Religious order to turn infamous Colombian prison into religious site

Published: 2007-09-07

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNS) -- An infamous Colombian prison named "La Catedral," once home to narco-trafficking kingpin Pablo Escobar, soon will be turned into a center of prayer. The administration of the prison site recently was given to the Monastic Brotherhood of St. Gertrude the Great, which plans to invest less than $60,000 to turn the ruins into a religious site and spiritual retreat. A cross will stand at the site of an old guard tower and a sculpture of St. Gertrude will look down on the city. The brotherhood also plans to build a chapel and rooms to serve as spiritual retreats. When Colombian authorities finally were ready to arrest Escobar in 1991, he agreed to go to prison -- but in a luxury facility built to his own specifications on a mountainside above the city of Medellin. From inside the prison, which was equipped with a soccer field, a waterfall and a giant dollhouse for his daughter, Escobar continued ruling his drug empire and ordering murders. But Escobar lived there only 13 months before learning he was to be transferred to a real prison. He fled in July 1992, but was hunted down by police and shot dead on a rooftop the next year.

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