Francis condemns ‘cruelty’ in prisons after Auschwitz visit

Following his sombre, silent visit to the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau on Friday, Pope Francis has condemned the way prisoners are "tortured" in parts of the world today.

The Pope, who is in Kraków, Poland to attend the Catholic Church's World Youth Day celebrations, has every night spoken to large crowds of young people from a window in the Bishops Palace in central Kraków, where he is staying.

When he spoke late Friday night, after a day of silent contemplation, he told his listeners: “Cruelty did not end at Auschwitz, at Birkenau: today too, people are tortured; many prisoners are tortured at once, to make them speak… It is terrible.

“Today there are men and women in overcrowded prisons. They live - I’m sorry - like animals. Today there is this cruelty.

“We say, yes, we saw the cruelty of seventy years ago, how people were put to death by being shot, or hanged, or with gas. But today in many places in the world, where there is war, the same thing is happening...

“And let us pray for the many men and women being tortured today in various countries of the world; for the prisoners all piled together, as if they were animals. What I am saying to you is a little sad, but it is the truth...”

The Pope’s hard words follow on from his pessimistic statement to reporters on the papal plane on the way to Kraków about global security.

Speaking of Tuesday's murder in Rouen of French priest Jacques Hamel (86) by Islamic fundamentalists, he said that "the world is at war", not "a war of religion" but rather "a piecemeal war".

The Pope’s stay in Kraków ends tomorrow when he celebrates the final mass of this World Youth Day, the so-called “sending” mass, due to be attended by more than one million faithful.

During this mass, the Argentine Pope is likely to reveal that the next World Youth Day celebration, will be held in three years time on his native continent in Panama.