This Sunday, Pope Francis became the first pontiff to visit the Venice Biennale, where he visited the Vatican pavilion, located in the Giudecca prison. There he greeted, one by one, the nearly 80 inmates who were waiting for him, to whom he said that “no one takes away the dignity of the person, no one.”
The Vatican pavilion has the motto ‘With my eyes’, and returns to the Venetian event after almost a decade of absence, since the Holy See has not participated in the Biennale since 2015.
Behind this initiative – which has involved an exchange between the inmates and the artists and which will include a large work by the provocateur Mauricio Cattelan – is the cardinal poet José Tolentino de Mendonça, current prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education .
Francisco has given the detainees an image with the icon of the Virgin of Hope. Before her, he has pointed out that “consolation” is “always” found in the Virgin. “A Mother never stops listening to us and she is a teacher of tenderness,” he assured.
In his speech inside the prison, the Pontiff highlighted that prison is “a harsh reality, and problems such as overcrowding, lack of facilities and resources, episodes of violence, generate so much suffering there.” “No one takes away the dignity of the person, no one,” the Pope assured that he took off at 6:30 a.m. from Vatican City in the helicopter that landed in the courtyard of the Giudecca women’s prison.
