Chai Brady
A volunteer with "Make the Difference" charity initiative gives a cup of soup and an "arepa" to a homeless child along a street in Caracas, Venezuela.
Photo: CNS Field Hospitals
Chai Brady hears from Irish charities living Pope Francis’ call to ‘go where they suffer’
The Church is a “field hospital” that cares for the sick and wounded no matter where they are, according to Pope Francis in 2016, a message that resonated with many Irish charities who continue to reach out to souls in great pain.
From children in dire need across the world to the plight of persecuted Christians, Catholic charity workers spread the message of Christ through their words and actions.
Francis has often urged all Catholics, especially priests and bishops, to get out of their churches and take the message of God to those directly in need, the marginalised and the desperate. The Pontiff did this himself while he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires in Argentina, travelling every week to the city’s shanty towns.
He said: “I often say that in order for this to happen, it is necessary to go out: to go out from the churches and the parishes, to go outside and look for people where they live, where they suffer, and where they hope. I like to use the image of a field hospital to describe this ‘Church that goes forth’.
“It exists where there is combat. It is not a solid structure with all the equipment where people go to receive treatment for both small and large infirmities. It is a mobile structure that offers first aid and immediate care, so that its soldiers do not die.”
Persecution
Combatting Christian persecution across the globe, Aid to the Church in Need is a Catholic charity that has consistently defended the right of Christians to practice their religion no matter what position on the globe, and protects them when endangered.
Director of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) Ireland, Dr Michael Kinsella, told The Irish Catholic that the ‘field hospital’ Francis speaks of is a concept he believes applies to the “the fact that the world we live in is a veil of tears and that man has a fallen nature”.
It’s about enabling brighter futures and ‘nurturing our youngest around the world’”
“We’re almost gripped by a paranoia around death and decay and destruction and in order to deflect or comfort ourselves we seek solace in ultimately the most destructive of habits and behaviours,” Dr Kinsella says.
“The Church’s purpose is the saving of souls, it is why Christ left it with us. The role of the Church is to help you get to heaven and that means that when it goes out into the world we can’t guarantee that the world will be a better place, it can’t guarantee that there will be heaven on Earth, but when Christ said the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, what he’s saying is that when our will is aligned with God’s will, peace will come.
“The Church is a field hospital really is about tending to the spiritual and corporal needs of humanity and that’s expressed most explicitly through the corporal and the spiritual works of mercy.”
While ACN helps persecuted Christians by providing humanitarian care, they also offer the provision of the sacraments and pastoral care. This ensures that “no matter how dangerous the situation”, both their humanitarian and transcendental needs are met, ensuring those in needs are not just seen as “rumbling bellies, they’re also recognised as yearning souls”.
Dr Kinsella adds: “You can dig a well, great, you can build a school, fantastic, but unless you invest that with the charisms of Catholic, of Christian charity, of love expressed through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy and maintain them sanctified through the sacraments, ultimately it will never meet that hunger – the same way that bread alone can’t meet the ultimate hunger of man.”
For Julieann Moran of World Missions Ireland, the idea of a Church as a field hospital “meant so much”, as it’s a Church that focuses on the wounded, sick, marginalised, alienated, whether they’re physically or psychologically wounded.
Speaking of one of the four societies within World Missions Ireland that specifically caters for children in difficult or even dire situations, Ms Moran said it’s about enabling brighter futures and “nurturing our youngest around the world regardless of their background or belief”.
Ireland has a long tradition of missionary work, acting as a field hospital Church, Ms Moran says, and this is reflected in the work of the Society of Missionary Children. “Immediate examples for me where Missionary Children has assisted some missionaries, Irish and otherwise, would be the likes of Fr Shay Cullen who’s working with child victims of abuse…in the Philippines.
To follow the way of the Lord, the Church is called on to dispense its mercy”
She says one of the toughest part of life for many children around the world is that they have to grow up far too quickly. “The numbers of children that are actually having to take on the responsibility of being adults. You’re talking about children who instead of having the dreams of just being children, doing the things that children Ireland do, playing, going to school, not having the weight of the world and the responsibility that we later have as we get older.
“A perfect example again would be children maybe living with HIV themselves, with a HIV parent, caring for a parent who’s sick or dying. They should have the right to be in education and just be a child, they’re doing this instead.”
One of their most recent projects involves helping to give Iraqi children who have become refugees in Jordon because of Christian persecution the chance to have an education.
There is no doubt immense, ubiquitous suffering in this world, with Pope Francis continually calling on people to assist and help those that are in harrowing situations, as he says: “To follow the way of the Lord, the Church is called on to dispense its mercy over all those who recognise themselves as sinners, who assume responsibility for the evil they have committed, and who feel in need of forgiveness.
“The Church does not exist to condemn people, but to bring about an encounter with the visceral love of God’s mercy.”