The beginning of the Jubilee and the spotlight on prisons

Translated by Irene Cecchi

2025 has started, a sacred year for the Catholic Church, the year of the Jubilee.

This event, happening once every 25 years, represents a period of spiritual renewal for the observants, it’s the possibility of getting the plenary indulgence through confession, eucharist and prayer.

“Pilgrims of hope” it’s the theme that Pope Francis chose to send a strong and new message: after opening the first Saint Door of the Vatican’s Saint Peter Basil he decided to open the second one at the Rebibbia prison. No Pope ever did something similar. Hope was the fil rouge of the whole homily of the mass in the prison that also the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio attended.

“But what it means is most important: to open your heart. Open hearts. This is what makes brotherhood. Closed hearts, cold ones, don’t help living. This is why the grace of a Jubilee is to open up, especially hearts, to hope. Hope never fails! This about that. Me too, I have to think about it sometimes, during hard moments when one thinks everything is over […]. This is the message I want to send you, to us. Never lose hope. Hope never fails. Never. Sometimes the rope is harsh and hurts our hands… but with the rope in our hands, looking at the shore, it’s an anchor that leads us forward. There’s always something good, something that makes us carry on.”

Also the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella committed part of his valedictorian to the issue of prisons: “The high rate of suicides it’s an indicator of inadmissible conditions. We have the duty to abide by the Constitution that has essential rules on jail detention. Overcrowded prisons make conditions unacceptable also for the people working there. Inmates have to be able to breathe a different air from the one who led them to criminality and illegality”.

Pope Francis and Sergio Mattarella speeches were two symbolic actions to bring back the attention of the public opinion ofìn the inadmissible life conditions inside penitentiaries.

Hope is what is lacking, as shown by reported data: 2024 was the record year for suicides, 90. Along with it, 2024 was also the record year in terms of general deaths, 243.

We can’t look on the other side, just like we can’t ignore the promise of the art 27, III comma, of our Constitution: “Sentences can not be treatments that are contradictory to humanity and they have to aim at the re-education of the inmate”.

If the sentences weren’t contradictory to humanity, there wouldn’t be so many suicides nor such a high rate of overcrowding, 132.6%, with more than 62 thousand inmates in facilities that can hold less than 47 thousand.

The hope for 2025 is that the ruling class will answer to the Pope and Mattarella’s calls, implementing the needed reforms to abide by the constitutional principles expressed in the art. 27. This is the only way to make sentences dignified, human and oriented to the ri-education of inmates, contributing to their reinstatement in society and avoiding recidivism.

Mondo Internazionale APS - Riproduzione Riservata ® 2025