in Pennsylvania's First Congressional District
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania's_1st_congressional_district http://archphila.org/pastplan/MAPS/Arch.pdf
and the Central Garden State

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Pope Francis’ 9/26/15 Address to Residents of Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility

(Some background: “The United States now accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants—and about 25 percent of its incarcerated inhabitants....In 2010, a third of all black male high-school dropouts between the ages of 20 and 39 were imprisoned, compared with only 13 percent of their white peers....The suite of drug laws adopted in the 1980s and ’90s did little to reduce crime, but a lot to normalize prison in black communities....Surveys have concluded that blacks and whites use drugs at roughly the same rates....the chasm in incarceration rates is deeply tied to the socioeconomic chasm between black and white America” (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-black-family-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/).)
 
 
"....It is painful when we see prison systems which are not concerned to care for wounds, to soothe pain, to offer new possibilities. It is painful when we see people who think that only others need to be cleansed, purified, and do not recognize that their weariness, pain and wounds are also the weariness, pain and wounds of society. The Lord tells us this clearly with a sign: he washes our feet so we can come back to the table. The table from which he wishes no one to be excluded. The table which is spread for all and to which all of us are invited.

"This time in your life can only have one purpose: to give you a hand in getting back on the right road, to give you a hand to help you rejoin society. All of us are part of that effort, all of us are invited to encourage, help and enable your rehabilitation. A rehabilitation which everyone seeks and desires: inmates and their families, correctional authorities, social and educational programs. A rehabilitation which benefits and elevates the morale of the entire community and society....

"All of us have something we need to be cleansed of, or purified from. May the knowledge of that fact inspire us to live in solidarity, to support one another and seek the best for others.

"Let us look to Jesus, who washes our feet. He is 'the way, and the truth, and the life'. He comes to save us from the lie that says no one can change, from the lie that says no one can change. He helps us to journey along the paths of life and fulfillment. May the power of his love and his resurrection always be a path leading you to new life.

"Seated now in silence, we ask the Lord to bless us.

"May God bless you and protect, may His face shine upon you, and may He grant you peace.
 http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-s-address-to-inmates-of-curran-fromhold-correctional-facility

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