Former organized crime member receives baptism, Eucharist, and confirmation in Brazilian prison

Two prisoners — one of them a former member of Comando Vermelho , a major Brazilian criminal organization — received the sacraments of Christian initiation (baptism, Eucharist, and confirmation) on Sunday, July 26, at the Gameleira 2 maximum-security state menʼs penitentiary in Campo Grande, Brazil.

Both men received the sacraments after two years of catechesis provided by the prison ministry of the Archdiocese of Campo Grande.

“What is the primary objective of prison ministry? Education, celebration, and life in the faith,” explained Said Brandão Sayd, the ministry’s coordinator, in an interview with ACI Digital, the Portuguese-language sister service of EWTN News.

“Our principal goal is to have a Catholic community within the prison — to ensure that people, even amid all those difficulties, receive the Church’s help and can effectively leave that place or live there in a state of grace,” he added.

The sacraments were administered by Father Álisson Muryel, the ecclesiastical adviser for the prison ministry in the Archdiocese of Campo Grande, an area that, according to Brandão, has 11 prisons and nearly 10,000 inmates. The ministry is “present in all the prisons,” he…