Pope Leo visits prisoners, urges them to ‘restart their lives’

Pope Leo XIV visited a group of prisoners at Argentina’s Devoto Prison on Wednesday morning, urging them to restart their lives after listening to their personal accounts.

“Human beings do not flourish despite their limitations, but often through them ... I know that this place, both in its structure and its organisation, reveals to us the harshness of those limitations,” the pontiff said on his final day of the Argentina leg of his South American tour.

The Holy Father urged inmates at the Complejo Penitenciario Federal de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires to see their time in prison as a turning point for personal and social change.

“I imagine your sleepless nights, missing your loved ones or thinking about those you may have hurt,” he said.

But “the current situation you are going through is also a particular moment in which you can restart your lives,” he added.

Conveying a message of hope, redemption and social reintegration, the Pope emphasised that “even when human beings lose their humanity and cause tragedy, a small light remains.”

“Prison bears witness to profound changes and growth; it bears witness to people who, having experienced human frailty in its most painful form, are able, through God’s grace, to kindle small lights of hope. Those rays of light also shine outwards,” he concluded.

Around 75 inmates and several family members listened to the pontiff in the prison gymnasium, which had been prepared with a small platform and a religious image for his address.

Devoto prison, which previously housed around 1,600 inmates and is due to be decommissioned, was half-empty after the government transferred most of its prisoners to another facility, just weeks before the Pope’s arrival.

Prior to his address, the Pope had heard from three inmates about how their faith had helped them overcome moments of distress, regain inner peace and begin to build a future free from addiction and crime.

The prisoners, identified as Cristian, Maximiliano and Reynaldo, testified as to the importance of faith in transforming their lives and expressed their desire to be reunited with their families, find a job and start a new chapter. 

Cristian, aged 29, said that he has been in prison since 2025. He recalled that, whilst living on the streets, his addictions drove him to commit crimes, lose his job and drift apart from his family. Following his arrest, he endured nights of anguish and regret at not having heeded his mother’s advice.

The young man said his life began to change when he visited the prison chapel. “There, I felt that I was not alone, that Jesus was with me,” he said, emphasising that his faith had enabled him to regain peace, joy and love. 

Cristian closed by asking for forgiveness from God and from everyone he had hurt.

Another inmate, Maximiliano, said that his drug and alcohol use had led him to live apart from his family and to miss out on irreplaceable moments with his children. He acknowledged that his arrest had been a wake-up call that forced him to reflect on the direction his life had taken.

The prisoner said that in the prison chapel he encountered Jesus once more and recalled childhood memories linked to the church. “I felt once again like a child loved by God,” he said, and asked for forgiveness from his family, the mother of his daughters and all those he had wronged.

The testimonies of the faithful were met with applause from the pontiff.

From early morning, local residents in the neighbourhood gathered behind security barriers erected around the prison, hoping to catch a glimpse of Leo XIV.

“I’m very moved. What people need is to get out into the streets, come together, meet up, and receive a message of joy and love,” said 25-year-old Bianca Cremonese.

Estela Adorno, a 76-year-old housewife, skipped her daily routine to see Leo XIV.

“It is a very important moment for us because we had an Argentine pope who was unable to come here. This Pope is paying a great deal of attention to us,” she said.

The prison was a regular stop for Jorge Bergoglio before he became Pope Francis in 2013.

He once celebrated Christmas Masses there, visited the wing housing prisoners with HIV, washed inmates’ feet and maintained a correspondence with some of them as part of his pastoral work.

After visiting Uruguay, Leo XIV is concluding his trip to Argentina on Wednesday before travelling to Peru, where he spent 20 years as a missionary and bishop.

 

– TIMES/AFP/NA