Concern both for hostages and for Cuban detainees inside the Atlanta federal penitentiary touched Catholics this week, who had friends and relatives working there, and who went to the prison weekly to visit and pray with the detainees.

A special Mass Tuesday night at Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Atlanta for all those endangered led a number of people from the Hispanic Catholic community, who regularly go inside the prison, to travel to the tense, frustrated gathering outside penitentiary walls. They prayed with the wives and children gathered outside the grim, gray building.

Among the approximately 90 people held hostage inside the penitentiary were the Catholic chaplain, Father Raymond G. Dowling, 57, who began working there in May; the Presbyterian chaplain Russ Mabry; a teacher, Manual Echevarria, from Corpus Christi parish in Stone Mountain, who worked at the prison; and a young guard, Julio Torres-Rivera, 26, from St. Philip Benizi parish in Jonesboro.

Father Dowling, a priest of the diocese of Green Bay, WI, was appointed Catholic Chaplain in May. A Wisconsin native, bilingual in Spanish, he worked in parishes in Mexico in the early 1980s and "loves the Mexican people," said Sister Pilar Dalmau, ACJ, who saw him regularly during her visits to the detainees at the penitentiary each Thursday night. Father Dowling also works with the sisters in the Grant Park area of Atlanta where some families of detainees have come to live, and where other poor Hispanics live.

Julio Torres-Rivera began working at the penitentiary a few months ago, according to his father, after coming out of the Army. Reported to be one of those barricaded at the prison hospital, he was able to call out to another guard to "call home and tell my family I'm okay," early in the siege.

Prayers for detainees and hostages were said at both the Mass, celebrated by Father Carlos Riofrio, and at the candlelight vigil outside the prison.

Sister Pilar, head of the Hispanic Apostolate of the archdiocese, was outside the prison for several hours Tuesday during the period when several hundred inmates, Cuban and American were taken away in buses after surrendering to authorities.

Shortly after the arrival of the Catholic group Tuesday night, two more busloads left the prison. She moved to a spot closer the McDonough Boulevard, so as to be seen in case any of the men she prays with weekly happened to be in the buses.

In an interview Tuesday, Sister Pilar, a Cuban herself, said she could understand the frustration and fear of detainees fearing they would be returned to Cuba. "This news was like a big blow" to the detainees, she said. "They can't expect anything from Castro."

In Cuba, she said, they have "no freedom, no hope, no future. They are young … that's why they are fighting … for their freedom."

Outside the prison, the group congregated with some of the wives and children of detainees. Father Edd Salazar, SJ, of Ignatius House retreat center, suggested to one wife that perhaps the women and children would like to join the group in prayer. She readily agreed and went about through the group distributing prayer sheets the priest had brought with him.

The sound of voices in prayer soon drew a phalanx of television and newspaper reporters and cameramen, and the curious. Prayers in Spanish and English -- from Isaiah, the Psalms, Jeremiah and Luke -- and the Rosary were spoken. Candles illuminated the faces of the men, women and children asking God's protection on both the detainees and their hostages. Singing of the hymn, "Alabare," ended the prayer vigil.

During the prayers, forlorn children knelt beside their mothers. One young woman drew her small son closer to her as the toddler called out for "Daddy," several times. A little boy sitting on a low wall observed the scene with sad eyes. Mirta Garcia, huddled in blankets in her wheelchair, held her prayer sheet and prayed along with the others. She had been keeping vigil since shortly after the prison takeover Monday morning. She vowed to remain there until she had some word of her husband, Dagobeeto Figueroa, who has spent five years in the prison.

The prayer vigil, Sister Pilar said, seemed to calm the wives. Supported by prayer and the presence of faithful volunteers who had regularly visited their husbands in prison, they seemed to lose the aggressive disposition they had shown earlier.

And why did members of the Hispanic community drive to the prison after the Mass at IHM? "They need to know we are with them," say Mercy Pinacas and Lily Delgado, both of St. Philip Benizi in Jonesboro. The women have been coming to the prison on Wednesdays for 18 months. They attend Mass with the men. Afterward they pray and share the Bible with them and listen to their hopes and frustrations.

"They are tired of waiting with no hope," Mrs. Pinacas said. "They have had no calendar" for five or seven years.

Father Riofrio said he had been asked to pray for the Cubans and the hostages and decided to celebrate Mass on Tuesday evening. Father Mauro Mourlot, parochial vicar at St. Anthony's Church, concelebrated. Father Mourlot, who visits the prison regularly, told the Mass congregation that he was advised by the guards not to enter the prison when he arrived Monday morning.

Deacons Arturo Mimenez and Evelio Garcia-Carrera participated and Sister Olivia Cardenas, RFR, led the hymn singing.

(This report was compiled by staff members Paula Day, Rita McInerney and Gretchen Keiser.)