1. Father Dennis Cunanan of JCI
(Jesuits Christi Infiniti)
Part 2 of Fr. Dennis’s time living
his vocation in his prison
ministry.
The following documents are from
journal
entries
on
different
platforms (from both hard and soft
copies) of Fr. Dennis Alexander
Apostol Cunanan, or Father
Dennis Cunanan of JCI (Jesuits
Christi Infiniti), who introduces
himself as a ‘humble, human servant of Christ who wishes to the ways of
Jesus in the everyday life of the Filipino.’
Some of these documents have appeared in the Lifestyle Section of the
Philippine Daily Times, and Father Dennis Cunanan JCI has been in formal
talks with several writing institutions about releasing material in ChristianCatholic journals or as a manuscript for a full-length book.
This is Part 2 of Fr. Dennis’s time living his vocation in his prison ministry.
And so here I was, serving as a channel of Christ in the nation’s toughest
correction facility and amongst the country’s most hardened, most ruthless
criminals—among them thieves, kidnappers, murderers, pimps, traffickers
and the like. And I had to be brave enough to be Fr. Dennis Cunanan JCI,
the chapel apprentice for the Roman Catholic Church that few tattooed
inmates attended on Sundays.
I taught the Gospel, tried to write relevant homilies, tried my best not to
shake while administering the holy sacrament of reconciliation, and tried to
understand these people.
The first thing I understood was that most came from a background of
crippling poverty, and most had done the things they had done in order to
try and break the oppressive cycle that should have afforded them
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2. generosity and justice, but instead gave them almost no alternative to a life
of crime. And so as young children, they join syndicates, they learn how to
pickpocket at early ages, they turn to alcohol and drugs, and they make
vices of other people.
One is reminded of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, who had stolen a loaf
of bread and been detained in prison for almost twenty years, or eternity.
That was what these prisoners faced, a history of eternal human
damnation, by being denied re-entry into the world of ordinary civilians and
given a chance at freedom. These people had committed sin because they
had been subjected to sin, because sin is infectious and certain structures
keep it in place. But I am not writing this piece to politicize religion—I am
only sharing my reflections about one of the most poignant experiences of
my life.
One of the most memorable characters I met in jail was Juanito the Giant—
not because of the man’s towering stature, as he would have been just
another face in the crowd on the street—but because he was a giant
among his fellow prisoners, a leader of one of the prison’s most powerful
gangs. Tattoos hung all over his muscles, but the most prominent was the
one on his finger that signified power. I suspected that Juanito actually had
connections to the more questionable higher-ups in the prison’s
administration, as he had been granted several privileges above everyone
else, such as an extra room, his own television, and more opportunities to
contact both his family and his women.
“I used to be Catholic, Father,” he told me once with a grin, as we had a
cup of coffee with Father Charles and other prisoners who gathered to
while away yet another long afternoon of hard labor and eventual boredom.
“When I was a little boy, I was an altar server, you know? Before I was
charged, before I got here. But I have to admit, in a place like this, who can
go beyond the thought of how we really are and what we’re doomed to?
How can anyone believe in God?”
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