Boston cardinal: Getting COVID vaccine 'morally correct thing to do'
- Jan 20, 2021
What has been dubbed by many as America’s paradise is not just home to plutocrats, but there’s a surprising degree of poverty and, as ever, the Catholic Church long has been on the front lines of responding to it.
“To be a missionary is not something easy. Culture, food, everything is different,” Sister Mary Mushi, one of three Tanzanians of the Holy Spirit Sisters serving in Key West, told Crux.
Nearly 100 years ago a nun in Key West promised that as long as a grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes that she commissioned stands, the island would be protected from hurricanes, and today, that assurance still holds true.
Father John Baker projects a steady calm – neither overly romantic about the beauty and beguiling culture of Key West, nor cowed by the uphill climb it can sometimes pose for the life of faith.
One way the Catholic instinct seeps through in Key West is a tendency among locals to compare the present state of the place unfavorably to a half-remembered, half-imagined past.
Even in Key West, known as “Sin City South” for its hedonistic atmosphere, organized religion appears to be alive and well.