A major international conference on the pastoral care of over eight million prisoners worldwide opens in Ireland this weekend.
The 11th congress of the International Commission of Catholic Prison Pastoral Care (ICCPPC) is taking place at St Patrick's College, Maynooth until September 12th.
Around 150 participants representing 56 countries, the Vatican and the United Nations will attend the event, which has the theme: Prisons of the Third Millennium: Challenge [for] Church, State and Society.
Speakers at the event include the Hon. Mr Justice Hugh Geoghegan, of the Supreme Court, Bishop Eamonn Walsh, Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, Mr Seán Aylward, director general of the Irish Prison Service, Mgr Joseph Branson, UK representative of the ICCPPC and Fr Fergal MacDonagh, Ireland's head prison chaplain.
Among those at the conference will be Fr Martin Lowe, who while working in Singapore has witnessed a number of executions this year in his post as a prison chaplain. An 80-year-old Irishwoman, Sr Eileen Dwyer, is prison chaplain on the paradise island of Tonga and will also attend, as will prison chaplains from Rwanda, where there are currently 120,000 prisoners awaiting trial after the genocide of 1994.
ICCPPC chose Ireland as the venue for this conference because the constitutional prohibition on the death penalty was passed in this country in June 2001. The ICCPPC has campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty world-wide.
The Opening Ceremony takes place tomorrow at 3.30 p.m. in Loftus Hall at St Patrick's Seminary.