New Catholics have tears of joy at baptisms

Published: September 11, 2010

By Patricia May
Fayetteville Correspondent

FAYETTEVILLE -- Two women were welcomed into the Church recently with a priest, a seven-member choir and a dozen other observers. Their baptism was unusual in that it didn't take place in a church but in a prison.

The two women, Vicky Anglin and Tessa Plum, are both inmates at the Northwest Arkansas Community Corrections Center in Fayetteville. As of Aug. 12, they're both baptized and confirmed Catholics.

The women attended Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults sessions conducted weekly since late last year by Bernadette Slammons and Rosie Petroconis. RCIA is an outgrowth of a prison ministry program begun early last year by Michael Huber, a Greenland police officer and parishioner at St. Joseph Church.

St. Joseph pastor Father John Antony baptized the women in a special Mass attended by several other inmates as well as ministry volunteers. The women were tearful, even before the Mass began. Unsure if the women had been baptized before, Father Antony said the Catholic baptisms would ensure that there are proper records now.

Slammons said other inmates come and go to the RCIA sessions but Anglin and Plum were ready to be accepted into the Church.

"Vicky's been up since 2 (a.m.) crying and (Tessa's) been crying since we've been here," she said.

They are the first inmates to come into the Church through the RCIA sessions, held each Friday afternoon by Slammons and Petroconis. The volunteers make sure that inmates who are released from the correctional center have contacts so they can continue their studies if they wish.

The volunteers try to reach the inmates, which are all non-violent offenders, in a variety of ways. Earlier this year, they showed the 1953 Alfred Hitchcock film, "I Confess," starring Montgomery Clift as a priest who refuses to break the seal of confession and becomes a murder suspect himself as a result.

At least two other inmates attended the Aug. 12 Mass although neither was Catholic. Attendance at the prayer sessions held weekly by the larger group of volunteers varies from just a handful of inmates to a packed house when John Michael Talbot made a special appearance.