Pope Benedict is going to prison

The Popes and prisons
by Andrea Tornielli

December 17, 2011

Tomorrow, the last Sunday in Advent, Benedict XVI will visit the Nuovo Complesso prison in Rebibbia. He will talk to inmates, answer their questions and he will bless a tree planted to commemorate the event. It isn’t Papa Ratyzinger's first visit to a Roman prison. On 18 March 2007, he visited a detention center for young offenders in Casal del Marmo.

Papal visits to prisons are related to the Gospel account in which Jesus lists this action as one of the 'acts of mercy' that earns forgiveness for sins.

The Pope is also the Successor of Peter who had been a prisoner himself - in Rome, at the ancient Mamertine prison in the Roman Forum, in which according to tradition, the Apostle Paul was also imprisoned. It is now the site of a church. Subsequently, of course, quite a few Popes suffered imprisonment - the last ones having been Pius VI and Pius VII, both taken prisoner by the French (Pius VI was arrested in 1798 but died in 1799, six weeks after reaching his prison destination in Valence; while his successor Pius VII was arrested by Napoleon's forces and kept imprisoned in Genoa until 1813, when Napoleon fell from power).]

More recently, records show many papal visits to prisons. Such visits became opportunities to improve the daily conditions for prisoners. Both Innocent X (in 1650) and Clement XI (in 1704) paid surprise and secret visits to the construction sites of the Carceri Nuove (‘new prisons’) in Via Giulia and the San Michele rehabilitation centre in Porta Portese, and they returned there once construction work was finished to meet the inmates and see how the prisons were managed.

In 1824 and in 1827 Leo XII visited prisoners twice: the first time was a visit to the Carceri Nuove in Via Giulia, and the second was a visit to the young offender’s institute in Via del Gonfalone.

Pius IX, the last Pope-king to rule the Papal States before Rome was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, also made a pastoral visit to convicts, visiting political prisoners held in Rome’s city prisons first, and then, on 26 October 1868, the inmates of Civitavecchia’s jail, which had just been inaugurated.

After that, it would be 90 years before another Pope was to cross the threshold of a prison, even though we shouldn’t forget that Pius XII, during the Christmas of 1951, had dedicated a radio address to all the prisoners in the world, expressing his sympathy for their plight:

"Aware as we are of the fragility and immeasurable weakness that often wears the human spirit down to death, we understand the sad tragedy that may have taken you unawares and swept you up, through an unfortunate combination of circumstances that can’t always be blamed on your own free will… And just as in Heaven, there is greater rejoicing for every sinner who repents, so on Earth every honest man must kneel before those who may have fallen, perhaps in a moment of confusion, and have nevertheless been able to struggle to redeem themselves and rise up once more.’

The first filmed prison visit by a Pope was John XXIII’s historic visit on December 26, 1958. The directors of the Regina Coeli prison had been alerted a week beforehand but they had decided to say nothing about the visit to the prisoners until the day before.

"My name is Giuseppe, I’m your brother", Papa Roncalli introduced himself. The convicts gave him a missal bound in white leather which the Pope used from that day on when saying private masses.

He confessed to the convicts as they tearfully applauded him that one of his relatives had once been arrested for poaching, a statement not reported by L'Osservatore Romano in its report, 'censoring' a disclosure about a past misdemeanour by a papal relative.

John XXIII then asked to visit the prison wards. This hadn’t been planned. After the wardens’ initial hesitation, the gates were opened and the Pope walked past the cells where the prisoners were waiting for him.

His meeting with a convicted murderer, who awaited him on his knees, was particularly touching. The convict didn’t dare raise his tearful eyes. The young man was unable to speak and only sobbed. Papa Roncalli drew close, and gestured that he didn’t understand. The convict asked him: ‘Does what you said apply to me too, though I’ve sinned so much? Can there be any forgiveness for me?’ John XXIII, moved, said nothing, but bent over him and embraced him.

Before leaving the prison he said: ‘When you next write home, be sure to tell your families the Pope has been to see you and spent time with you. When the Pope says holy Mass and recites his daily rosary, he will be thinking of each and every one of you and your loved ones with great affection, all of you…"

Paul VI visited Regina Coeli prison, which isn’t far from the Vatican, on 9 April 1964. He asked the convicts to remain hopeful:
"My sons, always have hope in your hearts. I’d say that the only sin you can commit here is to despair. Remove this bond from your souls, this true imprisonment and let your hearts expand instead and find reasons for hope once again, even in your present situation of constraint where physical, external freedom has been taken from you... It is Christ’s voice that invites you to be good, to start over, to restart your lives and rise up."

Paul VI wrote a prayer specially for prisoners that says: "Lord, you allowed yourself to be put to death in that manner in order to save your executioners, to save all us sinners. And also to save me? If this is so, Lord, it means that one may be good at heart even though the condemnation of the courts of men weighs on one’s shoulders."

From that year on, the Pope sent a Christmas present to each and every one of the inmates of Regina Coeli and Rebibbia prisons, a pack of sweets and a religious image with his greetings.

His secretary, Fr. Pasquale Macchi, later remembered how "On 10 August 1978, while I was standing next to Paul VI’s body lying in state in the Basilica of St Peter, I saw an ex-convict and I asked him why he was there. He answered: 'The Pope came to visit us in prison and I’m here to return the visit'."

John Paul II, who escaped death from the gunshots fired by Alì Agca on 13 May 1981 in St Peter’s Square, crossed the threshold of Rebibbia prison on 27 December 1983 to meet his attacker alone in his cell.

The two sat down opposite each other. For a moment Wojtyla put a hand on Alì’s knee. Then the two of them lowered their heads and began to talk in whispers. Agca, who had already been forgiven by the Pope after the attack, had more to say. Wojtyla bent over with his hand on his forehead, almost brushing against Alì’s head.

As he left the cell, the Pope said: ‘I spoke to him as if he were my brother, a brother I have forgiven and who has all my trust. What we said to each other is our secret.’ Later it emerged that the Turkish would-be assassin had told the Pope he couldn’t understand how he managed to survive after the attempt [i.e., that the security people did not shoot him down].

In 2000, the year of the Great Jubilee, John Paul II, now much older and ailing, visited Regina Coeli. The day before the visit, 100 inmates were transferred elsewhere so as to avoid giving the impression that the prison was overcrowded.

Papa Wojtyla said Mass in Regina Coeli’s ‘rotunda’, the same place where his predecessors had said Mass. The Pope wore vestments sewn by the inmates, he said Mass on an olive-wood altar made by a prison guard, and was given a plaster crucifix made by a group of Albanian inmates.

On that occasion, two prisoners put on white vestments to serve the Pope as altar boys. One of them, 44-year-old Gianfranco Cottarelli, had been given the duty of holding the Pope’s crucifix-shaped papal staff with trembling hands.

Just days after having been filmed by the world’s cameras in this important role, he was found dead in his cell after having swallowed a lethal cocktail of drugs and anti-depressants.