I love what Pope Francis and others are doing.
A chance meeting between a Catholic bishop and a homeless person in Rome resulted in the bishop inviting the street person to dinner. But he demurred, saying that he was too smelly to eat with a bishop. The bishop prevailed, and at the dinner the homeless man said that while Rome did a good job of making sure that the homeless are not starving, it was more difficult for the homeless to stay clean.
The bishop took this to heart, and created a groundswell of action. A construction firm volunteered to install showers in parishes that don’t already have them. Famous singer Andrea Bocelli made a substantial donation to the cause, and Pope Francis is having the toilets at the Vatican itself, which are close to his personal apartment, upgraded to include public showers for the millions of pilgrims and visitors who come to the Vatican every year.
When asked if well-off visitors would object to sharing the toilets with the homeless, the bishop said “The Basilica exists in order to keep the Body of Christ, and we serve Jesus’s suffering body by serving the poor.” He also echoed the statement that Pope Francis said when he became pope, that the church should be a “poor church, for the poor”.
An unrelated story finds an apprentice barber in Melbourne Australia giving haircuts to the homeless on the street for free. It is amazing how one’s physical image can affect their self image. One homeless person said right after his haircut “I’ve gone from questioning why am I sitting here to … it’s good to be alive”. Another homeless man, who can’t recall the last time he had a haircut or a shave, looks in a mirror afterward and says “Oh my god! Who is that guy?” and “I’m more than happy with the result. I’m actually rapt!”.
The barber is modest about what he is doing, saying “People think that I’m doing them a favour, nah… it’s actually a 50/50 relationship. They’re helping me do something I love and in return they get a fresh look.”
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Reminds me of what I saw when I was working in downtown Portland: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/10/mobile_shower_service_for_home.html
I never thought I would be a fan of a pope, but this guy Francis makes me smile. It’s nice to know that he is not only disempowering the bad archbishops, but also empowering bishops who remember what’s in the Gospels. It’s almost like an antidote to the grotesque and psychopathic versions of Christianity that have taken over in recent years.
I’m not a fan of organized religion but this pope is doing what I would think should be the goal of all religions. He’s certainly showing the other ones how it should be done. Now if they all would follow suit.
See, this is how America is supposed to work, the churches shower a tiny fraction of homeless people and one barber gives 15-20 of them a haircut and then we do not have to worry about that money wasting, bureaucratic, tax spending, liberal government worrying about the situation at all, problem solved and I get a tax break.
Great story IK! Papa Francisco will be coming to America early next year I believe, to Philadelphia. Hopefully he can energize our dwindling effort of charitable help to the poor.