{"id":3668,"date":"2007-01-04T08:31:49","date_gmt":"2007-01-04T08:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/caritas-1.html"},"modified":"2007-01-04T08:31:49","modified_gmt":"2007-01-04T08:31:49","slug":"caritas-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/caritas-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Caritas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, Pope Benedict visited a soup kitchen – near the Termini station, run by Caritas of Rome. <\/a><\/p>\n

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Those who give and those who receive in the daily work of Caritas experience the beauty of the love that Jesus brought and feel \u201cthe depth of the joy that derives from it, a joy that is certainly different from the illusory feelings advertised through publicity\u201d. In his first visit outside the Vatican of 2007, Benedict XVI today went to a Caritas soup kitchen in the Colle Oppio neighbourhood <\/a>not far from Termini station, described by the pope as a \u201csymbol, somehow, of the Roman Caritas\u201d. The soup kitchen of Colle Oppio is the first reception centre for homeless people set up in Rome<\/span>. Opened in 1983, it has hosted thousands of poor Italians and foreigners, giving out more than nine million meals. And from today Benedict XVI also has a pass \u2013 number 1 \u2013 given to him by the Roman Caritas director, Mgr Guerino Di Tora. For his part, the pope made the soup kitchen a gift of 10,000 blankets and 2,000 warm jackets to keep out the winter cold. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Greeted by cries of \u201clong live the pope\u201d by hundreds of people gathered in the building, Benedict XVI recalled how Jesus \u201cthe bread that came down from heaven… the bread of life… in some way makes himself visible every day in this soup kitchen, where the aim is not only to give people something to eat but to serve them without distinctions based on race, religion or culture\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

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In the Caritas soup kitchen, in the words of the pope, \u201cit is possible to touch with our \"Caritas\"<\/a> hands the presence of Christ in our brothers who are hungry and in those who offer them to eat. Here, we can feel how, when we love our neighbour, we get to know God better: in the grotto of <\/span>Bethlehem<\/span><\/p>\n

, in fact, He manifested himself to us in the poverty of a newborn child needy of everything. The message of Christmas is simple: God came among us because he loves us. God is love: not a sentimental love but a love that became a total gift, up to the sacrifice of the Cross.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Benedict XVI recalled the words spoken by John Paul II in 1992 when he visited the same institution: \u201cThe suffering man belongs to us\u201d. The phrase is recorded on a plaque placed at the entrance of the soup kitchen dedicated to Pope Wojtyla and unveiled today by Benedict XVI. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Turning to the crib set up in the room, Pope Benedict said that \u201cfrom the grotto of <\/span>Bethlehem<\/span>, from every crib, comes an announcement for all: Jesus loves us and teaches us to love. The staff, volunteers and all those who come to the soup kitchen can experience the beauty of this love; they can feel the depth of the joy that derives from it, a joy that is certainly different from the illusory feelings advertised through publicity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Caritas3\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"Caritas5\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"Caritas6\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

Photos from L’Osservatore Romano<\/a> – obviously.<\/p>\n

Nice brief report from Vatican Radio.<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking of the Termini, a couple of weeks ago, it was rededicated in John Paul II’s honor: <\/a><\/p>\n

Honoring the late Pope John Paul II as a man of dialogue and encounter, the city of Rome and the Italian state railway system have dedicated Rome’s Termini train station to his memory. The newly refurbished "Termini-John Paul II Station" was formally inaugurated Dec. 23.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, Pope Benedict visited a soup kitchen – near the Termini station, run by Caritas of Rome. Those who give and those who receive in the daily work of Caritas experience the beauty of the love that Jesus brought and feel \u201cthe depth of the joy that derives from it, a joy that is certainly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nCaritas - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/caritas-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Caritas - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today, Pope Benedict visited a soup kitchen – near the Termini station, run by Caritas of Rome. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}