Luanda, 28 March, 2024 / 11:25 am (ACI Africa).
Archbishop Filomeno do Nascimento Vieira Dias of Angola’s Luanda Archdiocese has urged authorities in the Southern African nation to ensure the welfare of inmates by improving their working and living conditions.
In his address at the Luanda Central Prison (CCL), Archbishop Dias called on the prison authorities to “act in such a way that punishment and imprisonment do not serve only as a retributive measure, nor as institutional revenge, but that they only have to reaffirm the demand for justice that discourages crime.”
“Permit me to ask the civil authorities to improve living and working conditions for inmates. It is very difficult to work in these conditions,” the Angolan Archbishop said Tuesday, March 26.
He added, “Punishment and imprisonment make sense if, while affirming the demands of justice and discouraging crime, they serve the renewal of man, offering those who have erred a chance to reflect and change their lives, in order to integrate fully into society.”
Archbishop Dias appealed to the inmates to “aim for a new life in Christ and inner change for the good of society, so that the people to whom they have caused harm feel justice in this change.”
