulder.”

Kathy Foos, a team member, calls him “a positive thinker. If you tell him something can’t be done, he will say ‘Let me explain to you how it can be done.’ His overall long-range vision is to change the prison system. If anyone can do it, he can.”

Father Alers credits the new warden, J.S. Petrovsky, who came in July, with willingness to try new programs, and the volunteers who aid him in the prison ministry. He says he needs more volunteers who will come into the prison. “For those who can’t come into the prison, we need their prayers for our ministry,” he adds.

Letters that came to him and to the warden last week, both from the prisoners and members of the volunteer team for the marriage enrichment weekend, encourage him. The prisoners mentioned discovering that “there are people out there who love us,” having a “different outlook on my stay here,” “a beautiful experience with some Christian people.” A letter from two team members mentioned their feeling of both “sadness and love and the new sense of kinship” they share with the men.