For seven months, Deacon Chuck McNeil served as San Quentin’s Assistant Catholic Chaplain, living his desire to be of service while following his call to foster responsibility, rehabilitation, and restoration.
On Mondays and Tuesdays, Deacon McNeil met with the men throughout the prison. His message: People can change and learn to be better individuals.
“I was attracted to the Deaconate because, like so many Deacons, I knew they where working in prisons and working with the homeless,” McNeil said.
His late mentor and friend, Deacon Paul Moriarty, who passed away in 2002, counseled McNeil on his passion for detention ministry. “He helped me discover that I had something to offer.”
For years, McNeil honed his skills in detention ministry, counseling in the county jails around the Bay Area.
“Much of my counseling, sitting with people, started feeling like spiritual direction,” he said. At many sessions, he said, people began admitting how jail saved them from additional destructive behavior. But he felt being a jail counselor was limiting.
“San Quentin is very different,” McNeil said. “I’ve developed good relations here.”
He believes his skills as a grief counselor are useful for people who have suffered family losses while imprisoned. “I don’t know if I helped those men, but I was present; I was in the moment with them and I listened.” He never expected to be ministering in a place with condemned prisoners. Many in the Roman Catholic Church and other places oppose capital punishment, he noted. “They understand how sacred human life is,” McNeil said.
McNeil was ordained 11 years ago and came to San Quentin in July after working as a substance abuse counselor in California for several years.
Deacon McNeil’s San Quentin tenure lasted a few months. He has since moved on still working as a Deacon within the Catholic Church.
“The Catholic perspective on crime is people should be held accountable for their actions but all forms of punishment must have rehabilitative aspects,” McNeil said.