VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE   
   YEAR XXVI - # 34   
   DATE 18-02-2016   
      
   Summary:   
   - To the detainees of CeReSo 3 in Cuidad Juarez: those who have experienced   
   hell   
   can be prophets for society   
   - Francis to the world of work: "God will hold enslavers to account"   
   - Mass in Ciudad Juarez: no more death and exploitation   
   - The Pope leaves Mexico: many lights proclaim hope in the Mexican people   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    To the detainees of CeReSo 3 in Cuidad Juarez: those who have experienced hell   
   can be prophets for society   
    Vatican City, 17 February 2016 (VIS) - Yesterday at 10 a.m. local time (6 p.m.   
   in Rome) the Holy Father began the last leg of his apostolic trip in Mexico:   
   Ciudad Juarez, for two centuries the only land passage to the United States.   
   Indeed, Cuidad Juarez is situated on the Rio Grande, facing the Texan city of   
   El   
   Paso. The two form a metropolitan area with two million inhabitants. It is a   
   very developed industrial centre and, according to various statistics, one of   
   the most violent cities in the world, due principally to drug trafficking   
   across   
   the border with the United States. It also has around 950 armed gangs with tens   
   of thousands of members, and is home to hundreds of Mexican gang members   
   deported from the United States. During the last four years of the drugs war,   
   212,000 inhabitants - or around 18 per cent of the population - abandoned the   
   city. Ciudad Juarez is sadly renowned for the disappearance of thousands of   
   women, typically from poor families, who worked in the maquiladoras   
   (clandestine   
   factories). The theme of the abduction and murder of these women has featured   
   in   
   literature and cinema, and various associations have been established to defend   
   women, including "Nuestras hijas de regreso a casa" ("Bring our daughters back   
   home").   
    The Holy Father began his day in Ciudad Juarez with a visit to the CeReSo 3   
   penitentiary, which formed part of a project for the requalification of the   
   penal institutions of the State of Chihuahua, and has been awarded for its   
   observance of international norms in the field. It houses three thousand   
   detainees including a limited number of women. Upon arrival Francis greeted the   
   families of some of the inmates, and proceeded to the chapel where he was   
   awaited by staff and the priests of the penitentiary's pastoral service, to   
   whom   
   he addressed some words of thanks for their work. "You encounter much   
   fragility.   
   Therefore I would like to offer you this fragile image", he said, referring to   
   the crystal crucifix he gave to the Centre to commemorate his visit. "Crystal   
   is   
   fragile, it breaks easily. Christ on the Cross represents the greatest   
   fragility   
   of humanity; however it is this fragility that saves us, that helps us, that   
   enables us to keep going and opens the doors of hope. It is my wish that each   
   one of you, with the blessing of the Virgin and contemplating the fragility of   
   Christ Who died to save us, sowing seeds of hope and resurrection".   
    He was awaited in the Centre's main courtyard by seven hundred detainees, of   
   whom he greeted around fifty in person. One of them gave a testimony in which   
   he   
   affirmed that the presence of the Holy Father was a call to mercy especially   
   for   
   those who had lost hope in their rehabilitation and for those who had forgotten   
   that there are human beings in prison. Francis then addressed those present,   
   remarking first that he could not have left "without greeting you and   
   celebrating with you the Jubilee of Mercy", adding that mercy "embraces   
   everyone   
   and is found in every corner of the world. There is no place beyond the reach   
   of   
   his mercy, no space or person it cannot touch".   
    "Celebrating the Jubilee of Mercy with you is recalling the pressing journey   
   that we must undertake in order to break the cycle of violence and crime. We   
   have already lost many decades thinking and believing that everything will be   
   resolved by isolating, separating, incarcerating, and ridding ourselves of   
   problems, believing that these policies really solve problems. We have   
   forgotten   
   to focus on what must truly be our concern: people's lives; their lives, those   
   of their families, and those who have suffered because of this cycle of   
   violence".   
    "Divine Mercy reminds us that prisons are an indication of the kind of society   
   we are. In many cases they are a sign of the silence and omissions which have   
   led to a throwaway culture, a symptom of a culture that has stopped supporting   
   life, of a society that has abandoned its children. Mercy reminds us that   
   reintegration does not begin here within these walls; rather it begins before,   
   it begins 'outside', in the streets of the city. Reintegration or   
   rehabilitation   
   begins by creating a system which we could call social health, that is, a   
   society which seeks not to cause sickness, polluting relationships in   
   neighbourhoods, schools, town squares, the streets, homes and in the whole of   
   the social spectrum. A system of social health that endeavours to promote a   
   culture which acts and seeks to prevent those situations and pathways that end   
   in damaging and impairing the social fabric".   
    "At times it may seem that prisons are intended more to prevent people from   
   committing crimes than to promote the process of rehabilitation that allows us   
   to address the social, psychological and family problems which lead a person to   
   act in a certain way", he observed. "The problem of security is not resolved   
   only by incarcerating; rather, it calls us to intervene by confronting the   
   structural and cultural causes of insecurity that impact the entire social   
   framework. Jesus' concern for the care of the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless   
   and prisoners sought to express the core of the Father's mercy. This becomes a   
   moral imperative for the whole of society that wishes to maintain the necessary   
   conditions for a better common life. It is within a society's capacity to   
   include the poor, infirm and imprisoned, that we see its ability to heal their   
   wounds and make them builders of a peaceful coexistence. Social reintegration   
   begins by making sure that all of our children go to school and that their   
   families obtain dignified work by creating public spaces for leisure and   
   recreation, and by fostering civic participation, health services and access to   
   basic services, to name just a few possible measures. The whole rehabilitation   
   process starts here".   
    "Celebrating the Jubilee of Mercy with you means learning not to be prisoners   
   of the past, of yesterday. It means learning to open the door to the future, to   
   tomorrow; it means believing that things can change. Celebrating the Jubilee of   
   Mercy with you means inviting you to lift up your heads and to work in order to   
   gain this space of longed-for freedom. Celebrating the Jubilee of Mercy with   
   you   
   means repeating this phrase that we heard a little while ago, so well expressed   
   and with such force: 'When they gave me my sentence ,someone said to me: do not   
   ask the reason why you are here, but the purpose. And this 'purpose' keeps us   
   going ahead; it enables us to overcome the barrier of the social deception that   
   would have us believe that security and order are obtained only through   
   imprisonment".   
    "We know that we cannot turn back, we know that what is done, is done. This is   
   the way I wanted to celebrate with you the Jubilee of Mercy, because it does   
   not   
   exclude the possibility of writing a new story and moving forward. You suffer   
   the pain of a failure, you feel the remorse of your actions and in many cases,   
   with great limitations, you seek to remake your lives in the midst of solitude.   
   You have known the power of sorrow and sin, and have not forgotten that within   
   your reach is the power of the resurrection, the power of divine mercy which   
   makes all things new. Now, this mercy can reach you in the hardest and most   
   difficult of places, but such occasions can also perhaps bring truly positive   
   results. From inside this prison, you must work hard to change the situations   
   which create the most exclusion. Speak with your loved ones, tell them of your   
   experiences, help them to put an end to this cycle of violence and exclusion.   
   The one who has suffered the greatest pain, and we could say 'has experienced   
   hell', can become a prophet in society. Work so that this society which uses   
   people and discards them will not go on claiming victims".   
    "As I say these things, I recall Jesus' words: 'Let any one of you who is   
   without sin be the first to throw a stone'. I should leave now ... in saying   
   these   
   things to you, I do not do so as if I were in the pulpit, wagging my finger; I   
   do so on the basis of the experience of my own wounds, errors and sins that the   
   Lord has wished to forgive and re-educate. I do so on the basis of the   
   knowledge   
   that, without His grace and my vigilance, I could easily repeat them. Brothers,   
   I always ask myself, as I enter a prison, 'Why them and not me?'. And it is a   
   mystery of divine mercy. But we all celebrating this divine mercy today,   
   looking   
   ahead with hope".   
    Finally, the Pope addressed all the staff and those who undertake any type of   
   work that brings them into contact with inmates, urging them to remember their   
   potential to be "signs of the heart of the Father", and adding, "We need one   
   another; as our sister said to us, recalling the Letter to the Hebrews: let us   
   feel we are imprisoned alongside them".   
    Before giving his blessing, he invited those present to pray a moment in   
   silence: "Each one knows what he wants to say to the Lord; each person knows   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
    * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)