"Prison is a place of death and torture," in Brazil, said Father Silveira. "It is a factory of torture that creates monsters."
The illegal occupation came at the end of a year during which Ireland has seen record numbers forced onto the streets.
Cardinal Tobin said that Christians must be marked by their willingness to show “kindness to all: to the searching young and the forgotten elderly, to the stranger and the voiceless, to the powerful and the cynical.”
Francis said he too wanted to give the faithful the gift of God's mercy for the coming year.