Pope celebrates special jubilee Mass with 1,000 prison inmates
Vatican City - Pope Francis was celebrating Mass in St Peter's Basilica in front of more than 1,000 prison inmates on Sunday in one of the final events of the Jubilee of Mercy, an 11-month festival that wraps up in two weeks.
Some 35 inmates were flown in from Spain, while the others were Italian, British, Latvian, Malagasy, Malaysian, Mexican, Dutch, South African and US detainees from Italian prisons, the Vatican said earlier this week.
"We know that the pope cares a lot about prisoners: In his apostolic journeys he has repeatedly visited prisons to give prisoners a message of solidarity and hope," Archbishop Rino Fisichella said on Thursday.
Fisichella said Francis is regularly in contact with death row inmates, but refused to give more details. The Vatican has long opposed the death penalty, arguing that only God can take a person's life.
Before the 10 am (0900 GMT) service, a prison guard, a Catholic priest overseeing the process to elevate to sainthood an Italian judge killed by the Mafia, a murder convict and a woman whose son was murdered spoke to the congregation.
Detainees were given a special permit to attend the event.
"Forgiveness is the essence of the love which can understand mistakes and mend them," Francis wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
The pope's Jubilee of Mercy opened on December 8 and ends on November 20. It offers the faithful a special chance to make pilgrimages and seek a general pardon for their sins as they walk through a symbolic holy door. The main one is in St Peter's Basilica.