Before arriving here in Fresno to assume my new “job” as the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno, I certainly felt compelled to do at least a little research on our beautiful San Joaquin Valley. I was thrilled to read about some of the unique features of our area like having both the lowest point of elevation in the contiguous United States (Death Valley) and the highest (Mt. Whitney). I was not so thrilled to learn that we have one of the highest numbers of prisons per capita than any other region of the country. Recently, I was even less thrilled to learn of the effort to convert a shuttered for-profit prison into an immigrant detention center.

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