Howard Campbell, Gleaner WriterWHEN THE Prison Ministry Team of the Stella Maris Foundation makes its next visit to penal institutions, it will do so without Vilma Mais, one of its founders and driving force.
Mrs. Mais, 62, was attacked and murdered by a robber last Tuesday on the Stella Maris church compound at Shortwood Road in St. Andrew. Police say the incident took place at 1:10 p.m., shortly after Mrs. Mais left the church's chapel where she had completed a private prayer session. No arrest has been made.
Monsignor Richard Albert was pastor at the Roman Catholic church in 1999 when Mrs. Mais and other members started the Prison Ministry Team. He remembers her as a pillar at Stella Maris and a comforting presence in the prisons where she and other church members counseled inmates.
"She was a great woman of the Christian faith, a tremendous woman of prayer," said Monsignor Albert. He told The Sunday Gleaner that Mrs. Mais rarely missed monthly visits to either the St. Catherine District Prison (maximum security facility), Tamarind Farm (for minor offenders) or Fort Augusta (for female offenders) prisons.
Major Richard Reese, head of the Correctional Services, believes although their work has received little fanfare, the Prison Ministry Team has had a positive impact.
"Through their instrumentality we have been able to construct rehabilitation facilities (at each of the prisons)," said Major Reese.
These facilities, he explained, are chapels where the prison ministry team conducts counselling and skills-training sessions with inmates. "They are a very faithful team. In their case it is servitude to mankind because they get nothing (financially) from it," he said.
Monsignor Richard Albert says he has known Mrs. Mais and her husband Patrick for nine years. Money, he told The Sunday Gleaner, was never in their thoughts. "They are not people who wrote cheques from their verandah. They are people who wanted to get involved with the poor," said the priest.