By Rita McInerney, Staff Writer

PHILADELPHIA--Monday mornings Sister Peter Claver tutors prisoners at the Philadelphia Industrial Correction Center, a short ride from her motherhouse. Among the inmates she walks and talks softly and carries a roomy tote bag filled with books and a few little surprises.

She is one of 34 tutors who volunteer in five Philadelphia prisons under the sponsorship of the Criminal Justice Ministry of Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

William Childs, 27, has been her student for five weeks. They meet in an area where computer instruction, reading, history, spelling, science and art are taught by public school teachers and volunteers. Some inmates are prepping for their high school equivalency tests, others are boning up to repeat a failed test.

Three tutors with individual students meet in an art classroom. There is a long table with chairs where the nun and another woman work with their students. A man and his student sit along the back wall of the room.

Childs is a good student, Sister Peter Claver says. A bullet pierced his spine two years ago and now “he has to depend on his brain, which is very good...He needs confidence in himself.”

The two begin with a spelling review. After a time, Sister Peter Claver digs into her tote bag and hands a prayer card to Childs. “Let’s say the Our Father,” she suggests. They bow their heads and pray together quietly.

“I have a diary upstairs that I write to God in,” William Childs says.

Sister Claver’s tote also contains hard candy for him. Childs grins at her gift and says that he’ll save the candy to eat later in his cell.

He enjoys his lessons in modern American history. “She relates to events,” like World War II and the military draft. “Since I can’t use my physical body, she wants me to use my mind. I’d like to have her teach me every day of the week.”

Before the lesson is finished, Childs returns to his cell for some samples of his self-taught artwork and comes back with pencil sketches of singer Janet Jackson, a child, some rappers. He says he’s been drawing all his life.

Sister Peter Claver encourages him with promises to bring him sketching paper. But he is gone by her next visit. This ministry is “elusive,” she says and it’s hard to learn from prison staffers what happens to students.

Yet she knows from letters she received, there are a lot of people who care and want to help prisoners and those who have served time for their crimes.

A grieving mother wrote from Kansas City, Mo., after reading an article about this prison volunteer in a national Catholic newspaper.

Her son was killed in a drive-by shooting. Even with her personal heartbreak she believes men and women in prison “need compassion and concern,” and she tries to “get others to see the wrongness of the death penalty.”

She told Sister Peter Claver, “I argued with the D.A. that I didn’t want the death penalty or life in prison for the two young men involved in Robert’s tragic death. I know how he (Robert) felt about the time he spent locked up. I also remember how he felt when someone shared our Lord with him. Maybe someone like you will touch the lives of the young men serving time for Robert’s death.”

Her disappointments can be sweetened with joy. Chris, now paroled, passed his QED test with her helpful tutoring. During their sessions, he talked about his sister Jeanie; he wanted her to meet his tutor. When Jeanie did come to the motherhouse of the Missionary Servants of the Blessed Trinity she told Sister Peter Claver that she had never been confirmed. Here was a situation the nun could change, and Jeanie and her boyfriend Eddie visited on Tuesday nights for religious instruction.

December 13 was a day to remember. “Jeanie and Eddie were confirmed. Chris walked in at the middle of Mass (at St. Malachy’s in the inner city). I was so surprised when someone put their arms around me.”

It was Chris. That very day he had received his equivalency diploma. “He was beside himself with joy. It was a great afternoon.” At the reception afterward, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua chatted with the confirmands and posed for photos with them.

Sister Peter Claver gives credit for this evangelization to Chris. “He is the missionary. He told me about her.”

Sister Peter Claver has a dream and lots of friends to help her make it a reality. They want to create base Christian communities among homeless people living in shelters.

“We’re making slow progress,” she nun acknowledged. “The model is already in place. It’s been done by a couple of sisters in a shelter in New York City.”

Before she began tutoring at the new correctional facility, Sister Peter Claver shared God’s message at Holmesburg Prison, an older jail. Here, with other volunteers, Religious and lay, she welcomes inmates to a prayer group where they studied Scripture for the coming Sunday. They met in a locked cell in the psychiatric block.

“Men came no matter what their religion.” The inmates took responsibility and “would give reflections from their own life experiences.”

An outside development of this group came because the volunteers wanted to stay within the law. Houses of hospitality where they could live for an interim period and develop skills to hold jobs were begun by Trinitarian Brother Joseph Dudek for men, and Sister Virginia Jenkins, SSJ, for women.

“We were concerned that prisoners would not go back to their old habits,” Sister Peter Claver said.