Fra Biagio Conte
Fra Biagio Conte, a layman, a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis, houses and feeds more than a thousand people in his four urban shelters and communities in Palermo. His guests are Sicilians, Italians, Europeans, Asians, and Africans, men, women and children. Recently his prayers have been answered. He always wanted to start farms for his homeless guests to cultivate their own food, live in, be healthy, regain strength. Some people have left him and his homeless brethren villas, farms and houses in the country in their wills. Now he has four such farms that he and the homeless have taken back to productivity. I visited two of them yesterday-- the future women's farm in Castellammare and the men's farm in nearby Scopello.