M
markomalley
Guest
From the AP:
Pope Francis has ramped up the Vatican’s charity work, sending his chief alms-giver and a contingent of Swiss guards onto the streets of Rome at night to do what he usually can’t do: comfort the poor and the homeless.
(snip)
“Being an almoner, it has to cost me something so that it can change me,” he told journalists a day earlier. He contrasted such alms-giving with, say, the unnamed cardinal who once boasted about always giving two euros to a beggar on the street near the Vatican.
“I told him, `Eminence, this isn’t being an almoner. You might be able to sleep at night, but being an almoner has to cost you. Two euros is nothing for you. Take this poor person, bring him to your big apartment that has three bathrooms, let him take a shower - and your bathroom will stink for three days - and while he’s showering make him a coffee and serve it to him, and maybe give him your sweater. This is being an almoner.”
The entire article is well worth reading.
Having said that, are any of you familiar with similar doings by the bishops in our dioceses in the States? (or, for that matter, Canada, Australia, or the UK?)
I ask, because this kind of thing, particularly if it goes on in this country (these countries), really needs to be talked up.
Pope Francis has ramped up the Vatican’s charity work, sending his chief alms-giver and a contingent of Swiss guards onto the streets of Rome at night to do what he usually can’t do: comfort the poor and the homeless.
(snip)
“Being an almoner, it has to cost me something so that it can change me,” he told journalists a day earlier. He contrasted such alms-giving with, say, the unnamed cardinal who once boasted about always giving two euros to a beggar on the street near the Vatican.
“I told him, `Eminence, this isn’t being an almoner. You might be able to sleep at night, but being an almoner has to cost you. Two euros is nothing for you. Take this poor person, bring him to your big apartment that has three bathrooms, let him take a shower - and your bathroom will stink for three days - and while he’s showering make him a coffee and serve it to him, and maybe give him your sweater. This is being an almoner.”
The entire article is well worth reading.
Having said that, are any of you familiar with similar doings by the bishops in our dioceses in the States? (or, for that matter, Canada, Australia, or the UK?)
I ask, because this kind of thing, particularly if it goes on in this country (these countries), really needs to be talked up.
hopefully we can follow his example.
. When I read the article I was very convicted by the same part you quoted.