Pope says prisons must not be centers for torture

Published: 2007-09-06

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) -- Prisons must not be centers for torture and other degrading forms of punishment, but must help rehabilitate detainees so they can "conduct upright and honest lives within society," said Pope Benedict XVI. Jails and correctional facilities "must contribute to the rehabilitation of offenders, facilitating their transition from despair to hope and from unreliability to dependability," the pope said in a Sept. 6 audience with prison chaplains at his summer villa in Castel Gandolfo. The chaplains were participants in a Sept. 5-12 international meeting on the pastoral care of prisoners. "Public authorities must be ever vigilant" in creating conditions that help prisoners regain "a sense of worth" and in "eschewing any means of punishment or correction that either undermine or debase the human dignity of prisoners," he said. More than 200 religious and laypeople participated in the 12th International Commission of Catholic Prison Pastoral Care. Its focus this year was "Discovering the Face of Christ in Every Prisoner."

Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .