Pope Francis Wants Prisoners Pardoned Worldwide for Christmas

Pope Francis wrote letters to the world’s Heads of State asking them to show a “gesture of clemency” to prisoners this Christmas.

He invited them to do this for “our brothers and sisters who are deprived of their liberty and who are held eligible to benefit from such a provision.”

Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni explained Pope Francis’s intentions behind the request are “so that this time marked by tensions, injustice and conflicts may be opened to the grace that comes from the Lord.”

Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis has shown closeness to prisoners.

In 2017, he invited two prisoners to have lunch with him that ended up escaping.

During the 2016 Holy Year of Mercy, he said there is “the need for a criminal justice system that is not exclusively punitive, but open to hope and the prospect of reintegrating the offender into society” and made a similar request for clemency.

“In a special way, I submit for the consideration of the competent civil authorities of every country the possibility that, in this Holy Year of Mercy, an act of clemency be carried out for those prisoners who are held to be eligible to benefit from such a provision.”

Pope Francis’ works echoes those of his predecessors.

During the Great Jubilee Year of 2000, Pope Saint John Paul II made a request for clemency in the Jubilee for Prisons apostolic document, asking “the competent authorities” to reduce prison sentences in the name of Jesus who was “imprisoned, mocked, judged and condemned.”

Pray for prisoners!

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