![]() ![]() Peter’s Square and then delivers his twice-yearly “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message and blessing. On Easter Sunday, the most important day in the Christian liturgical calendar, he says Mass in St. On Saturday evening the 85-year-old pope is due to say an Easter Vigil Mass in St. This year, the Vatican’s decision to have both Ukrainians and Russians take part in the procession has caused friction with Ukrainian Catholic leaders, who want it to be reconsidered. On Good Friday, the day Christians commemorate Jesus’ death by crucifixion, the pope presides at two services, including a candlelight “Via Crucis” (Way of the Cross) procession around Rome’s Colosseum. The prison visit, which was private and closed to the public, was the second of two services on Thursday, the start of three days of intense activities leading up to Easter. In the past two years, scaled-down versions of the service were held inside the Vatican because of COVID restrictions. He told them God would judge them but would also be ready to forgive them. “It is a way of saying ‘I do not judge anyone. “We priests should be the first to serve others, not exploit others,” he told the prisoners in a brief, improvised homily during the Mass in the prison chapel. American jails currently hold 2.3 million people, a quarter of the world’s prison population even. This year, Francis went to a prison in the port city of Civitavecchia, northwest of Rome on the Mediterranean coast.Ī video released by the Vatican showed the pope washing and kissing the feet of 12 male and female inmates of various ages, including a woman who appeared to be elderly. Pope Francis is also planning to meet with prisoners at a penitentiary in Philadelphia. But after his election in 2013 the pope continued a tradition he established as archbishop of Buenos Aires of holding it in prisons or homes for the elderly. Peter’s Basilica or another Rome cathedral. But in this way we forget that we are all sinners and often, without being aware of it, we too are prisoners… locked up within our own prejudices or enslaved to the idols of a false sense of well-being.VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis visited an Italian prison for a Holy Thursday Mass where he washed and kissed the feet of 12 inmates to commemorate Jesus’ gesture of humility towards his apostles the night before he died.įrancis’ predecessors held the service in St. ![]() “We don’t think about the possibility that people can change their lives we put little trust in rehabilitation. “Sometimes, a certain hypocrisy leads to people considering you only as wrongdoers, for whom prison is the sole answer,” he said. All the same, hope must not falter.” He said that incarceration was not the only means to set people back on the right path. “Certainly, breaking the law involves paying the price, and losing one’s freedom is the worst part of serving time, because it affects us so deeply. The pontiff, recalling his visits to jail, said: “Every time I enter a prison, I ask the question ‘why them and not me?’ we all can make mistakes.” The prisoners came from jails in Italy and Spain but 12 countries were represented including Britain, Mexico, South Africa. The Argentine pontiff regularly meets prisoners-both in Italy and on his trips abroad-but this is the first time so many inmates were received at the Vatican. The event was also attended by 3,000 others including prison staff and volunteers and without any visible police presence. VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis yesterday celebrated Mass before a thousand prisoners specially invited to the Vatican, giving them a message of hope while denouncing the “hypocrisy” of society. It freed 2,900 common prisoners ahead of the 2012. One thousand prisoners - including some lifers - take part in a special event at the Vatican this weekend, along with 3,000 family members, prison staff and volunteers. Cuba released about 300 prisoners including 101 political prisoners ahead of Pope John Pauls landmark visit in 1998, Sanchez said. ![]() VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis (C) leads a mass at St Peter’s basilica in Vatican. ![]()
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