Confirmations, Baptisms held at TDCJ Ramsey prison unit

ROSHARON — On May 27, Daniel Cardinal DiNardo confirmed 10 men at the TDCJ Ramsey prison unit in Rosharon. Three others were baptized.

For several months before the actual Confirmation, volunteers with the Office of Correctional Ministries prepared the men for the journey of learning and discerning their new choices in life. Much hard work and some expected and unexpected delays pushed the actual Confirmation back several months.

“In prison, you become complacent with delays and sometimes the wrong answer, no,” Deacon Alvin Lovelady, director of the Office of Correctional Ministries, said.
The volunteers preparing these men were determined to see this through, and along with the delays from everywhere, including the Office of Correctional Ministries trying to get paperwork completed, they managed to get a date suitable for everyone.

“We went from 14 men to 10 due to transfers, a normal issue we have with the prisons, and the final number was set,” Deacon Lovelady said. “Then, two weeks before Confirmation, some men were transferred out while others were transferred in, and the paperwork was a nightmare, but we were back on track with nine to confirm just a few days away from this glorious occasion.”

Deacon Lovelady said one of the men who transferred out only two weeks before the Confirmation was transferred back to the Ramsey unit three days before the Confirmation.

“In our last phone conversation Friday, May 26, I told Father Mark Hebert, Cardinal DiNardo’s priest secretary, that I would confirm with him Saturday morning at the prison if we still had 10 to confirm and three to baptize. It just gets cut that close sometimes,” Deacon Lovelady said.

Because of the Baptisms and the celebration of new life, Cardinal DiNardo went to white for the vestments instead of red as we had planned, he said.

“The day was truly a blessing and a new beginning,” Deacon Lovelady said.