Leo XIV to the prisoners of Brians: “God loves you as you are, but he dreams you better”.”

At 10:50 a.m., Pope Leo XIV arrived at the Brians 1 Penitentiary Center, in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, to meet with about 80 inmates in the prison auditorium. A half-hour meeting that also brought together inmates from the Brians 2 and Wad Ras centers, along with chaplains and volunteers from the diocesan prison ministry of Sant Feliu de Llobregat.

Before the Pope took the floor, two inmates shared their testimonies before the Holy Father and the rest of the audience. Their stories, different in starting point but converging in essence, set the tone for the entire visit.

Two paths to the same faith

Montse, from Barcelona, spoke of a faith that was slow in coming. For years she tried to believe without succeeding: “Life had not allowed me to do so,” she explained. The hardest blow was the death of her son, a loss that confronted her with the silence of God and took her a long time to process: “I fought a lot with him, and it has cost me my life to understand that God is not to blame”. It was in prison where, paradoxically, she found what she was looking for outside: “I came back to believe in here and I am grateful for the gift of faith”.

After his testimony, he received not one, but two hugs, at the initiative of the Holy Father himself, who was moved by the simplicity of his words. 

Josefina, on the other hand, grew up in the Church. Baptized, communioned and confirmed, she always felt that “God was walking with me”. But she too was shaken: her son's accident shook her certainties. Unlike Montse, she did not lose her faith - “I don't want to ask for explanations,” she said - although she did see it tremble. Her son survived and she lives it as a miracle: “It is always God”. Today, in prison, she says that Jesus gives her strength: “If not, I don't know how I would have endured this”.

Two different trajectories - the one that came to faith from obscurity and the one that kept it despite the pain - which the Pope gratefully reflected at the beginning of his speech.

The Pope's words

Leo XIV began by greeting in Catalan -“Thank you all for your warm and friendly welcome!” - before addressing those present in Spanish.

“I am edified by the testimony that Montse and Josefina have shared with us,” said the Pontiff, also thanking the work of the chaplains and volunteers of the prison ministry.

The core of his message was the unconditional dignity of every person. Drawing on his recent document Magnifica humanitas, He recalled that every human being is “worthy” by the mere fact “of having been wanted, created and loved by God,” and that “there is no situation that makes the Lord look away from us. A love, he stressed, that ”is always above how much good or bad we have done“.

Addressing the inmates directly, the Pope acknowledged the weight of their situation and invited them not to let themselves be overcome by the temptation to feel lesser: “Raise your eyes to the One who, through the presence of so many people, never fails to show you his love and closeness.”.

He then turned to Saint Augustine and his Confessions to speak of the possibility of transformation: “If we trust in divine grace and allow ourselves to be guided and transformed by it, we discover how in our life the past does not condemn the future, but offers us the possibility of changing our decisions and choices”.

Leo XIV asked the inmates to make room for the Lord in their hearts: “Let us cling to Him, who continually invites us to hope and shows us a marvelous horizon that no physical barrier can prevent us from reaching”.

And he closed with a phrase that resounded in the prison auditorium like an embrace: “To each one of you I say: God loves you as you are, but he dreams you better! The Lord allows us all to start always anew, because being human and being a Christian does not consist in not making mistakes but in growing in the capacity to convert, repent, make amends and, above all, to reconcile and forgive”.

At the end of the ceremony, the Pope prayed the Our Father with those present and imparted the apostolic blessing. He received some gifts from the prisoners and gave them an image of Our Lady. Finally, he walked down the central aisle and calmly greeted the prisoners.