Overview
- At St. Peter’s Basilica on Gaudete Sunday, Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass for the Jubilee of Prisoners and addressed inmates and prison personnel.
- He asked governments to grant forms of amnesty or remission during the Holy Year, citing Pope Francis’s bull Spes non confundit as the basis for such measures.
- He said no person is defined solely by past actions and described justice as a process of repair and reconciliation.
- He pointed to systemic failures in prisons, including overcrowding, insufficient stable educational programs for rehabilitation, and limited work opportunities.
- In his Angelus, he invoked the imprisoned John the Baptist and said the words of Jesus free people from the prison of despair.