- The International Day for the Poor is a Catholic anniversary, celebrated by Pope Francis since 2016 to raise awareness of caring for the needy in society.
(Alles Europa News English ) – On the anniversary of the International Day for the Poor, Pope Francis today invited 1,300 homeless and disadvantaged people to lunch at the Vatican.
Pope Francis, who is confined to a wheelchair and cane because of knee pain, shared lunch with the poor and homeless in a large Vatican hall. Meals are served by volunteers.
The pope’s guests are brought in by charities that support the needy every day.
Earlier, in a sermon at St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francisco urged the more fortunate to “defeat the deafness that keeps us from hearing the repressed cries of pain of the weakest.”
“If our hearts are hardened and indifferent, we cannot hear their weak cries of pain, we cannot cry with them and because of them, we cannot see how much loneliness and suffering is also hidden in the forgotten corners of our city,” Pope said.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio worked as a bouncer and janitor for a time as a young man before training as a chemist and working as a technician in a food science laboratory.
Francis is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus, the first from the Americas, the first from the southern hemisphere, and the first pope outside of Europe since Gregory III, a Syrian who ruled in the 8th century.
Pope Francis has been sovereign of the Vatican City State since 2013.
