For three decades, Margaret Wiseman has accompanied women in prison, seen God in the faces of convicted murderers, and deep inner growth in people she has heard rejected as “scum”. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
The first lay woman Catholic chaplain at the Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre has witnessed fights, riots and heartbreak, but also goodness and transformation in the people she cares for.
For nearly 20 years, she has also led a prison ministry at her Epping-Carlingford parish, with several loving parishioners, on a roster to enter the maximum-security facility each Sunday for a communion service and morning tea.
“Every one of them is amazed when they get there and realise the women are human beings. They are just like me,” Mrs Wiseman said.
“I had to come into prison to be able to say that. We all make mistakes, some more than others.”
Her husband Brian Wiseman also has a heart for the marginalised and provides support for the chaplaincy program – run by CatholicCare Sydney for the past 13 years – through their local St Vincent de Paul conference, where he is treasurer.
The pair will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary this month and have two children, five grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
Mrs Wiseman was inspired by an adult education program run by Fr Tony Doherty and Sr Patricia (Patty) Faulkner to find a ministry she could throw herself into that would also bless her parish.
She originally volunteered for prison ministry at Long Bay but soon discovered it was women prisoners she had a desire and a gift to serve through pastoral care.
The first inmate she met at Silverwater was a young pregnant woman who asked for help purchasing things for the baby she was carrying.
“I later discovered that 17 years earlier, she’d been inside her mother’s womb in prison, and I realised that here was a generational problem,” Mrs Wiseman said.
Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP recently honoured Mrs Wiseman with the inaugural lifetime achievement award at an annual CatholicCare staff awards ceremony.
FULL STORY
The Sydney woman bringing freedom into prison (By Stephen Lacey and Marliyn Rodrigues, The Catholic Weekly)
