"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist."
Hélder Pessoa Câmara, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife
Former Defence Minister, José Bono, was one of those who attended the Eucharist on Sunday
The parish of San Carlos Borromeo in Entrevías, Madrid, held its first mass on Sunday following the order from the Catholic Church in Spain to suspend all pastoral activity.
The order, signed by Cardinal Rouco Varela, the Archbishop of Madrid, came on 31st May, ostensibly because of plans to cede the church to Cáritas, a confederation of charity and social work organisations linked to the Catholic Church in Spain. The underlying reason is seen as the fact that the parish does not conform to ecclesiastical rules.
The parish is known as ‘Los excluidos,’ ‘the excluded,’ because of the three priests’ work with ex prisoners, drug addicts and immigrants, and their open door policy of services being open to all, including non-believers and Muslims. The priests always took services in street clothes in what is one of the poorest areas of the Spanish capital.
Known also as the ‘red church,’ Sunday’s Eucharist was attended by the former Defence Minister, José Bono, and PSOE’s secretary for social movement and relations with non-governmental organisations, Pedro Zerolo.
It came on the final day of the ‘United in Exclusion’ meeting, inaugurated on Friday by the Brazilian theologian, Leonardo Boff, the former priest who was one of the founders of liberation theology. It is a school of theology, born in Latin America, which focuses on Christ as the liberator of the oppressed, with the belief that the Church should be involved in the fight for social justice.
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