Another event for the Holy Father's Christmas season schedule!
(And there are those who would reproach him for starting Christmas Eve Mass at 10 p.m.!
From all the Italian news agencies today:
Pope will lunch at Sant'Egidio
soup kitchen in Rome on Dec. 27
ROME, Dec. 12 (Translated from various agencies) - The Pope will lunch at the soup kitchen run by the Sant'Egidio Community in Rome on December 27, Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican press office director, confirmed today.
"On the Feast of the Holy Family on Sunday, December 27," he said, "the Pope will join the Community of St. Egidio for lunch at their soup kitchen in Trastevere".
Sant'Egidio's soup kitchen on Via Dandolo was opened in 1988 and has since served some 2,500,000 meals to the needy - Italians as well as foreigners.
Sant'Egidio also holds an annual Christmas lunch for the poor at the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere.
From left, Santa Maria in Trastevere; center and top right: photos from the Christmas lunch of 2008; bottom right, at the Via Dandolo soup kitchen.
Tomorrow, the Holy Father will visit a Roman center for terminally ill patients on the Gianicolo
[the hill overlooking the Vatican]. which was set up by the Diocese of Rome when palliative treatment for terminally ill patients became a public policy issue in Italy.
And on February 14, he will visit the Caritas hostel for the homeless near Rome's main train station.
Vatican Radio has a report on the Hospice to be visited by the Pope:
Pope to visit hospice
for terminal patients tomorrow
Translated from
the Italian service of
December 12, 2009
Benedict XVI will be visiting the Hospice Sacro Cuore tomorrow at 10 a.m., a center for free palliative care of terminally ill patients that has also become a center for training and research in this area of medicine.
The Hospice counts with many volunteers who offer support and affection for the patients. Many of them are members of the Circolo San Pietro, one of the oldest collaborators of this initiative.
In 2007, when the Pope addressed them at an audience, he thanked them for their "silent but eloquent testimony of love for human life which deserves attention and respect up to the last breath".
Tiziana Campisi spoke to the medical director of the Hospice, Dr. Italo Penco, about hos teh Hospice started.
The Hospice was born at the initiative of Prof. Emmanuele Emanuele, president of what was then the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Roma, now simply called Fondazione Roma, who decided - even before Italian institutions officially began assisting terminal patients - to open an experimental ward to care for terminally ill patients who had no chance of being assisted, least of all with dignity.
In collaboration with the Circolo San Pietro, the facility was set up in a halfway house that had earlier served surgery patients. In 2005, the activity was extended to assist patients who stayed at home. Volunteers of the Circolo have been very active in identifying patients who need this kind of care, especially those who no longer have families.
How does the Circolo help the Hospice now?
Volunteers are considered part of the team that assists our patients, who have multiple needs - physical, psychological, spiritual and the directly symptomatic. The volunteer helps not just the patient but also his family, if there are any. And volunteers who have healthcare training carry out the house calls.
How many persons are being assisted right now?
We have 150 terminally ill - 30 are confined here, and 120 live at home. In 2002, we also started a service for Alzheimer's patients, for whom we also provide home service now to about 50 patients. Last year, we also started helping patients with ALS [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease], of which 3 are confined, and six are home patients. So all in all, Sacro Cuore today has about 220-230 sick people in its care.
What does the visit of Benedict XVI mean to you?
Certainly a signal event that will reinforce and encourage the work we do at the center. For the health care givers, it will be a great support, because psychologically, it is not easy to deal with people who are in the last stage of life. So it will be a stimulus for them to continue their good deeds.
But even more, the Pope's visit will be an occasion for the patients and their families to strengthen that hope which, despite an incurable condition, must always be strong.
The Pope's visit will be confidence-giving for all.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/12/2009 22:57]