Still weakened after a long bout of bronchitis, on Sunday, April 28, Pope Francis made his first visit outside the Vatican in several months. He became the first pontiff to meet the inmates of a women's prison on the occasion of the Contemporary Art Biennial. He reminded them that “no one can take away a person's dignity.”
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During his visit to the inmates of the Venice women's prison, a former convent that houses women sentenced to long sentences and where the pavilion of the Holy See of the Art Biennale is located, Pope Francis He called on the prison system to “create the conditions for healthy reintegration.”
In the central courtyard of the women's prison on the Venetian island of Giudecca, where the Holy See this year created its pavilion for the 60th Venice Biennale, He spoke about how harsh reality is in a prison due to overcrowding problems, the lack of infrastructure and resources, and cases of violence.
However, he added:
It can also become a place of moral and material rebirth, where the dignity of women and men is not isolated, but promoted through reciprocal respect or the care of talents and abilities (…) It is essential that the penitentiary system also offers to detainees instruments and spaces for human, spiritual, cultural and professional growth, creating the bases for their reintegration
In this, the first trip of the Argentine pontiff outside Rome in seven months due to his state of health, A few weeks after an attack of fatigue that caused concern during the Easter holidays, the pope heard the testimonies of some prisoners and blessed them.
Then he went to the prison chapel, the Magdalena church, where some artists were waiting for him. There he praised the role of art in the fight against racism or inequalities, but also warned of the risk of its “vampirization” by the market.
“It would be important if the various artistic practices could be constituted on all sides as a kind of network of 'refuge cities', collaborating to free the world from senseless antinomies and trying to put an end to racism, xenophobia, inequality, ecological imbalance and aporophobia, a terrible neologism that means 'phobia of the poor,'” he said.
In addition Francis asked “with all his heart” that contemporary art “can open our gaze” and “adequately value the contribution of women as protagonists of the human adventure.”citing Frida Khalo, Corita Kent or Louise Bourgeois as examples.
Away from the spotlight and the crowds, The Holy See pavilion is one of the highlights of the prestigious artistic event and offers visitors an immersive and disconcerting experiencewhere the works rub shoulders with barbed wire.
The exhibition space, in which the inmates have collaborated, is titled 'With their eyes' and, through works by artists such as Maurizio Cattelan, Claure Fontaine or Bintou Dembélé, it reflects on the pain and stigma of these women inside and outside the prison.
Chiara Parisi, curator of the exhibition, highlighted the “astonishment” and “hope” of the inmates regarding this visit. “The Pope acts beyond words,” she told AFP.
After Paul VI (1972), John Paul II (1985) and Benedict XVI (2011), Francis is the fourth Pope to visit Venice.
With EFE, AFP and Reuters
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