Comunit� di Sant'Egidio

Abbiamo intervistato Dale Recinella, cappellano cattolico laico nel braccio della morte della Florida e consigliere spirituale di molti condannati a morte, durante il suo soggiorno a Roma alla fino dello scorso gennaio. Dale volentieri ci ha parlato della sua lunga esperienza di amicizia con i condannati a morte. 

We met Dale Recinella, the lay Catholic chaplain for Florida�s death row, during his visit to Rome and he willingly shared his experience with us.

Q. What did you do before becoming a chaplain on death row?

A. For over twenty years I have had a career as a lawyer in domestic and international project finance. In 1989, after a 30-day Franciscan pilgrimage to Assisi and Rome, Italy to study the life of Francis and Clare of Assisi, I returned to the U.S. and started ministering to mentally ill people on the streets and to persons with HIV and AIDS in our home city of Tallahassee, Florida. Within a few years, I was asked to minister in the state prisons to persons with HIV and AIDS. This was how I became involved in prison ministry. I continued this work on the streets of Tallahassee and in the prisons near Tallahassee through 1996. From 1992 until 1996 I did this full time. In August of 1996, my wife and I moved with our children to Rome, Italy.

In Rome, we became acquainted with Sant�Egidio and with Mother Therese�s sisters. We assisted the Missionaries of Charity at Casa Dona di Maria (the Vatican Wall) and San Gregorio (near the Circus Maximus) and assisted Sant�Egidio with food bags for the elderly and with outreach to the elderly in the northeast quarter on Christmas Day of 1997. Also, my son and I attended the 1997 Sant�Egidio Conference in Padua and Venice. This is where I met Sr. Prejean and first discussed the possibility of becoming involved in death row.

When we returned to the US at the beginning of 1998, we moved to Macclenny, FL where my wife, Susan, works with the mentally ill women at the State mental hospital. Death row and long-term solitary confinement are 15 miles from our home. Within three weeks of moving back to Florida, I was ministering on death row, cell to cell.

 Q. What do you do on death row?

I am the lay Catholic chaplain for Florida�s death row and long-term solitary confinement. My pastor, Fr. Jose Maniyangat, and I are the representatives of the Catholic church, under the auspices of the Bishops of Florida, to maintain a Catholic presence in the two huge prisons: Florida State Prison (Starke) and Union Correctional Institution (Raiford). These two prisons sit side-by-side and house over 370 men on death row and 1800 men in solitary confinement. Another 800 solitary confinement cells are under construction and will be full by the end of 2002. I make the rounds cell-to-cell through death row and solitary confinement ministering to all the men, of every faith or Christian denomination. To the Catholics I bring Communion as well. I also inform the priest of any man who needs to see him for Sacraments or for pastoral care. He then is able to go directly to the cell of that man and take care of his needs. Fr. Jose also performs the Mass each Sunday in the prison chapel. This is then broadcast back to death row by closed-circuit television. We also minister to the guards and the staff at these prisons. The oppressiveness of the environment wears them down as well as the inmates.

Finally, as part of this work, I also try to keep the public informed, especially Catholics, about the realities of Florida�s death penalty and prison life by speaking and by writing an article twice per month in �The Florida Catholic�, the weekly newspaper of the Bishops of Florida.

Also, and this is very important, my wife and I make ourselves available to minister to the families and loved ones of victims of murder. The similarities in ministering to these families and ministering to the families of men being executed argue overwhelmingly that the difference between murder by individuals and murder by the state are almost non-existent. The agony of the families is the same.

 Q. Can you describe a moving experience as spiritual advisor?

A. If a man requests me to be his spiritual advisor for his execution, then my wife and I assist he and his loved ones through the process of execution. It is grueling. Usually, the men to be executed ask their spiritual advisor to be a witness for them at their execution. This is because the family members are not allowed to be there. They must say goodbye to him at noon. The execution is at 6:00pm. I will be with him, and my wife will be with his family. Even as sanitized and technologically efficient as lethal injection is, the act of watching someone be killed right in front of your eyes is too horrible to absorb. It takes months to recover. I have attached for you two articles from The Florida Catholic that you have permission to reprint.

 Q. Did you know personally the inmates who were recently released?

A. Yes. I personally know Joaquin Martinez and Juan Melendez. Both have now gone home. They were both Catholic and I ministered to them regularly. I am glad that they have been shown innocent. Florida has had more people shown innocent on its death row than any other state in America: 24. The next highest is Illinois with 13 and Illinois declared a moratorium because of this.

I also knew well Frank Valdez, a Catholic on death row who was a regular Communicant and who died of a beating in his cell. And I knew Frank Smith who died of cancer after 14 and a half years on Florida�s death row. The posthumous DNA tests were done and he was shown to have been innocent.

 Q. Are people changing their minds about the death penalty?

A. In America at large, support for the death penalty has dropped from 85% in 1994 to 62% in 2002. Florida is similar to the rest of the country. But what has happened is that fundamentalist Christian conservatives have dug in their feet on the death penalty, insisting that the Bible mandates capital punishment as God�s will. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution to this effect at its year 2000 national meeting. This portion of America, called the Bible belt, has strong political clout. While the rest of America has moved away from the death penalty, the Bible belt is digging in for a fight to keep it based on religious arguments. Don�t forget that in 1845 the Christian churches in the southern US split from their counterparts in the north claiming that the Bible mandated slavery of the blacks. Now we are facing the same approach to support of the death penalty. This is an unfortunate development that must be faced in order to end the American death penalty. This is a critical role for churches and believers�a religious response to the erroneous use of Scripture in support of the death penalty.

 Q.. How can we help from here?

A. Prayers and encouragement for the men on death row, their friends, families and loved ones and for the victims of horrible crimes (and their loved ones as well) are extremely important. Also, your voices raised in a loving and respectful manner calling America to accountability for this practice which is abhorrent to western democracy is important. Finally, correspondence and visitation to men and women on death row is extremely important. We must make sure that these men and women never become invisible to the outside. We must keep them in the consciousness of the world.