By Gretchen Keiser

Prison chaplain Father Raymond Dowling, in an interview 36 hours after being released as a hostage, said that grace and prayer brought Cuban detainees to the negotiating table.

"Faith under grace moved a mountain of impossible attitudes," Father Dowling said, adding that the detainees, who were divided in attitude and splintered at the beginning of the 11-day siege at the Atlanta federal penitentiary, "came to negotiations under the grace of God."

The priest, 57 years old, is from the Green Bay, WI, diocese and only began chaplaincy at the prison in late may. Bilingual in Spanish, he recently served outside his diocese in parishes in Mexico and had not been a prison chaplain before. His interest in working with Hispanics led him to investigate chaplaincy in the Texas penal system and from that inquiry, he eventually was recruited to work with Cubans in the federal penitentiary. But the "parish is my background. That's what I love to do," he said.

In a one-hour interview Dec. 5, Father Dowling briefly described some striking moments from the 11-day period which he characterized as emotionally charged, initially frightening, but also marked by tedium that was relieved for some hostages by watching football games on television.

Indicating that because he is bilingual he spent more time with Cuban detainees as a "pastor," while another chaplain spent more time with hostages, Father Dowling said that he attended some meetings in which Cubans debated their situation and struggled to come to a unified attitude toward government negotiators. Father Dowling was also apparently allowed to speak to the group.

At one critical meeting, 30 Cubans agreed to negotiate with the government, Father Dowling said. "I preach miracles … but I finally saw one," the priest said he told the Cubans after watching the splintered group come to this turning point.

The priest also struggled with his own emotions as he recalled the impassioned speech of one Cuban detainee at a meeting in those heated moments. The Cuban "gave the most beautiful paean to America I've ever heard," the priest said, as the detainee attempted to reconcile how he could have come to this point of conflict with a country he loves so much and idealizes.

Sympathetic to the plight of the detainees, Father Dowling also praised government negotiators for their patience and endurance in the process that led to a peaceful end to the stalemate and release of the last 89 hostages.

The "psychological low point for all of us" came early in the crisis, Father Dowling said, when helicopters swooping around the buildings raised the fear that government troops were going to storm the prison. Those observing outside the prison saw one person come out and shout to police and prison officials to "back off, back off' because they were escalating tension so high inside the prison.

Father Dowling said at one point he was allowed to use a phone that apparently connected Cuban detainees with negotiators outside, and told the voice on the other end to "please call off those helicopters" because of the potential for violence inside.

The priest was one of two chaplains inside the penitentiary when a riot broke out Nov. 23 in response to a plan to deport thousands of the detainees back to Cuba as undesirables.

Presbyterian chaplain Russ Mabry and Father Dowling were allowed free movement by the detainees, the priest said, and were able to visit different groups of hostages held in a number of rooms near the chapel and the prison hospital. The two chaplains were the last two hostages to emerge when the drama finally ended in the early morning hours of Dec. 4. On Thanksgiving Day, they had three prayer services in three different locations for the hostages, Father Dowling said. The priest celebrated Mass for Cuban detainees one, on Sunday, Nov. 29, at their request. He estimated that several hundred detainees came to Mass, which was said for the one detainee killed in the initial moments of rioting.

Both chaplains were being called "padre" or "Father" by the detainees, a title that brought them safety, Father Dowling said. "There wasn't one Cuban who would harm me physically" either because of his clerical role or because of fear of what other detainees would do if the priest was harmed.

Asked if he was able to pray with hostages and detainees, Father Dowling said he had, likening visits he had from various detainees at odd hours of the day and night to the Gospel story of Nicodemus who came to Jesus under cover of darkness.

Prayer was a "good, logical pastoral conclusion to my Cuban Nicodemuses who came in the night" wanting to talk to someone who was "outside of the pressures they were feeling."

Hostages, although basically well treated and well fed, were crowded together in relatively small spaces and suffered from a lack of privacy, Father Dowling said.

One Cuban detainee gave "padre" a "walkman" so he listened to the radio frequently on his headphones, paying particular attention to the news broadcasts on National Public Radio which he believed would provide information "as straight as I could be getting" on the crisis.

He was allowed to stay in his chaplain's office and said that people would stop by and he would invite them to sit in the one large, comfortable chair that was in the room, recognizing that at times they needed to be alone with their thoughts, or to rest while he kept his headphones on. Everyone slept on the floor, some in cramped rooms, until some mattresses were salvaged from other sections of the prison.

As the crisis continued it became colder inside the prison since the heat was not working. Father Dowling said he began sleeping under his desk since it shielded part of his body from cold air coming in from a ceiling vent. The hostages received regular "nutritious" meals prepared by the detainees, he said. One night, he recalled, the mashed potatoes came with a sprig of parsley, almost a humorous note of luxury in otherwise start circumstances.

The drama began on Monday Nov. 23 and Father Dowling said a sense of foreboding was in the air since the Oakdale, LA, facility, where Cuban detainees were being held, had already erupted in response to the report of future deportations to Cuba.

Standing with chaplain Mabry inside the prison, he "heard a shout."

"I said, 'Russ, here it comes.'" Detainees came out of the dining area of the prison, where the riot erupted, like a "surge of humanity," he said.

In the midst of the riot, a man armed with a knife came towards him, the priest recalled. "You hear about 'frozen with fear.' That's what I was."

"All of a sudden I had a huge arm around my neck," and he was being pulled away from the armed detainee by another "very tall, very powerful black Cuban." As the second man dragged him away, he recognized the priest and said, "Oh, you're Father."

"I like to think that he was getting me away" from the armed man, Father Dowling said, but acknowledged in the rush of events he could not be sure exactly why he was grabbed. The priest said he never again felt as threatened during the crisis.

When the negotiated settlement came at the end of 11 days and the hostages were released, the men walked out through a line of Cuban detainees. The progress of the two chaplains was "hampered" as detainees grabbed them in an emotional farewell. Some were crying; "so was I," Father Dowling said. He acknowledged a number of conflicting feelings, heightened for all by the knowledge that the detainees were being sent to other prisons all over the country and some might not see each other again.

As the hostages came out safely, "I carried my heart with them," the priest said. Once he realized they were safe, "I really felt my heart leave the chest cage and go back inside with the Cubans."

The priest, whose immediate future as a chaplain in Atlanta is unclear with the reassignment of the detainees to other facilities, said he might have to "pitch my tent" where some are reassigned.

He carried his crucifix from his office out with him and told the detainees, "this is the last hostage … In freeing him, you have begun to free yourselves."