By Rite McInerney

Father Ray Dowling, chaplain at the federal prison in Atlanta and a hostage all through the 11 days Cuban detainees held the facility, is now a “circuit rider” two days each week.

He travels in his compact station wagon to Fort Gordon near Augusta, Ga., and to the federal correctional institute at Talladega, Ala. There are 70 men to visit at Talladega. They were among the detainees who left the penitentiary voluntarily the first two days of the takeover by fellow Cubans. Another 170, among the last to be taken out, are now confined to the previously empty military barracks at the Army base in Georgia.

He goes from cell to cell, ministering to them with prayer and counsel and listening. Their living conditions “are not commodious,” he said. They are housed two to a small cell, have one hour of exercise and are allowed showers every day. They can see family members who are on an approved list.

He described their mood as “hopeful.” He brings them magazines, paperbacks and pamphlets printed in Spanish collected by Sister Pilar Dalmau, A.C.J., and volunteers working with her in the Hispanic Apostolate. The men also ask for “Peoples (People)” magazine, the popular weekly, Father Dowling said.

On Jan. 14, Sister Dalmau, Sister Laura Zambrana, A.C.J., Mrs. Lily Delgado and Mrs. Mercy Pinacas, faithful volunteers who had prayed with the detainees regularly inside the Atlanta prison, drove to Augusta to participate in a closed circuit television Mass celebrated by Father Dowling for the Cubans at Fort Gordon.

The Liturgy was celebrated in a small visitors’ room from which the group could see just the end cells. Detainees viewed the Mass from their cells on a television set in the cooridor, and prayed and sang with the celebrants. The Mass and the presence of their friends was “dearly appreciated” by the men, the priest said.

He goes to the Alabama facility one week, Fort Gordon the next. Three days a week, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, he is at the penitentiary in Atlanta. The inmate population now there is several hundred American prisoners helping to clean up the devastation carried out by the Cubans during the takeover. All of the men volunteered and were transferred from other prisons.

He celebrates Mass on Sunday morning in the prison and then goes to the adjacent camp for the Liturgy there. He is hopeful that he and Presbyterian chaplain Russ Mabry will be able to resume activities in the chapel area by mid-February.

Hearings promised to the detainees by the agreement which ended the takeover have not yet begun. “They were supposed to start about three weeks ago but the government didn’t have the personnel,” Father Dowling said. One of the inmates told him the hearings may begin around Feb. 8.

“The FBI has been investigating. It’s the federal police force. They want to get that done before the hearings begin,” the chaplain said. “You can’t pretend it didn’t happen. There were millions and millions of dollars in damages. It’s a police investigation, a very factual investigation.”

None of the detainees he visits express remorse over the takeover. Some now at Fort Gordon, he said, apologized to him during the siege. “They felt so desperate. No one was paying any attention to them,” he said in defense of men terrified at the prospect of being returned to Castro’s Cuba.

What about his own feelings, the after effects of being held hostage? “Bitterness is not the word, anger is not the word. I wish it hadn’t happened. But I’m glad I was there. I thank God I was able to be of some help.” He contrasted his situation to coming upon a serious accident, with people inured. While being very sorry the accident had to happen, he would be glad “to be able to give aid as a priest.”

He suffered no ill effects, no loss of sleep since his release. “I dream about the Cubans once in a while, not in a riot context,” but in other settings, he admitted.

Public radio was his salvation during the takeover. One of the detainees gave the priest his Walkman. “I’d be sitting in my office with the headset on, listening to Bach or Beethoven and thinking about the incongruity of it all. Asking myself ‘what is real?” he recalled.

Father Dowling, 57, arrived at the Atlanta penitentiary last May after being recruited to work with the Cuban detainees. “My interest is in working with the Spanish-speaking. I want to continue working with them” he said. Despite the perilous situation he was placed in late last year, he said he enjoys prison ministry.