Four times each year, a bunch of Episcopalians go to prison in New Hampshire.
They get back out at the end of the day, after playing softball with a team of inmates from the New Hampshire Correctional Facility for Women in Concord.
“It’s a ministry of presence. It’s a ministry of companionship,” said Benge Ambrogi, Diocese of New Hampshire’s chief operating officer and canon for mission resources.
Ambrogi told Episcopal News Service: “I don’t think that the everyday Joe in our churches has a lot of exposure to people that are incarcerated, and we might have a different perception of the type of people they are.”
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.