Commander Roel Garcia has been with the LA County Sheriff’s Department for 30 years.
He’s only been a practicing adult Catholic for about 10 months.
Nothing, he believes, could have prepared him for what he saw the morning of Oct. 20 inside Men’s Central Jail.
“I can’t even put it into words, it was amazing,” he said, describing the scene in the dull, windowless space deep within the jail known as Three Thousand Chapel.
Garcia anticipated an event more like the jail’s simple Sunday Masses or annual Christmas liturgy. But on that Monday morning, when a chaplain brought in the sacred relic of a new Catholic saint, an Italian teenager called Carlo Acutis, what unfolded was nearly three hours of laughter, tears, and expressions of joy involving some 70 inmates, deputies, and correctional officers.
“I spoke to inmates afterwards, and they just had no idea what they were walking into,” said Garcia. “They thought they were going to a regular Mass.”
The relic’s stop here was an unexpected addition to a weeklong tour of parishes in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where thousands waited in line to ask for graces and miracles from Acutis, who was born in 1991 and died of leukemia in 2006.
As they listened to stories from Acutis’ life, sang together at Mass, and took turns venerating a piece of his heart tissue, the difference between inmate and officer almost seemed forgotten.
Garcia describes the LA jail as “one of the saddest places in our jail system.” One of the largest in the world, it has been criticized for poor conditions and faced repeated calls for closure.
The visit was the idea of Msgr. Anthony Figueiredo, a British priest ordained in New Jersey who worked under three popes while in Rome. Now based in Assisi, Italy (where Acutis is buried), he travels the world promoting devotion to Acutis, a video game-playing Italian teen known for his love of the Eucharist and the poor.
A month earlier, Figueiredo had welcomed a group of pilgrims from Los Angeles to Assisi on the eve of Acutis’ canonization in Rome. He said he felt called by Acutis to visit the incarcerated while in Los Angeles.
“Carlo takes us where he wants to go, not the other way around,” he said. “And he opens doors and hearts.”
Figueredo arranged the visit through Gonzalo De Vivero, who oversees the LA Archdiocese’s Restorative Justice ministry, who then approached Garcia at a graduation ceremony at another jail.
From there, things started to move quickly — much more quickly than De Vivero, a 28-year veteran of prison ministry, expected.
“A lot of things that normally do not happen, happened in a very quick, simple way,” De Vivero told Angelus, including the cancellation of classes for inmates that morning, and clearances for multiple inmate groups.
Garcia, who oversees specialized programs for the Sheriff Department’s custody division, had the Mass announced throughout Men’s Central Jail.
“We wanted folks that wanted to be there,” said Garcia. “We didn’t force anybody to go.”
In his homily at the jail, Figueiredo urged inmates to view their sentences not as an end to their lives, but as an opportunity to begin new lives focused on renewal and redemption.
After all, Acutis also had to confront a grim piece of news about his future: a terminal leukemia diagnosis at age 15.
“Carlo’s leukemia was a kind of sentence, yet he faced it without fear because he trusted that life continues with God,” Figueiredo told the prisoners.
The priest also spoke about his own life, including how living with a hand disability (related to his mother’s use of the now-banned pregnancy drug thalidomide) had brought him closer to God.
“He was just so passionate about St. Carlo. The way he communicated, it was so personable,” said Garcia.
After the Mass, the audience had a chance to personally pray with the relic. Forming a line, the inmates came forward one by one, then the deputies. Figueiredo asked each their name, then pressed the golden reliquary containing Acutis’ pericardium to their forehead, taking at least 15 seconds with each one.
“I’m watching grown men smile,” recounted Garcia. “You could see this peace in their composition as they walked away from him. And I’ve never seen that [in a jail] before.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day came from the prison officers.
“When I walked in and looked around, I saw my staff was engaged,” said Garcia. “As this unfolded, I saw it from both sides. I saw the staff get brought in, and I saw our inmates get drawn in.”
“At that moment, no one knew that there were inmates there or staff,” said Captain Cynthia Bearse, another Sheriff’s official working at the jail. “I think we all felt like we were just in a Mass together.”
De Vivero, too, was impressed with the faith of the correction officers.
“There was a tremendous amount of devotion from deputies that really moved my heart,” said De Vivero.
The visit marked the first time a relic of Acutis has been brought to a correctional facility. Garcia believes that for his staff, the visit came at exactly the right time, to just the right place.
“There’s just so much sadness on both sides,” said Garcia. “You’re dealing with your residents who are there for everything under the sun, and they’re dealing with their own trauma. And we’re trying to run a jail and the security of the jail. We’ve got staff that are overworked and dealing with their own personal lives, while working with the residents.”
A few days after the jail service, Garcia found himself in front of Acutis’ relics again. This time, he was at a standing-room-only Mass in Spanish at St. Thomas the Apostle. He watched parents, mostly mothers, hold up their disabled children to be blessed by the relic.
“It was the most beautiful Mass I’ve ever been to,” he affirmed. “I was in tears 85 percent of the time. And I’ve been talking about both Masses ever since.”
Acutis’ appearance at the jail also came at a providential time for Garcia. Only a few months earlier he had received his first holy Communion and confirmation after going through the OCIA program at St. Andrew Church in Pasadena.
Meanwhile Bearse, who is also a Catholic, is hoping to attend the Jubilee of Prisoners in Rome next month, inspired by what she experienced inside the chapel. The gathering will bring restorative justice officials from around the world for a series of events at the Vatican, including a special Mass with Pope Leo XIV.
Apart from representing a special milestone in his own faith journey, Garcia hopes Acutis’ visit inspires more attention to prison ministry from people inside and outside jail walls.
“We have a great opportunity here to work with the men and women who are entrusted in our custody and care, and we have these great volunteers that come in here and serve them.”
“So, let’s give them that opportunity. Let’s make it easy for them to help them.”
Photographer Reese Cuevas contributed reporting to this story.
