ROME: Pope Leo XIV criticized prison overcrowding and insufficient inmate rehabilitation programs on Sunday as he celebrated a special Mass for detainees, guards and their families in the final event of the Vatican’s 2025 Holy Year.
The Vatican said an estimated 6,000 people signed up to participate in the weekend pilgrimage, including representatives from big detention facilities in Italy and prison volunteers, wardens and prison chaplains from 90 countries.
Included were a few groups of inmates who received special permission to participate, according to the Italian penitentiary chaplain’s association.
In his homily, Leo acknowledged the oftentimes poor conditions prisoners face even in wealthier countries. He called for a sense of charity and forgiveness to prevail for prisoners and those responsible for guarding them.
“Here, we can mention overcrowding, insufficient commitment to guarantee stable educational programs for rehabilitation and job opportunities,” he said, adding that patience and forgiveness are needed.
“On a more personal level, let us not forget the weight of the past, the wounds to be healed in body and heart, the disappointments, the infinite patience that is needed with oneself and with others when embarking on paths of conversion, and the temptation to give up or to no longer forgive,” he said.
As the last big event of the 2025 Jubilee, the Mass in many ways closed out the Holy Year that Pope Francis inaugurated Christmas Eve 2024, which had as its main thrust transmitting a message of hope especially for those on society’s margins.
During his 12-year pontificate, Francis had prioritized ministering to prisoners to offer them hope for a better future. On Dec. 26 last year Francis traveled to Rome’s Rebibbia prison to open its Holy Door and include the inmates in the Jubilee celebrations.
Leo recalled that visit in Sunday’s homily, as well as Francis’ Holy Year appeal for governments around the world to offer prison amnesties and pardons, which are a mainstay of the Catholic Church’s Jubilee tradition.
In Italy, prison overcrowding is a longstanding problem that has been denounced by the European Court of Human Rights and humanitarian organizations.
Antigone, an Italian prisoner advocacy group, said Italian prisons are now at 135 percent overcapacity, with more than 63,000 people detained in facilities with fewer than 47,000 beds. Italian prison authorities received 5,837 complaints of inhuman or degrading treatment last year, 23.4 percent more than in the previous year, Antigone said.
The Mass was the final big Jubilee event of the 2025 Holy Year, which Leo will officially close out on Jan. 6 when he shuts the Holy Door of St. Peter’s.
Pope criticizes prison overcrowding during special Mass for inmates, guards and families
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Pope criticizes prison overcrowding during special Mass for inmates, guards and families
- Leo recalled that visit in Sunday’s homily, as well as Francis’ Holy Year appeal for governments around the world to offer prison amnesties and pardons
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
