On Día de la Caridad Catholic Church shows capacity to do good

Yesterday was Cáritas´ annual day set aside for fundraising. This took the form of hundreds of volunteers in red Cáritas hats walking from house to house, car to car, shop to shop collecting change in tin cans. The money raised, estimated to be around $US27 million, will go toward Cáritas main project in Xalapa, a homeless shelter that houses more than 30 people every evening. More specifically, it will fund daily expenses of the shelter and its residents such as utilities like gas and electricity, transportation and food.

Born in 1960, this Catholic humanitarian organization grew directly out of the Liberation Theology movement that gained momentum after two main events: 1) In 1948, when the Economic Commission for Latin America, ECLA, was created by the UN with the intent of tackling the continent´s immense poverty and 2) in 1968 when the Episcopate of Latin America´s second conference was held. Out of the conference was published a statement declaring, for the first time in such clear terms, that the most fundamental role of the Church was to protect those same people who Jesus lived his short life protecting, the poor.

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