Visiting the imprisoned is a Corporal Work of Mercy, and Father Dave welcomes Father Dustin Feddon to discuss accompanying those who are imprisoned, both during their sentences and after their releases. Father Dustin is a priest inof the diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee and the author of “More Than Half Way Home: A Story of Accompaniment in the Shadows of Incarceration.”
Father Dustin details how he first became involved with prison ministry. “Before becoming Catholic, I studied philosophy and religion at Florida State. Then I eventually found my way in communion with the Church, was confirmed in 2007, and then eventually started discerning the priesthood. I always had kind of assumed that I would have an academic assignment,” he says. “When I was in seminary, I was assigned to do a pastoral year, as most seminarians are in the state of Florida. I was assigned to a parish here in Tallahassee and Father Mike Foley, this beloved Irish pastor, told me, ‘Dustin, you need to go out into the prisons.’”
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Within weeks, Father Dustin was serving in prisons, including spending time with those on death row and in solitary confinement. “That first night in 2013 when I was on the G wing at death row at Florida State Prison, I was somewhat in a crisis mode in terms of, ‘Is this my vocation?’ in terms of the priesthood,” he continues. “In talking with [convicted murderer] Tavares Calloway on death row, he opened my eyes to the concrete reality and power of mercy. It’s not just something deferred to us in the afterlife, but that it is something here and now present.”
“In many conversations with Tavares and other men, I heard their stories and their capacity to receive mercy, and to believe that God had forgiven them, or that they had a future worth living. For them to be able to come to embrace the reality of God’s love — though many of them committed horrific acts of violence — it began to open my eyes to areas in my own heart where I had not really embraced the reality of mercy. I realized that these men could live in the state of grace and the state of being forgiven in ways with more confidence and trust in that than, frankly, I had at that point. So I learned from them, in many ways, the power of mercy in the here and now.”
Father Dustin is founder and executive director of Joseph House, a home and community for men released from prison. “Joseph House came about because of so many conversations with my brothers, especially in solitary confinement, whose [release] date was six months away, and they had no idea where they were going or what they were going to do when they got outside,” he explains. “There was not much in terms of rehabilitative services for them in the prisons…They’re probably going to go to some old friend’s couch or a homeless shelter.”
“This happens repeatedly: they get dropped off at a bus station, and they take that bus to [a big city] and they’re on the streets. As you can imagine, they’re likely going to end up probably right back into prison,” Father Dustin says. “Joseph House was created as a very small drop in a very big bucket — To simply disrupt that [pattern] a little bit and to give people a home, a safe place where they can come and re-enter society with some tangible possibility of a new start.”
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They discuss how the name “Joseph House” is derived from the Genesis story of Joseph and his 11 brothers. “That was due to multiple men on the inside telling me how much that story of Joseph the dreamer impacted their lives, and how they saw Joseph as an older brother,” Father Dustin says. “Joseph the dreamer: the one who was far away from home, but whom God never left. God accompanied him all the way. The powerful sign of reconciliation and restorative justice that happens at the very end — which is groundbreaking for ancient literature — [showcases] a story of not retaliation, not vengeance, but a restoration of broken relationships.”
“The brothers assumed that Joseph would retaliate or perhaps even execute them. Instead, in that powerful moment when he is weeping, he restores them and restores Israel as a result,” he continues. “So it’s about the power of dreamers, and the power of people who are willing to not only be reconciled, but for others to reconcile our brothers that have been cast off for so long. To me, it’s a powerful sign of the type of justice that I think we can perhaps re-imagine and recreate here in our own land.”
