Taking a center seat in the intimate courtyard of the 16th-century former convent, the pope opened his address by saying that he wanted it to be thought not as an “official visit” but an “encounter” centered on “prayer, closeness and fraternal affection.”
“No one should take away people’s dignity,” Pope Francis said to the inmates, volunteers, and staff, joined by the Patriarch of Venice, Archbishop Francesco Moraglia.
Drawing attention to the “harsh reality” of prison, the pope highlighted some of the problems inmates are confronted with “such as overcrowding, the lack of facilities and resources, and episodes of violence, [which] give rise to a great deal of suffering there.”
But Francis, anchoring his message on hope and mercy, implored the women to “always look at the horizon, always look to the future, with hope.”
The pope continued by noting that prison can also be a place of “moral and material rebirth where the dignity of women and men is not ‘placed in isolation’ but promoted through mutual respect and the nurturing of talents and abilities, perhaps dormant or imprisoned by the vicissitudes of life, but which can re-emerge for the good of all and which deserve attention and trust.”
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