"On Sunday, I enjoyed a beautiful day on Federal Hill for the Columbus Day festival and parade. After the parade and some wonderful Italian food, I walked back to the Cathedral and happened to meet a gentleman who saw my Roman collar and asked if I were a Catholic priest. He then told me something of his extraordinary personal story. Born in the African nation of Eritrea, he was still a teen when a terrible war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea. He lived in a Catholic village in the mountains, but the violence of the conflict reached even there. He told me about his education at the LaSalle Christian Brother school in the area and the Italian brothers who helped young people escape the violence and find refuge in Italy. This man told me about the Italian priests, brothers and nuns who sheltered him and so many others and how they helped him and his brother to travel on to Rhode Island where they had relatives. His life has been difficult and marked by trauma, but he glowed when speaking of the kindness of the brothers and priests who helped him and his family at a time of great anxiety and suffering.
"I left that moving conversation grateful for his witness of the power of solidarity and compassion. I was also struck by a key aspect of what it means to be Catholic, a word which means universal. . . ."
In a recent commentary, Bishop Richard G. Henning, bishop of the Diocese of Providence
(RI), reflected on how, as "Jesus taught so well, the good neighbor lifts the suffering, binds their wounds, and journeys alongside them."
To access Bishop Henning's complete essay, please visit:
The State of Hope: The Good Neighbor Journeys Alongside the Suffering (12 OCT 23)
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