Pope Francis celebrated Mass in St Peter’s Basilica in front of more than 1,000 prison inmates yesterday, in one of the final events of the Jubilee of Mercy, an 11-month Catholic festival that wraps up in two weeks.
Some 35 inmates were flown in from Spain, while the others were Italian, British, Latvian, Malagasy, Malaysian, Mexican, Dutch, South African, and US detainees from Italian prisons, the Vatican said this week.
In a homily, Francis said it is right for people who break the law to be punished with imprisonment, but they should also be given a chance to redeem themselves and be forgiven, no matter how great their crime.
“Every time I enter a prison I ask myself: why them and not me? All of us can make mistakes, all of us ... there is little faith in [prisoners’] rehabilitation, reinsertion into society, but in this way we forget that we are all sinners,” he said.
After Mass, the Pontiff used his Sunday Angelus message to urge governments to reform their criminal justice systems so as to respect “the human dignity of detainees” and focus not only on punitive actions.
“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,” he said.
One of Francis’ first decisions after being elected in 2013 was to perform the pre-Easter ritual of the washing of the feet in a juvenile prison.
That gesture was followed by several visits to detention centres in Italy and elsewhere.
On Thursday, Archbishop Rino Fisichella also said the Pope is regularly in contact with death row inmates.
The Vatican has long opposed the death penalty, arguing that only God can take a person’s life.
Before the 10am (0900 GMT) service in St Peter’s, a prison guard, a Catholic priest overseeing the process to elevate to sainthood an Italian judge killed by the Mafia, a murder convict, and a woman whose son was murdered spoke to the congregation.
Detainees were given a special permit to attend the event.
The Pope’s Jubilee of Mercy opened on December 8 last year and ends on November 20.
It offers the faithful a special chance to make pilgrimages and seek a general pardon for their sins as they walk through a symbolic holy door.
The main one is in St Peter’s Basilica.
More than 20mn people have flocked to the Vatican for the festival, which has yet to see 6,000 homeless people from across Europe meet the Pope next weekend, and the appointment of 17 new cardinals during closing celebrations on November 19-20.