![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aranzazushrine.ph\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/vatican_pope9.jpg?resize=429%2C287\")
Pope Francis at the General Audience in St. Peter\u2019s Square, June 14, 2017. DANIEL IBANEZ\/CNA<\/p><\/div>\n
Pope Francis sent the four and half minute message to students in Argentina\u2019s Ezeiza Federal Penitentiary who are attending university while in prison. Located some 20 miles from where he used to live in Buenos Aires, the prison was once visited by the Argentine pope when he was a cardinal.<\/p>\n
As the message reveals, the Pope has stayed in contact, still making weekly Sunday phone calls to the jail. He sent the message to mark the occasion of the opening of a musical course for inmates, carried out in cooperation with the University of Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am aware of all your activities and it gives me great joy the existence of this space, a space of work, of culture, of progress, it is a sign of humanity,\u201d Francis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a breath of life that is happening in the prison, among you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pope listed several people who were influential in the formation of the new music course, thanking them for their work.<\/p>\n
This course, along with the rest of the education they are receiving, provides a beacon of hope in its preparation for life after imprisonment, he said, and is the only way for punishment to be truly fruitful.<\/p>\n
Punishment must have hope for \u201csocial reintegration,\u201d he continued, which requires social formation, such as the program found in this particular prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this new music course you are looking at social reintegration, now you are already reintegrating with your studies, with the University of Buenos Aires, you are looking at social reintegration. It is a punishment with hope, a punishment with a horizon.\u201d<\/p>\n
This doesn\u2019t make life easy, he was careful to articulate, and though it is a gift, he said, it\u2019s one that is not easy to preserve, \u201cthat you must conquer every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s given to us, but \u201cwe must conquer it at every step of life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA gift that is not easy to preserve. Have courage every day. There are a lot of difficulties, we all have them, however we care about this gift and we make it grow, we care and we make it flourish,\u201d he encouraged.<\/p>\n
Concluding, he told the students he prays for them and keeps them close to his heart, asking them \u201cnot to forget to do it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMay God bless you and you continue on, with a smile. At the next call!\u201d\u00a0CBCP \/ CNA<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav admin_label=”Post Navigation” in_same_term=”off” hide_prev=”off” hide_next=”off” prev_text=”PREVIOUS ARTICLE” next_text=”NEXT ARTICLE” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Pope listed several people who were influential in the formation of the new music course, thanking them for their work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vatican-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Ootw-815","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aranzazushrine.ph\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/vatican_pope9.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30819"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30822,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30819\/revisions\/30822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aranzazushrine.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}