VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE   
   YEAR XXII - # 130   
   DATE 11-07-2015   
      
   Summary:   
   - The Pope offers gifts to Our Lady of Copacabana, patron of Bolivia   
   - In the Santa Cruz-Palmasola penitentiary: reclusion is not the same as   
   exclusion   
   - The Pope arrives in Paraguay and lauds the role of women in the nation's   
   history   
   - First hearing in the trial of ex-nuncio Jozef Wesolowski postponed due to ill   
   health   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    The Pope offers gifts to Our Lady of Copacabana, patron of Bolivia   
    Vatican City, 11 July 2015 (VIS) - The Holy Father's last day in Bolivia began   
   with Holy Mass celebrated in the chapel of the archbishop's residence in Santa   
   Cruz de la Sierra, and his offering to Our Lady of Copacabana, patron of   
   Bolivia, of the gifts given to him by President Evo Morales last Wednesday   
   during their meeting in the presidential palace.   
    "The President of the Nation, in a gesture of warmth, was so kind as to offer   
   me two decorative honours on behalf of the Bolivian people. I thank the   
   Bolivian   
   people for their affection and the president for this courteous gesture. I   
   would   
   like to offer these two decorations to the patron saint of Bolivia, the Mother   
   of this noble nation, so that she may always remember her people and from   
   Bolivia, from the shrine where I would like them to be, that she may remember   
   the Successor of Peter and the whole Church and care for them from Bolivia".   
    He then recited the following prayer to the Virgin Mary:   
    "Mother of the Saviour and Our Mother, Queen of Bolivia, from the heights of   
   your Shrine in Copacabana, heed the prayers and needs of your children,   
   especially the poorest and most abandoned, and protect them. Receive as a gift   
   from the heart of Bolivia and as a token of my filial affection these symbols   
   of   
   closeness and warmth that President Evo Morales Ayma has bestowed on me with   
   cordial and generous affection, on behalf of the Bolivian people, on the   
   occasion of this apostolic trip, which I entrusted to your solicitous   
   intercession.   
    "I pray that these honours, which I leave here in Bolivia at your feet, and   
   which recall the noble flight of the condor in the skies of the Andes and the   
   honoured sacrifice of Fr. Luis Espinal, S.J., may be emblems of the everlasting   
   love and persistent gratitude of the Bolivian people for your solicitous and   
   intense tenderness.   
    At this moment, Mother, I place in your heart my prayers for all the many   
   petitions of your children, which I have received in these days: I beg you to   
   hear them; to give them your encouragement and protection, and to show to the   
   whole of Bolivia your tenderness as a woman and as Mother of God, who lives and   
   reigns for ever and ever. Amen".   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    In the Santa Cruz-Palmasola penitentiary: reclusion is not the same as   
   exclusion   
    Vatican City, 11 July 2015 (VIS) - After celebrating Mass in the chapel of the   
   archbishop's residence, the Pope visited the Santa Cruz-Palmasola penitentiary   
   where he met with various groups of inmates - men, women and young people   
   imprisoned for both petty and serious offences. The men's Pavilion PS4, where   
   the meeting with the Pope took place, is open for daily visits and hosts around   
   2,800 detainees, whose family members (around 1,500 per day) are able to live   
   with them in a sort of village protected and managed by the inmates themselves   
   through a "General Regency" led by State security staff.   
    The Pope was received by the director of the penitentiary, the chaplain and   
   Msgr. Jesus Juarez, head of prison pastoral ministry of the Episcopal   
   Conference   
   of Bolivia. After hearing testimonies from some of the detainees, he addressed   
   those present.   
    !I could not leave Bolivia without seeing you, without sharing that faith and   
   hope which are the fruit of the love revealed on the cross of Christ", he said.   
   "Thank you for welcoming me; I know that you have prepared yourselves for this   
   moment and that you have been praying for me. I am deeply grateful for this".   
    He continued, "You may be asking yourselves: 'Who is this man standing before   
   us?'. I would like to reply to that question with something absolutely certain   
   about my own life. The man standing before you is a man who has experienced   
   forgiveness. A man who was, and is, saved from his many sins. That is who I am.   
   I don't have much more to give you or to offer you, but I want to share with   
   you   
   what I do have and what I love. It is Jesus Christ, the mercy of the Father.   
    "Jesus came to show the love which God has for us. For you and for me. It is a   
   love which is powerful and real. It is a love which takes seriously the plight   
   of those he loves. It is a love which heals, forgives, raises up and shows   
   concern. It is a love which draws near and restores dignity. We can lose this   
   dignity in so many ways. But Jesus is stubborn: he gave his very life to   
   restore   
   the identity we had lost.   
    "Here is something which can help us to understand this. Peter and Paul,   
   disciples of Jesus, were prisoners too. They too lost their freedom. But there   
   was something that sustained them, something that did not let them yield to   
   despair, that experience of darkness and meaninglessness. That something was   
   prayer, both individually and with others. They prayed, and they prayed for one   
   another. These two forms of prayer became a network to maintain life and hope.   
   And that network keeps us from yielding to despair. It encourages us to keep   
   moving forward. It is a network which supports life, your own lives and those   
   of   
   your families.   
    "When Jesus becomes part of our lives, we can no longer remain imprisoned by   
   our past. Instead, we begin look to the present, and we see it differently,   
   with   
   a different kind of hope. We begin to see ourselves and our lives in a   
   different   
   light. We are no longer stuck in the past, but capable of shedding tears and   
   finding in them the strength to make a new start. If there are times when you   
   experience sadness, depression, negative feelings, I would ask you to look at   
   Christ crucified. Look at his face. He sees us; in his eyes there is a place   
   for   
   us. We can all bring to Christ our wounds, our pain, our sins. In his wounds,   
   there is a place for our own wounds. There they can be soothed, washed clean,   
   changed and healed. He died for us, for me, so that he could stretch out us his   
   hand and lift us up. Talk to the priests who come here, talk to them! Jesus   
   wants to help you get up, always.   
    "This certainty makes us work hard to preserve our dignity. Being imprisoned,   
   'shut in', is not the same thing as being 'shut out'. Detention is part of a   
   process of reintegration into society. I know that there are many things here   
   that make it hard: overcrowding, justice delayed, a lack of training   
   opportunities and rehabilitation policies, violence. All these things point to   
   the need for a speedy and efficient cooperation between institutions in order   
   to   
   come up with solutions. And yet, while working for this, we should not think   
   that everything is lost. There are things that we can do even today.   
    "Here, in this rehabilitation centre, the way you live together depends to   
   some   
   extent on yourselves. Suffering and deprivation can make us selfish of heart   
   and   
   lead to confrontation, but we also have the capacity to make these things an   
   opportunity for genuine fraternity. Help one another. Do not be afraid to help   
   one another. The devil is looking for rivalry, division, gangs. Keep working to   
   make progress.   
    "I would ask you to take my greetings to your families. Their presence and   
   support are so important! Grandparents, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters,   
   couples, children: all of them remind us that life is worth living and that we   
   should keep fighting for a better world. Finally, I offer a word of   
   encouragement to all who work at this centre: to the administrators, the police   
   officials and all the personnel. They carry out a vital public service. They   
   have an important responsibility for facilitating the process of reintegration.   
   It is their responsibility to raise up, not to put down, to restore dignity and   
   not to humiliate; to encourage and not to inflict hardship. This means putting   
   aside a mentality which sees people as 'good' or 'bad', but instead tries to   
   focus on helping others. This will help to create better conditions for   
   everyone. It will give dignity, provide motivation, and make us all better   
   people.   
    "Before giving each of you my blessing, I would like for us to pray for a few   
   moments in silence. Each of you, in whatever way you can. I ask you, please, to   
   keep praying for me, because I too have my mistakes and I too must do penance.   
   Thank you".   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    The Pope arrives in Paraguay and lauds the role of women in the nation's   
   history   
    Vatican City, 11 July 2015 (VIS) - After his visit to Palmasola, Pope Francis   
   proceeded to the parish church of La Santa Cruz, where he met with Bolivian   
   bishops (37, including bishops emeritus) for an informal meeting lasting around   
   an hour. He then transferred by car, greeted and applauded by thousands of   
   people, to Viru Viru airport where he left for Paraguay. He arrived in the   
   capital Asuncion two hours later, at 3 p.m. local time.   
    In the airport he was received by the president of Paraguay Horacio Manuel   
   Cartes Jara, and witnessed a brief choreographic display on the history and   
   culture of Paraguay. He received a floral tribute from a group of children and   
   blessed the plaque commemorating St. John Paul II's visit to this country from   
   16 to 18 May 1988.   
    Following the ceremony the Holy Father travelled the fifteen kilometres   
   between   
   the airport and the capital by popemobile. He stopped along the way to greet   
   the   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
    * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)