Pope Leo XIV at the Brians Penitentiary Center
“Every human being is ‘worthy’ by the mere fact ‘of having been wanted, created and loved by God.’ There is no situation that makes the Lord turn his gaze away from us. It is a consoling truth that accompanies us at every moment and reminds us that his merciful love is always greater than whatever good or evil we have done.”
(Pope Leo XIV)
On June 10, Pope Leo XIV visited the Brians 1 Penitentiary Center, a very important moment of his Apostolic Visit to Spain. It brought to mind what the Lord said when he visited the synagogue and read what the prophet Isaiah had foretold about Jesus: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year of the Lord’s favor.” And rightly he said: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:21).
In a way, this too was fulfilled with the Pope’s visit to Brians 1. The Vicar of Christ delivered a message of liberation: he came to proclaim freedom to captives, a freedom that can be lived even behind bars, with the hope of attaining it fully. In a concrete and special way, the Pope made Christ present among those serving their sentences in prisons.
Yesterday’s event made visible the Church’s constant presence in these places. When Leo XIV was still Father Robert Prevost Martínez, O.S.A., at the end of his service as Prior General of the Order, he made a point of mentioning in his farewell letter the prison ministry in Huelva, where we Augustinians have long been involved. That is why Leo XIV’s visit to Brians 1 means so much to all of us who work in this corner of the Lord’s vineyard, caring for people deprived of their freedom and helping them feel the message of liberation we proclaim to them with the Gospel.
The origin of this visit to Brians 1 is beautiful: it lies in the gift the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia gave the Pope, stoles made by the women inmates of the Wad-Ras prison (Barcelona). Stoles are a sign of priestly power, of the anointing received from God to bring freedom to the oppressed and proclaim liberty to captives.
In short, this is what prison ministry does: priests, together with the lay people and religious who work with them, in the beautiful task of making Christ and the Church present in prisons. Anointed and sent by the Spirit of the Lord, despite our personal poverty, to proclaim the Good News of God’s Love in a setting where so many of our brothers and sisters are waiting for the right word and gesture to keep hoping. The Pope went to Brians 1 to support that presence and to show his care for each and every inmate, who represented those of all Spain and even of the whole world. To offer a word of encouragement and ask them to “lift up their eyes” and keep seeking the Lord: this is our proposal and contribution to the world of prisons, to show the capacity for rehabilitation, to affirm the infinite dignity they have as human beings loved by God, and to show the creativity of people deprived of their freedom.
At Brians 1, its chaplain, Fr. Jesús Bel, a Mercedarian religious, and a team of twenty volunteers from the prison ministry of the Diocese of Sant Feliu de Llobregat provide spiritual accompaniment, catechesis proclaiming the Gospel of liberation, Bible workshops where the Bread of the Word is shared as nourishment for these brothers and sisters deprived of freedom, celebration of the sacraments, formation and personal care for the inmates. In every prison in Spain, chaplains and prison ministry volunteers work to make the Gospel bear fruit in these settings, where one sees both the greatest misery and the immense greatness of the human heart, a heart that needs to feel loved as the first step toward rehabilitation and toward experiencing the liberation Jesus brings us.
Yesterday Pope Leo listened to the moving testimonies of two inmates, who shared their experiences, their wishes and their hopes, and he met with the inmates. He told them that the mistakes of life do not define a person’s identity and reminded them, as Saint Augustine says in the Confessions, that if we trust in divine grace and let it guide and transform us, we discover that in our lives the past does not condemn the future but offers us the chance to change our decisions and choices.
This papal visit was carefully prepared, with an intensification of the work of prison ministry. May the inmates of Brians 1, and of every prison, feel through the Pope’s visit that the anointing of the Spirit is poured out upon them, to heal, to console, to encourage and to set free. All in all, how beautiful that Leo XIV visited a prison during his Apostolic Visit to Spain. His presence still echoes today the words Saint John XXIII addressed at Rome’s Regina Coeli prison: “You cannot come to me, so I come to you… So here I am, I have come, you have seen me; I have placed my eyes in your eyes, I have placed my heart close to your heart.”
“I invite you to keep dreaming God’s dream. To each of you I say: God loves you as you are, but he dreams of you as better! The Lord allows all of us always to begin again, for being human and being Christian does not mean never making mistakes but growing in the capacity to convert, repent, make amends and, above all, to be reconciled and to forgive.”
(Pope Leo XIV)
PHOTO: © Vatican Media