It’s Wednesday. Robert “Bob” Cunningham gets up early in Zaragoza, El Salvador, where he and his wife Elizabeth “Liz” Cunningham serve as Maryknoll lay missioners. He sets out for Ciudad Merliot, 45 minutes away.

At 8 a.m., Bob meets up with Mercedarian Father Jonathan Vásquez and other volunteers. They drive for an hour to a juvenile correctional facility in Tonacatepeque, where they share the Eucharist, food and fellowship with 180 teenage inmates. “We pack the van, then say a prayer that we bring light and hope to the boys,” Bob says. “Love exists in the youth prison of Tonacatepeque,” he adds. “I have seen it.”

Coming to El Salvador in early 2022, the couple was eager to accompany Maryknoll Father John Northrop to La Esperanza prison (also known as “Mariona”). At this large, overcrowded jail in the capital city, Father Northrop heard confessions and offered Mass. “We’d socialize with the men, sing in the choir and hand out food,” Liz says.

But prison ministry in the Central American country was about to change drastically.

El Salvador had been plagued for decades by gangs. Following a particularly harrowing spate of homicides, in March of 2022 President Nayib Bukele instituted a “state of exception.” Certain constitutional rights were suspended. Armed forces swept up anyone suspected of belonging to or abetting a gang. The prison population tripled.

By early fall, chaplaincy visits to La Esperanza were halted. Just when the need was greatest, the country’s prison gates slammed shut.

“What are we called to do?” Bob and Liz asked. It was a familiar question.

(Left to right) Maryknoll Lay Missioner Bob Cunningham, Marta Elena Arévalo Barraza, Rubia del Carmen Benítez Brioso and Mercedarian Father Jonathan Vásquez load the van for a trip to Tonacatepeque. (Courtesy of Robert Cunningham/El Salvador)

Originally from Long Island, New York — where he and Liz met in high school — Bob joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps after college. His placement took him inside a California county jail.

The facility “smelled and sounded like a zoo,” he recalls. “After I finished my year of service, I never wanted to go inside a jail again.”

Bob and Liz raised their three children in the Boston area, where he worked for nonprofits and universities. But he never forgot what he had witnessed behind bars. “I couldn’t get it out of my heart,” he says. “I couldn’t live my life as if this world didn’t exist.”

He began to volunteer in prison ministry, and soon Liz joined him. Eventually Bob became the chair of Concord Prison Outreach and even received an award from the Massachusetts Department of Corrections.

“I’ve been involved in everything from job training to alternatives to violence to retreats and catechesis. The content is important,” he says. “But it’s nothing compared to the presence of just showing up.”

On mission in El Salvador, a door opened at the end of last year. Father Vásquez, who coordinates a network of Catholic chaplains throughout the country, called a meeting for volunteers. Some 20 people including Bob showed up.

“There are approximately 93,000 inmates in jails,” says Father Vásquez, whose order was founded to care for people in captivity. “What keeps me up at night is that they might think the Church has abandoned them.”

Father Vásquez, coordinator of Catholic prison ministry in El Salvador, is joined by volunteers Carlos Enrique Gonón, Maryknoll Lay Missioner Robert Cunningham and Antonio Guevara Ortiz for a weekly visit to the juvenile correctional center in Tonacatepeque. (Courtesy of Robert Cunningham)

The state of exception, he explains, caused “a rupture” in access to correctional facilities.

In the past, imprisoned leaders ran their gangs from behind bars. Under current protocols, all communication with the outside world — such as visits, phone calls and internet connection — is blocked. Families often go months without word of their detained relatives.

“Like so many mothers who can’t enter the jails for visits, who try to communicate with their children and don’t know where they are — whether they are still alive, if they have eaten, if they are sick — that’s what the Church is going through,” Father Vásquez says.

“We have not been able to enter any of the prisons for adult males,” he says, “only centers for minors.” One of those sites is the Tonacatepeque Penal Center.

Arriving on Wednesdays at the juvenile correctional facility, the team unloads the van. Guards inspect the donated baked goods. Some young inmates carry the bins and sound equipment to an outdoor recreation area, where they help set up the altar. The liturgy is enlivened by Father Vásquez’s guitar and singing.

Most of the boys in Tonacatepeque are ages 15 to 17. Dressed in white t-shirts, shorts and shoes, they sit on the ground. “Many of them have had difficult histories that led them to a place like this,” Father Vásquez says. Each case is different, but all the boys come from broken families living in poverty. Some parents are themselves in prison.

In their neighborhoods, the priest continues, joining the maras, the local term for gangs, is a real temptation: “They give them belonging, they give them safety.”

Liz notes that the couple’s full-time ministry in Zaragoza offers alternatives to disadvantaged children and youth. The community center El Patronato Lidia Coggiola provides tutoring, programs and scholarships. In contrast, the boys at Tonacatepeque have “little or no support,” Bob says. “A lot of their support was in the gangs.”

His hope, the lay missioner says, is that when the boys are released, they seek “some form of family and community in church, in faith.” Fifteen have asked for the sacraments.

The boys may not understand the rituals or prayers, Bob says, but at some moment, no matter how fleeting, all have known love in their lives. The visitors try to reconnect them to that. “They have known suffering, they are suffering,” Bob says. “But it is healed somehow through that saving power of love.”

After Mass, the volunteers joke and converse with the inmates, and some of the boys let down their guard. “There is an opportunity for exchange,” Bob says. “It’s a lot of small but meaningful interactions over time, but who knows where that can lead?”

“What we say or do is just a drop in the bucket,” Father Vásquez says. The real message, he continues, is simple: “We are here with you. We won’t abandon you.”

The boys hold out the hems of their shirts and the visitors fill them with sweet breads, pie and French toast slices. It gets messy, Bob says, adding, “People’s lives are messy.”

Prison rules forbid giving the boys anything else — even a holy card.

One recent Wednesday, the team was met with unsettling news. More than half of the 420 inmates had been abruptly moved to another facility. And only 30 to 45 will be allowed to attend Mass.

“Each one of them is a child of God,” Bob says. “Hope can be found in small acts of humanity and compassion and in the joy of connecting with people. May Pope Francis’ call to be pilgrims of hope lead us to enter the darkest of places.”

Featured Image: Suspected gang members are arrested in San Salvador, El Salvador. (CNS/José Cabezas/Reuters/El Salvador)