Prison may be “an opportunity for Christian and Muslim immigrants to discover compassion and brotherly help”. Convinced of this is Father José Sesma León, director of pastoral care in prisons within the Spanish Episcopal Conference. Father León was one of the participants at the meeting of prison chaplains “Interconfessional relations in prisons. Catholic chaplaincy and Islam” held in Madrid in recent days. He said he was “worried” by “the legislative reforms announced in the penal and penitentiary field. If these reforms are approved, there will be a rise in prison inmates”. Prison chaplains insist, instead, on the need for “prevention and social mediation” as an alternative to detention. According to Emilio Galindo Aguilar, expert on Islam and missionary in Africa, even in Spain, a country famously characterized in the past by an Islamic presence, “people are not only ignorant about Islam, but negative stereotypes are still common. A campaign against Muslims to make people forget the greatness of Spain’s ‘Andalusian’ centuries began in 1492”, he pointed out. The life of Moslem immigrants in Spain is not easy, in his view: “They lack places of worship, and experience the shock of an over-secularized environment as well as the difficulties common to all immigrants of finding a job, getting residence permits, etc. …”.
