After finishing the mass, the director of the center, Nadia Fontana, thanked the Pope for his presence: “For each of them it is a ray of sunshine that warms the heart and rekindles the hope of being able to start again, even if it has to be done from scratch.” , he assured.
Then, the prisoners gave her some of the products they make themselves: a basket with vegetables, a rosary with rainbow-colored beads, and some stoles. The pope returned the gesture by giving the center a painting of the Virgin and Child.
In addition, Francisco was able to meet the only child who lives in the center, named Jairo, whom he caressed and gave an Easter egg.
The Rebibbia women’s prison, on the Roman outskirts, is the largest of the four exclusively women’s prisons in Italy and currently houses 360 inmates and one child, of various nationalities and many arriving from marginalized contexts.
Francisco arrived at this institution around 4:00 p.m. local time (3:00 p.m. GMT) in a wheelchair and was welcomed by dozens of women, prisoners, social workers, nuns and police officers, who applauded him and They kissed his hands as they passed.
In this way, the pope, despite his recent health problems, continues a tradition that began with his pontificatein 2013, that of not celebrating Holy Thursday in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome but in the places of suffering of modern society.
In his eleven years of teaching he has celebrated the ‘In Coena Domini’ mass generally in prisons, although he has also done it in shelters for refugees, in juvenile correctional facilities or in residences, with the sick.
This morning The Argentine pontiff opened the rites of the Easter Triduum of Holy Week in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican with the Chrism Mass, which commemorates the institution of the sacrament of priestly orders.
Francis has begun the Easter rites with complete normality despite the concern caused by his refusal to read in public and this Good Friday he is expected to celebrate the passion of the Lord and go, as is tradition, to the Roman Colosseum for a Stations of the Cross that, for the first time, will feature meditations written by him himself.