Day of Prayers for Prisoners is a Polish

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

holiday A holiday is a day set aside by custom or by law on which normal activities, especially business or work including school, are suspended or reduced. Generally, holidays are intended to allow individuals to celebrate or commemorate an event or tra ...

celebrated every year on 26 March, established at the

Polish Episcopal Conference The Polish Episcopal Conference or Polish Bishops' Conference ( pl, Konferencja Episkopatu Polski) is the central organ of the Catholic Church in Poland. It is composed of 2 cardinals, 28 archbishops and 118 bishops. Members ** President – abp ...

during the 347th Plenary Meeting of Episcopate (10-11 March 2009). This is also the memorial day of Penitent Thief (known also as Good Thief), a patron of prisoners. The initiative of establishing the new holiday came from the Association of Evangelical Help for Prisoners "Prison Brotherhood" in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, represented by its founder, Rev. Jan Sikorski, and the Polish Prison Chaplain-General, Rev. Paweł Wojtas (who was then vice-president of the International Commission of Catholic Prison Pastoral Care). On this day for many years, the Prison Brotherhood organized a pilgrimage of prisoners' representatives to the

Jasna Góra Monastery The Jasna Góra Monastery ( pl, Jasna Góra , ''Luminous Mount'', hu, Fényes Hegy, lat, Clarus Mons) in Częstochowa, Poland, is a shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary and one of the country's places of pilgrimage. The image of the Black Mad ...

Częstochowa Częstochowa ( , ; german: Tschenstochau, Czenstochau; la, Czanstochova) is a city in southern Poland on the Warta River with 214,342 inhabitants, making it the thirteenth-largest city in Poland. It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship (admin ...

, the major Polish

Marian sanctuary A shrine to the Virgin Mary (or Marian shrine) is a shrine marking an apparition or other miracle ascribed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or a site on which is centered a historically strong Marian devotion. Such locales are often the destination ...

. The idea behind establishing the Day of Prayers for Prisoners is a need to pray for all prisoners, but especially for those who disassociate themselves entirely from God, who do not see any point in conversion or have lost their faith in

Divine Mercy The Divine Mercy is a form of God's compassion, an act of grace based on trust or forgiveness. In Catholicism, it refers specifically to a devotion which had its origin in the apparitions of Jesus Christ reported by Faustina Kowalska. Etymolog ...

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

during his fourth pastoral visit to Poland in 1991, visited the prison in Płock and said: ''You have been sentenced, that is true, but you are not condemned. Each of you can, with the help of God's grace, become a saint.'' In 2016 the Association of Evangelical Help for Prisoners "Prison Brotherhood" was dissolved and replaced by the Prison Brotherhood Association Samarytania in

Bydgoszcz Bydgoszcz ( , , ; german: Bromberg) is a city in northern Poland, straddling the meeting of the River Vistula with its left-bank tributary, the Brda. With a city population of 339,053 as of December 2021 and an urban agglomeration with more ...

, while Rev. Jan Sikorski became its Honorary Member.

References

External links

Archived website of the Szczecin Chapter of the Prison Brotherhood
Catholic Church in Poland {{RC-stub

See also

References

External links