Fr Hemmerle in Prison

 Book Four Chapter 6

When I first arrived for my visit with Fr. Hemmerle there were already two people in the waiting room. It was a first come, first served basis for who was allowed into the phone room. I didn’t know if Padre was strapped for class so I bought him a phone card that was available for purchase for the inmate in a machine in the foyer. The other visitors could tell that I was new to the system because they had brought in bags of canned food and I didn’t have any. In a weird sort of fundraiser, each can of food that you brought in bought you more minutes with the inmate whom you were visiting. The jail allowed you five extra minutes for each can and you could earn up to fifteen minutes per visit.

I arrived early, expecting a line, knowing that the longer the line the longer a visitor would have to wait to see the inmate. There was only me and two ladies at first, so I knew that I would have plenty of time with Fr. Hemmerle. As it turns out, his brother Bob came to see him on that very same day. Since Fr. Joe Early maxed at at 30 minutes in terms of how long he could visit, I knew that my time was limited. Of course, he should be allowed to see his brother first. Bob took up the first twenty minutes and I had to satisfy myself with a total of ten minutes, after driving for forty five minutes on this early Saturday morning.

My first impression of Fr. Hemmerle had been one of shock; Padre had only been at the Meade County Jail for a short time but his appearance had already changed dramatically. He didn’t want to be seen this way, but he also wanted to have visitors, so the old man was willing to have me see him at his absolute worst. Because he wasn’t allowed to have razors, Fr. Hemmerle wasn’t shaved and he looked like a bum. Even in the woods at Camp Tall Trees he kept his hair clean and tidy; a comb over swept across his almost completely bald pate. But now his hair was dirty and matted down so it did little to cover up his baldness. He was dressed in sweats and a t shirt, which made him look homeless. In short, the Meade County Jail had taken away from Fr. Hemmerle all of his vanities and all that he was left with was a shadow of his former self. Bravely, put without vanity or pride, he faced me for the first time since his trial.

It was awkward; all surface stuff. “How have you been,” I asked, knowing that it was a stupid question with my mentor having been in jail for two weeks. Fr. Hemmerle replied with, “as good as could be expected.” The guards had taken away all of his clothes so he asked his friends and to bring him a change of sweats and socks. Steve Pence, a long time attorney who had a lot of connections, was able to send him new clothes and a Bible. Ordinarily, books cannot be sent to prisoners because the pages could be soaked with LSD. The inmates could then rip the pages out of the book and get a high off of the paper. For that same reason, all letters sent to the inmates had to be written on plain, white paper and no return address stickers could be applied to the envelope. “I had no idea that there were so many rules for the prisoners,” I said. Searching for the right words and trying to be delicate, I followed with, “this is not my culture!” Padre laughed and said, “It’s not my culture either.” But we both knew that it was going to be his culture, possibly for a very long time.

Fr. Hemmerle was frustrated because he didn’t know how long he would be in jail and his current living conditions were horrible. The problem was that the jail had an overcrowding problem and the pod that he lived in was supposed to hold only two cells with two people per cell. Each pod had a common area but when Padre was there he had to share the pod with nine people, meaning that five people had to sleep on the floor while four had a bed to themselves. Because he was an old man, and on the side of being infirm, he was one of the inmates who slept on the floor. The only thing that the jail did to make him comfortable was to give him a mattresses to sleep on. If that weren’t bad enough, the jail allowed the inmates to watch television, so the damn thing

  

blared from 10:00 am to midnight, or the whole of the time that the T.V.s were allowed to be on. Nobody could agree on what programs to watch so a lot of arguments, and sometimes fistfights, broke out over which channel was on. Instead of getting involved with conflict over the T.V.s, Fr. Hemmerle wrote letters or read his Bible.

It was a quick visit and one that I didn’t do again. If I were to see him again then my visits would become about pitying him and not about friendship. It sounds like an excuse, but it is a real reason. I prefer to write him letters because I can put a variety of thoughts down on paper and I can do it in my spare time rather than driving to Meade County or the other places where Padre was incarcerated.

Fr. Hemmerle was sent to the Green River Correctional Complex in Central City, Kentucky. It did not go well. The other inmates found out that Padre had been convicted for pedophilia and they were already predisposed to dislike him because he was a priest. There are a lot of Catholics in Louisville but once you get out of the major cities, and into the Bible Belt, many of the rural people are anti-Cathloic. A couple of inmates attacked Fr. Hemmerle at Green River because he wouldn’t give them his canteen money. This was just an excuse for roughing him up and Padre wore a bruise under his eye for weeks after getting punched in the face. The old man was becoming bitter, especially towards the guards who would not, or could not, protect him from the prison bullies. The guards seemed to want to make the lives of the inmates even more difficult by having lock downs for no good reason. Any time that Fr. Hemmerle could get out of his cell and into the yard was appreciated and when that time was taken away he felt even more isolated.

When the physical abuse continued, Fr. Hemmerle requested to move to the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in LaGrange, Kentucky. The prison system doesn’t like to move people around from one complex to another and finds ways of punishing people who continually request transfers. However, when it became obvious that Fr. Hemmerle was being abused, the consequences were suspended and he was sent to Luther Luckett where his life became much better. There was more of a routine in LaGrange and the inmates were more settled. In addition to writing letters and reading the Bible, Padre found a job working in the chapel. He followed his beloved U of L cardinal basketball team and the Dallas Cowboys football team.