Testify Newspaper

6
testify November 2016
Pope Francis invites 1,000
convicted criminals to a
church service
Pope Francis invited 1,000 convicted criminals
to the Vatican to celebrate a special
church service, during which he announced
to the congregation, “we all make mistakes.”
After he welcomed 1,000 inmates into St
Peter’s basilica, Pope Francis also seized
the opportunity to appeal for better living
conditions for prisoners. Speaking at the
Sunday Angelus, the Pope urged prison
authorities to respect “the human dignity of
detainees” and stressed that the criminal
justice system must include rehabilitation
alongside punishment.
“I submit for the consideration of the competent
civilian authorities in all countries
the opportunity to make, in this Holy Year
of Mercy, an act of clemency towards those
prisoners who will be considered eligible to
benefit from this measure,” Pope Francis
said.
Earlier, during a special Mass for the jubilee
of mercy year in St Peter’s, the Pope urged
prisoners not to lose hope in God’s mercy,
saying all people ‘have made mistakes.’
“Sometimes, a certain hypocrisy leads to
people considering you only as wrongdoers,
for whom prison is the sole answer,” Pope
explained during his homily. “I want to tell
you, every time I visit a prison I ask myself:
‘Why them and not me?’ We can all make
mistakes: all of us. And in one way or another,
we have made mistakes.”
The Pope delivered his homily before a congregation
made up of around 1,000 prisoners
from 12 countries and their families, as
well as prison chaplains and volunteers.It is
one of the last major set-piece events of the
jubilee year that concludes on 20 November.
The Vatican said that most of the 1,000 prisoners
who took part in the mass were from
Italian prisons, and many of these were foreign
born inmates. There were also delegations
from about 10 other countries, a Vatican
spokesman confirmed.
Among the 3,000 chaplains, guards, exprisoners
and family members who came to
the Vatican for the day dedicated to prisoners
were two prisoners normally confined
to solitary confinement after conviction of
crimes associated with membership in the
Mafia.
Pope Francis receives a cross made by an inmate during his visit to a penitentiary
in the northern city of Ciudad Juarez on the last day of his fiveday
visit to Mexico earlier this year.
Pope Francis has shown concern for those
living behind bars by making visits to prisons,
calling for penal reform (including the
abolishment of the death penalty) and telephoning
inmates he used to visit in Buenos
Aires.
Before he arrived in the basilica,several
convicted criminals gave personal testimonies
the morning of the church service. A
woman whose son had been murdered also
gave her testimony. She described how she
had tried to liberate herself from hatred by
becoming friends with prisoners, including
the man who killed her son.
“I learned that we are two sides of the same
medal — pain,” said the woman, introduced
only by her first name, Elisabetta. Her son’s
murderer stood by her side, recalling how,
when he was given 12 hours of freedom,
it was Elisabetta who came to spend the
hours with him by taking him to her son’s
grave, where he placed flowers.
During his homily, the Pope emphasised the
need for rehabilitation, saying that no-one is
beyond the mercy of God. “Hypocrisy leads
us to overlook the possibility that people can
change their lives; we put little trust in rehabilitation,
rehabilitation into society. But in
this way, we forget that we are all sinners,
and often, without being aware of it, we too
are prisoners.”