Pope Francis has urged inmates at a Philadelphia jail to believe in the power of rehabilitation, condemning societies that normalize their suffering, on the last day of his trip to a nation that holds one-fifth of all the world’s prisoners.
Speaking at Curran-Fromhold correctional facility, the Argentinian pontiff told a group of 60 male and 11 female prisoners: “Any society, any family that cannot share or take seriously the pain of its children, and views that pain as something normal or expected, is a society condemned to remain hostage to itself, prey to the very things which cause that pain.”
He urged the inmates, their families and the correctional officers to believe in the possibility of rehabilitation, saying Christ “comes to save us from the lie that says no one can change”.
They should regard their time in prison not as exclusion from society but as a period aimed at giving them “a hand in getting back on the right road”, he said. “All of us,” he added, “are part of that effort.”
Francis said: “It is painful when we see prison systems which are not concerned to care for wounds, to soothe pain, to offer new possibilities,” he said. “It is painful when we see people who think that only others need to be cleansed, purified, and do not recognize that their weariness, pain and wounds are also the weariness, pain and wounds of society.”
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| Pope Francis chair made for him by prisoners |
The pope spent several minutes chatting and shaking hands with each inmate, and said a chair that a few of them had carved for him was “beautiful”.
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