Palermo's brand new Archbishop Corrado Lorefice has installed four Nigerian refugees in the bishop's residence, the diocese's incredible palace across from the cathedral on Via Vittorio Emanuele: a young Nigerian woman, and a Nigerian mother of two small children.
He encouraged others to do the same, especially in this Year of Mercy as prescribed by Pope Francis. Lorefice had gone to meet the rescue ship that brought 931 immigrants rescued off the coast of Libya to safe ground at Palermo. The next day four refugees were installed at his home.He says he will be writing at his desk, hear the sound of children playing, go to his window to watch them and they will make him smile. "It is a very beautiful thing, it fills my heart," he said.
He has asked the Palermitans to open their hearts and the doors to their houses. "We have to help people in need, especially those who have suffered through war. It's not possible to remain indifferent before these scenes, before those who flee death and famine, and start a journey clinging to life till the end."
I hope all clergy will do the same. They are supported by the money parishioners give them, they live in palaces or palace-like convents and monasteries, and this would be a way for them to have and live with family, chosen family, without breaking their vows of chastity. They could have done this with Palermo's own poor! Fra Biagio, a layman who adopted a thousand immigrants and Palermitans, some sick, some just out of jail, some just off the boat, men women and children, was way ahead of the archbishop and I think greatly influenced him, made the idea into a reality for him, showed him that it could be done, and how. Now the archbishop is doing it too. There is room for more in that palace of his. Like he said when he visited Fra Biagio's mission for homeless people at Christmas: "This is the real church."
He encouraged others to do the same, especially in this Year of Mercy as prescribed by Pope Francis. Lorefice had gone to meet the rescue ship that brought 931 immigrants rescued off the coast of Libya to safe ground at Palermo. The next day four refugees were installed at his home.He says he will be writing at his desk, hear the sound of children playing, go to his window to watch them and they will make him smile. "It is a very beautiful thing, it fills my heart," he said.
He has asked the Palermitans to open their hearts and the doors to their houses. "We have to help people in need, especially those who have suffered through war. It's not possible to remain indifferent before these scenes, before those who flee death and famine, and start a journey clinging to life till the end."
I hope all clergy will do the same. They are supported by the money parishioners give them, they live in palaces or palace-like convents and monasteries, and this would be a way for them to have and live with family, chosen family, without breaking their vows of chastity. They could have done this with Palermo's own poor! Fra Biagio, a layman who adopted a thousand immigrants and Palermitans, some sick, some just out of jail, some just off the boat, men women and children, was way ahead of the archbishop and I think greatly influenced him, made the idea into a reality for him, showed him that it could be done, and how. Now the archbishop is doing it too. There is room for more in that palace of his. Like he said when he visited Fra Biagio's mission for homeless people at Christmas: "This is the real church."