International Courant
ROME — Pope Francis consecrated his Holy Yr Thursday at Rome’s most important jail, bringing a message of hope to prisoners and involving them within the Catholic Church’s once-every-quarter-century celebration that’s anticipated to attract some 32 million pilgrims to Rome to take.
Francis rose from his wheelchair, knocked on the door of the Rebibbia jail chapel and walked throughout the brink, reenacting the gesture he carried out two nights earlier on Christmas Eve on the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The opening of the Holy Door within the basilica formally heralded the jubilee 12 months, a church custom courting from 1300, now occurring each 25 years and bringing believers to Rome on pilgrimages.
‘I opened the primary Holy Door at Christmas in St. Peter’s. I wished the second to be right here, in a jail,” Francis advised the prisoners earlier than coming into. “I wished every of us right here, inside and outside, to have the chance to throw open the door of our hearts and perceive that hope doesn’t disappoint.”
Francis devoted the 2025 jubilee to hope and made it clear that prisoners can be an essential a part of that: the final main occasion of the jubilee is a particular mass for prisoners in St. Peter’s Basilica on December 14, 2025. Francis marked the jubilee of 2025 devoted to hope. lengthy jail ministry an essential a part of his priestly vocation and has made a number of visits to Rebibbia since changing into pope in 2013, whereas a lot of his journeys overseas have additionally included jail visits.
Are message is at all times one in every of hopebelieving that individuals serving jail sentences want one thing to sit up for greater than most. That is very true in Italy, the place jail overcrowding and prisoner suicide charges are at file highs, in accordance with the Antigone Affiliation, which tracks jail circumstances.
In accordance with the 2024 Antigone report, 88 prisoners dedicated suicide in Italian prisons this 12 months – greater than another 12 months – and the Italian prisoner inhabitants was 132% better than the system’s capability.
In his homily, Francis prompt that the prisoners see hope as an anchor mounted to the bottom and that they attempt to maintain on tightly to the rope hooked up to it, though it generally hurts their palms.
“Maintain the rope of hope, maintain the anchor,” Francis stated. “By no means let it go.”
Francis’s journey to Rebibbia on a frigid morning was his final main occasion of the week, after he celebrated Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Tuesday night and gave his Christmas Day blessing from the loggia overlooking the sq..
The 88-year-old pope, who usually suffers from respiratory infections in winter, may have a number of days of relaxation earlier than making ready for the New Yr’s Eve vigil and Mass the subsequent day.
Francis’ 2025 features a dizzying calendar of anniversary occasions that may take a look at his endurance, with particular anniversary Plenty for all the key teams of pilgrims celebrated through the 12 months: adolescents, migrants, academics and regulation enforcement officers, amongst others.
Up to now he has lined just one overseas journey: a Might go to to Turkey to commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Christianity’s first ecumenical council.
___
Related Press faith reporting receives help by the APs cooperation with The Dialog US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely liable for this content material.
