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To All

Who are

in Prison

A Message

from

Pope Pius XII



All here on earth

. . . are prisoners

In Our ceaseless solicitude for every class of

sufferers, who are bound to Us by special bonds

of paternal love, you are not the least, beloved

sons and daughters of Italy and of the world,

who languish in prisons, where you find your-

selves through a sad series of circumstances

which are sometimes inexplicable even to your-

selves.

During these days of Christmas solemnities, in

which every Christian finds reason to rejoice.

We feel very close to you who more than others
are sighing in your loneliness for some little

comfort and seeking a ray of hope in your

darkness.

We are also close to your families whom your

absence not rarely deprives of the necessaries of

life as well as the joy proper to Christmas, which

consists in the joy of the mysteries of the Infant

Jesus shared with warm affection in the domestic

hearth.

Nevertheless, if the severity of human justice

temporarily denies you this sweetness, the Divine

Child lying on the hard straw for love of us

offers you other comforts which are deeper and

truer; for this Jesus was invoked by all and

especially by you through the voice of the

Advent prayer: “Come and free the captive from

his prison” (Is. 42, 7)

.

Jesus has come for you no less than for other

men since all here on earth are in a certain sense

prisoners; He has come to bring a more noble



and intimate liberation, namely from the

yoke and chains of passion and sin, to the peace

of soul which was announced on that Holy

Night, and which works an interior renovation

and elevates men to the restoring light of a

glorious redemption.

If you can free yourselves by the wings of faith

from the fetters which bind you, you will not

only enjoy these hidden pleasures but you will

hold them in such a way that no one can deprive

you of them: neither the affliction of circum-

stances, nor the hardships of prison, nor the

possible errors of human justice, nor the mis-

understanding of men, nor your own remorse

which is elevated by grace to the level of salutary

and consoling repentance.

To Cancel The Past

By reproving and denying when necessary,

in the depth of your heart, the sad past, which

contrition and love^ may cancel and wipe away;

enlightened and strengthened by faith to see and

appreciate the things of earth with the eyes and

spirit of Christianity; you will find in your pres-

ent conditions precious occasions and very fruit-

ful sources of great good. If you humbly and

willingly place yourselves in the hands of God-

today severe, but always beneficient—what great

providential designs cannot be fulfilled in you

and through you!

Even though there might seem to have been

in you a “mystery of iniquity,” We, knowing

the frailty and tremendous weakness which often

crushes to death a human being, understand the

sad drama which could have surprised or in-

volved you in an unhappy series of events not

always entirely imputable to your free will; We

understand, even though human laws, owing to



their natural insufficiency, cannot take into

account all the attenuating circumstances which

diminish the guilt, nor can they condone all the

weaknesses. It rests with you to see that in the

secret of your soul a brightness of redemption

shines similar to that which shone on Jesus

when, all-innocent. He came to take on Himself

our sins.

Partners of God

If you do not let constraint embitter your

spirit, but dominating despondency, voluntarily

embrace your expiation instead of submitting

to it as an inevitable fate, each one of you will

be a conscious designer of your moral resurrec-

tion and will look on it as an honor to be a

minister of the great justice of God, for Whom
there is equal glory in inviolated order as well

as in order restored by expiation. Then each one

of you, interiorly and truly freed from guilt, is

no longer a culprit and a target of vengeance

but a collaborator of God in the restoration of

injured order.

And as in Heaven there is more joy for a
sinner who is converted, so on earth; every

honest man should bow before him who though

fallen, perhaps in a moment of bewilderment,

knows how to redeem himself and to rise again.

The long days passed in those places of

punishment — where Our heart is voluntarily

chained with you — are no longer lost, since

nothing is vain in the eyes of God when your

will is conformed to His. He has always designs

of mercy and of life in the severe exercise of

justice, and especially when you employ these

days in the works of loving charity, sympathizing

with the pains of others, encouraging, comfort-

ing and helping your breathren who are suffer-

ing with you.



The Innocent

When, however, full or partial innocence is

the protection of your clear conscience and when

you are convinced that the rigor of human

justice has exceeded the measure of guilt, do not

curse adverse fate or false creatures, but lift

your mind with confidence to the final victory

of truth and of good, and comfort yourselves

with the certainty that you have all honest men

on your side; be so strong in adversity that you

can rise to the point of sympathizing with the

errors of law and facts to which unfortunately

the inherent imperfection of human judgment

is subject; while striving effectively for your

legal and moral restoration, make your life of

innocent expiation shine forth with a super-

human dignity going beyond the reparation of

error.

Religious and Political Prisoners

Much more sad is the fate of those who, in not

a few countries, are innocently suffering on

account of iniquitous laws, either inspired by

false ideas which dominate civil life, or dictated

by revolutionary political passion or by the

blasphemous prejudice which considers it a

crime to act in the service of God. To these

beloved children, persecuted for justice’s sake,

goes out all Our human and supernatural love

as Father. We understand the fearful martyr-
dom, especially in the moral order, which afflicts

you. But if God Almighty, Who is Justice Itself

—although He reserves complete justice for

Heaven, where there is no shadow of evil—does

not prevent the innocent from unjust punish-

ment at times here on earth, this does not mean

that, while fully respecting the laws of human

liberty. He allows unbridled action without en-



forcing sanctions; for He may draw higher good

from the evil, both for the victims themselves

and for society, which now provides them with

scanty bread and many tears.

While We do not cease to exhort legislators
and magistrates to review, repair, and remedy

these anomalies and errors which do dishonor to

all justice and especially Christian justice, or are

an outrage to Divine rights; to you, innocent

victims. We repeat the encouraging words of
the Angel: “Be of good courage, thy cure from

God is at hand” Tob. 5, 13)

.

But until that day you are assigned a very

high vocation and indeed. We would say, a

great privilege: to expiate for a really guilty

world. This expiation is linked with the won-

derful Beatitudes which were announced by the

Saviour in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed

are they who mourn . . . Blessed are they who

hunger and tliirst for justice . . . Blessed are they

who suffer persecution for justice’ sake . . .

Blessed are you when they persecute you for My

sake.” (cf. Matt. 5)

Beloved sons and daughters scattered over the

face of the earth, if you could only see how

pleasing in the eyes of God is your immolation!

how effective it is for the salvation of all men!

and how much the Vicar of Christ dares to

count on your sufferings to obtain from God

sincere peace and the true salvation of the

world in these very sad times!

Finally, We wish to direct a very affectionate

and paternal word to you, over whom hovers

the grieving love of your Divine Friend, to you

who, at a tender age, have already tasted life’s

bitter fruits. Prematurely poisoned by the cor-



ruption of modern society, placed in circum-

stances hostile to right education, you are per-

haps more sinned against than sinning.

Let your present condition be a severe warn-

ing to those who, more than you, are really

guilty; to those who, trampling underfoot the

holy innocence of little children and piling up

immense moral ruin, make the press, the theater,

the clubs, and even the school means of eager

gain, if not of the premeditated corruption of

childhood.

My dear young people, bury in Christian

repentance whatever has happened to you in

your youthful inexperience; and let this burial

be followed by a resurrection of the ideals of

morality and virtue. Let not your present suf-

ferings dash your hopes or cool the enthusiasm

of your youth. The Infant Jesus looks on you

with special love. He will be your support, so

that this young seedling of your life, tested and

saved, may grow into a robust oak, defying the

tempests, so that you may be an example of the

fear of the Lord and obedience to law and

order.

Suffering for Others

Dear sons and daughters!

In exchange for the precious gifts which the

Infant Jesus comes to bring to you in the place

of your sorrow, offer courageously and gener-

ously your sufferings and sorrows to Him Who

even from the crib made expiation for the sins

of the world; and offer them with that warmth

of faith that transforms tears into pearls and

sorrow into joy.

Far from despising your offering. He will make

it the precious occasion of mercy, of salvation,

of grace, for your families as well as yourselves.



for His Church, for the entire world. The per-

fumed incense which placates and saves goes

up to Heaven not only from consecrated temples

dedicated to the worship of God, but also from

prisons, from concentration camps, from hos-

pitals, from every place where there is suffering,

weeping, supplication. We pray the divine

Goodness to hasten for each one of you the day

of deliverance, so that, transformed and made,

as it were, superhuman by your trial accepted

with Christian faith, having returned to the

bosom of your families and to society, you may

become its glory and the bulwark against the

evil which threatens it.

With these good wishes then, and remember-

ing you constantly in Our prayers. We bless you

and your dear ones with Our paternal Apostolic

Blessing, praying that it be an earnest of heav-

enly consolations.

—NCWC News Service

December 30, 1951

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