Pope Francis has denounced how society puts up “invisible walls” to marginalise sinners and criminals as he brought World Youth Day to Panama’s juvenile delinquents who cannot participate in the Catholic Church’s big festival of faith.
Francis celebrated an emotional penitential liturgy inside Panama’s main youth lock-up, the Las Garzas de Pacora detention centre.
He was also hearing the inmates’ confessions inside confessionals made by the detainees.
It is all part of Francis’s belief that prisoners deserve the same dignity as everyone else – as well as hope.