“The prison chaplaincy is one of the great arenas for the life of the Church. In society, prison is synonymous with marginalization”, observes the Right Rev. Jean-Pierre Grallet, the new Archbishop of Strasbourg and bishop supervisor of the Catholic chaplaincy of prisons. “On the contrary, with the presence of chaplaincies, the view is reversed and prison becomes a place in which members become the focal point of our life in the Church”, says in the archbishop in his introduction to the document “Sanction, punishment, re-insertion”, recently published by the Catholic Chaplaincy of Prisons and addressed, in particular, at prison inmates. According to the Chaplain General Jean-Louis Reymondier, “today those who live outside the walls of a prison are more willing to understand what happens inside them. Of course we denounce living conditions in penitentiaries, but we especially want to pose questions about the meaning that should be given to justice and to answer the question: why prison?”. “The delinquent is reduced to a danger from which he needs to be protected – explains the document -. And to protect him he needs to be imprisoned, sometimes for a long time, even at the cost of injustices”. In this perspective “the prison assumes the role of control and isolation”. Starting out from the conviction that “a society cannot live at zero risk”, the chaplain general explains that “a person detained in prison is also destined to leave it”. That’s why it is “essential to prepare him for his re-integration in society”. The role of the teams that operate in close liaison with the chaplaincies consists just in this: “We need to prevent – says Reymondier – the prison inmate, once he regains his freedom, from having to cope with the icy cold of loneliness. During his detention we therefore need to accompany him in a journey of reconciliation, and help him face the truth of himself in the secrecy of his own conscience”. In this way prison can become “a place of paschal experience: from social death to a new life”.
