Mayor in Spain removes cross from convent, throws it in dump
- Jan 25, 2021
Some 2,100 of Rome’s poor, homeless, refugees, prisoners and volunteers will head to the circus courtesy of Pope Francis in yet another act of charity for those who are less fortunate.
Despite an Italian media report on Thursday, a Vatican spokesperson told Crux there has been no interruption in services in any of the three Vatican-affiliated free medical clinics for the poor in Rome. The media report appears to have confused a situation surrounding a clinic run by an Italian non-profit organization with the pope’s own facilities.
The Office of Papal Charities has announced a new laundry has been opened to allow the poor and homeless to wash their clothes for free. The project comes after previous initiatives to help the city’s street people, including washrooms and a barber shop in the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square.
It’s possible to consider that after the great Christian witness (martyria) of our time, St. John Paul II, and the profound teacher of the right worship of God (leitourgia), Benedict XVI, we now have a pope whose heart is manifestly open to the suffering through the practical ministry of charity (diakonia).
McDonald’s said Thursday that it is working with the archbishop who dispenses charity on behalf of Pope Francis to provide 1,000 free lunches to the homeless who live in the area around the Vatican. The initiative will begin next Monday, with volunteers of Italian charity Medicina Solidale distributing the meals.
Every night, Polish Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, the pope’s personal almoner, is out in the streets of Rome providing food, water, sleeping bags and other necessities to the poor, homeless and migrant population of the city, doing it all in Francis’s name.