Some congregations such as the sisters of “Providence”, also worked in prisons and in this way they also made a contribution to the humanizing of the prison system.

 

It was said that especially the confrontation to the neglect of the prisoners in Vilvoorde, where the young canon sang the benediction in 1837, was the real motive for the form of a monastery community.

 

His father however thought his son’s plan too daring and was not prepared to support him financially. With the help of the municipality Mechelen and the province management of Antwerp, V. Scheppers obtained a financial intervention for the brothers in nursery education as well as in the guarding of the prisoners