What is spirituality? My understanding is that everything has a spirit to it. The two-legged human beings, the four-legged animals, the ones that crawl and the ones that fly, the plants, our water, our ancestors, the wind as well as everything above and below us -- has a spirit to it. It's said that...

Dear Brothers and Sisters, I pray this newsletter finds you in good spirits. Briefly, I would like to share something on faith. By “faith” I mean having complete trust or confidence in someone or something. I believe we can all say that throughout our lives at some point we’ve been let down by...

As we approach the 2019 tax season, I thought it would be a good idea to provide everyone with some information on Parsonage/housing allowance. Per California State law AB 243 all State Chaplains qualify for applying up to half their salary for clergy housing allowance. Please note that there are sp...

Chaplain Sam Smolinisky is the Catholic Chaplain Pelican Bay State Prison. For Catholics, we are currently in the time of Lent, a communitarian journey of conversion towards Holy Week and Easter. Chaplain Sam reflects on that journey, the challenges of starting his ministry at the time of the Inmate...