wfn.org | [ENS] Inmate priest is tangible sign of hope for those in prison

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Daybook, from Episcopal News Service

September 29, 2005 -- Thursday Thesis: People of Purpose

Inmate priest is tangible sign of hope for those in prison

By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[ENS] The congregation is small. There are about 42 communicants, and
between 15 and 20 show up on any given Sunday night for Eucharist.

"In that respect, it's very much like any other parish in the Episcopal
Church," says the Rev. James Tramel, who ministers to the congregation.

The congregation is different in one major way. All of the communicants
and
Tramel are in prison at the California State Prison, Solano.

Tramel, 37, who has served 19 years of a 15-year-to-life sentence for
second-degree murder, was ordained a priest by Bishop William Swing of
California on June 18, 2005 at the prison. He is the first person
ordained
to the Episcopal priesthood while incarcerated.

"I think, for the men, it is a very tangible sign of hope," Tramel said
in a
telephone interview from the prison this week. "That one of their own
could
become a priest says to them that God is for them too."

He said he is awed and grateful to have been ordained. He said he
experienced what he thinks many new priests do the first time he
presided at
the altar in the prison's chapel.

"You realize that it was exactly where God was calling you to and it
fits,"
he said.

Tramel is licensed to serve the congregation by Bishop Jerry A. Lamb of
Northern California, the diocese in which the prison is located. Lamb
has
made two episcopal visits to the prison. During his most recent visit in
July, Tramel baptized two inmates and Lamb confirmed them along with six
others.

The lens through which Tramel sees his priesthood is a sacramental one.
"The
sacraments in so many ways are all about reconciliation," he said.

His work as a priest is about "being a person who proclaims God's love
and
as being a person who proclaims the availability of God's
reconciliation."

Jesus' message and the church's mission of reconciling people with God
and
each other are "desperately needed" in prison, Tramel said.

"It's a message that the larger world is hungry for as well," he said.

Tramel's ministry started while he was working with dying inmates at a
hospice in the California Correctional Medical Facility in Vacaville,
California. He now works for the correctional counselors who operate out
of
his 200-person dormitory at the prison. Six thousand inmates are held in
four different facilities at the prison.

He also serves on the prison's religious advisory committee, and thus
has
the ability to move about the prison to visit inmates, hear confessions,
make hospital visits and take communion to men who can not come to the
Sunday Eucharist.

Tramel began an Episcopal congregation at the prison, which started with
a
group of inmates saying prayers from the Book of Common Prayer.
Eventually,
the congregation grew, and chaplains began visiting to conduct full
communion services.

In 1998, he became the first inmate ever admitted to an Episcopal
seminary
when he entered the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) in
Berkeley, California. He earned a Master of Theological Studies degree
in
May 2003 through a distance-learning program. Students, faculty and
staff
from the Episcopal seminary regularly traveled to the prison and talked
to
Tramel on the phone during his studies.

Tramel joined the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Berkeley.
When
the congregation decided to sponsor him for ordination, he met with
members
of the congregation and the California Commission on Ministry through
letters, over the phone, and in the visiting room at Solano Prison.
Swing
ordained him to the diaconate at the prison on July 4, 2004.

If some wonder that the cliché of the jailhouse conversion applies to
Tramel, he said that his words won't change that opinion. "Those kinds
of
opinions are only changed by actions and God's grace," he said.

Any inmate with $25 or so can become an ordained minister, Tramel said,
pointing instead to his journey through the Episcopal Church's rigorous
and
lengthy ordination process which includes, among other things,
psychological
exams.

Tramel was convicted in 1986. He was present when David Kurtzman stabbed
a
man to death in a Santa Barbara, California, park. Tramel was 17 at the
time
of the murder and was attending Northwestern Preparatory School in Santa
Barbara. He had an appointment to the U.S. Air Force Academy.

The murder happened when Tramel, Kurtzman and other students set out one
night to confront some gang members whom they said had attacked a fellow
student, according to Tramel's written account of the murder. Tramel
wrote
the account for a parole hearing before the California Board of Prison
Terms.

The students did not find any gang members but Kurtzman and Tramel
encountered a man in the park's large gazebo to whom they spoke briefly.
Tramel writes that he turned his back on Kurtzman and the man, Michael
Stephenson, while he was standing on the far side of the gazebo. He
heard a
sound that made him turn around, only to see Kurtzman stabbing
Stephenson.

Tramel writes he is ashamed that he didn't help Stephenson or try to get
help for him. He admits not contacting the police.

"Having reflected on this crime for more than half my life, I am
intimately
aware of my guilt," Tramel writes. "Every day I suffer remorse for my
crime.
To my perpetual regret, nothing will reverse that horrible day in 1985."

He was granted parole in late October, 2004, and was due to be released
in
March, 2005, in time to serve as deacon at the Easter Vigil service at
Grace
Cathedral in San Francisco, California. Instead, California Governor
Arnold
Schwarzenegger reversed the State Board of Prison Terms' decision on
Good
Friday.

Tramel's proposed parole plan includes spending an additional year
studying
at CDSP. He has numerous job offers from churches and organizations in
the
Diocese of California, including that of assisting priest at the Church
of
the Good Shepherd. Tramel is engaged to be married to the Rev. Stephanie
Green, a priest of the diocese.

It would be "completely impractical" to be bitter about the governor's
decision, Tramel said. "Being bitter would drive me to a place of being
completely self-destructive," he said. "I wouldn't be able to help
myself or
others."

"I don't see parole as something I have a right to," Tramel said,
likening
it instead to a form of grace. "It's not something that we can earn but
that
we can come to."

Tramel now contemplates his next hearing before the board on October 25.
He
said he has no expectations and feels connected to the "mystical,
unexplainable component" of God's grace. He feels upheld by the prayers
of
many.

"It makes the most significant, real difference," he said.

He looks forward to seeing Michael Stephenson's father, Edward, who did
not
come to Tramel's first three parole hearings but has attended the last
three. "It seems the more progress I've made, the more vehement
[Stephenson's] objections [to the parole request] have been," he said.

"But I am grateful that he comes because it gives me the opportunity to
renew my apologies directly," Tramel said.

Seeing Michael's father makes him "never lose sight of the pain my
actions
of 20 years ago caused."

"I want to keep my mind on that," he said. "I want all of my choices and
all
of my actions to be honorable to Michael's memory."

Bishop Lamb and Tramel are working to designate the congregation at the
prison as a preaching station of the diocese.

"I want to leave them with clergy," Tramel said.

Tramel's desire to preach Jesus' message of reconciliation is rooted in
his
experience of call, something he'd like to tell anyone he meets.

"No matter where you are in your life, no matter where you are in the
world,
God loves you and is calling you," he explained. "No matter where you
are in
your life, no matter where you are in the world, you can serve God if
you'll
answer the call and respond to it."

-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the
Episcopal News Service.

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