Cover
story In
jails rotunda, John Paul calls for liberation
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
NCR Staff Rome
Pope John Paul IIs visit to Romes Regina Coeli prison
July 9 made front-page news here in light of the severe overcrowding of
Italys prisons and jails.
In a telling indication, more than 100 inmates were temporarily
transferred out of Regina Coeli in anticipation of the papal event in order to
bring the population under its capacity of 850.
Ten female inmates were bused in from Romes Rebbibia prison,
on the other hand, to make the point that women, too, are behind bars.
In his homily, the pope called on Catholics to be engaged
for the dignity of all, a dignity that flows from the love of God for every
human person. He told the inmates that God wants them to walk a way
of justice and truth, forgiveness and rehabilitation.
The jail from which the Lord comes to liberate you is, first
of all, the one in which the spirit is chained. Sin is the prison of the
spirit, the pope said. God desires the integral liberation of man,
a liberation that regards not only the physical and outer conditions of life,
but which is in the first place a liberation of the heart.
The penal system cannot be reduced to a simple retributive
dynamic or some sort of institutional vendetta. The pain inflicted by prison
only makes sense if, while asserting the demands of justice and discouraging
crime, it also serves the renewal of the inmate, offering the one who erred a
chance to reflect and to change his life, and then to be reinserted into
society with full rights.
Perhaps the ones to whom you caused pain will feel more
justice has been done watching your interior conversion than simply knowing you
have paid a penal debt.
The pope reiterated his support for an amnesty or clemency.
I know well that every one of you lives watching for the day in which,
having atoned for the pain you caused, you will be able to buy back your
freedom and return to your own family.
Aware of that, in the message that I have sent to the entire
world for this day of Jubilee, in keeping with my predecessors and, in the
spirit of the Holy Year, I have called on your behalf for a sign of clemency,
through a reduction of sentence. I have asked for this in the deep conviction
that such a choice constitutes a sign of sensitivity toward your condition, as
well as a way to encourage repentance and to speed up personal
reformation.
Tension surrounding overcrowding, coupled with impatience for
progress on an amnesty, has led to a recent wave of prison violence in
Italy.
Inmates, sometimes even joined by guards, have burned mattresses
and conducted hunger strikes. In a few cases, the protests have turned violent;
at Regina Coeli the week before the popes visit, some 25 guards were
injured, two seriously, in attempts to restore order.
Several plans are currently before the Italian parliament for an
amnesty or reduction in sentence, billed as a humanitarian gesture that would
relieve overcrowding. But as is often the case in Italian politics, there is
more than meets the eye to the debate.
Beneath the surface is the question of whether such an amnesty
would apply to Mafia members or politicans jailed during Italys
clean hands operation in the mid-1990s. Most plans would offer
amnesty only to inmates with sentences of three years or less, while the bulk
of the clean hands convicts drew sentences of at least 10 years. In
addition, Italys center-right coalition, led by media baron Silvio
Berlusconi, has signaled willingness to go along with an amnesty; perhaps not
coincidentally, Berlusconi has had several convictions of accounting fraud and
bribery and faces trials on other charges of false accounting.
Regina Coeli is a scant 10 minutes away from the Vatican on the
banks of the Tiber River. It was built by Pius IX, the last pope to rule
central Italy as a secular monarch and hence the last pope to need a jail. It
is the most fabled prison in Italy, the setting for 100 movies and 100
novels, as Romes La Reppublica newspaper put it.
The pope celebrated the two-hour liturgy in the rotunda of the
prison, wearing vestments sewn by the inmates. He used an altar made of olive
wood decorated by a guard. Nine prisoners were selected to serve the Mass
five Italians, two Africans and two South Americans. Another 40
prisoners formed the choir.
In a sad footnote, one of the inmates who served the Mass died in
the following week, apparently suffering from ailments related to drug
abuse.
During the Mass, the pope was presented with a collection of 557
postcards from inmates from all over the world. The great majority of the
artistic postcards came from the United States, according to the Vaticans
Jubilee committee.
Only 73 of the prisons inmates were able to fit into the
rotunda. The rest sat in rows down each of the cellblocks radiating off the
main area watching the event on television. Occasionally cameras would pan
these areas. At one point, an inmate held up a hand-written sign pleading for
an amnesty, quickly snatched away by a guard.
In visiting Regina Coeli, John Paul II continued a tradition begun
by John XXIII, who was the first pope to visit on Dec. 26, 1958. As the pope
walked down blocks, prisoners knelt in their cells. Later, after a talk in
which the pope spoke of his feelings of brotherhood, an inmate fell in front of
him and asked: Holiness, do your words apply to me too, an
assassin?
John XXIII, according to witnesses, lifted the man to his feet and
embraced him.
National Catholic Reporter, July 28,
2000
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