Greg DalyThe Ebola Emergency Response initiative will aim to support Catholic hospitals and clinics
A Vatican-directed project to help battle ebola will differ from larger global efforts by focusing on small local initiatives, according to Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
With some 24,350 cases of ebola known worldwide, the €3 million fund to fight the epidemic should complement and encourage the work of other Catholic-inspired organisations, the cardinal told ZENIT “It’s direct delivery to those who need the help,” he said.
The Ebola Emergency Response initiative will aim to support Catholic hospitals and clinics, help educate families and local communities, and train pastoral workers in how to provide spiritual consolation to those affected by the disease.
The fund should also aim to help address the effects of ebola, said the cardinal, not least by helping those orphaned by the disease to be educated and raised in families rather than in institutions; it is thought that there are 16,000 such orphans.
Claiming the project “responds to the nature of the Church”, the Ghanaian cardinal cited the first line of Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes which says the joys and sorrows of a people are the joys and sorrows of the Church. This, he said, “invites us to express and show solidarity for all that is happening”.