Capuchin Franciscan Friars

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1. Capuchin Day Centre

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   The Capuchin Day Centre is located in Bow Street, Dublin. It serves about 200 breakfasts and 500 hot lunches a day and hands out about 1,000 food parcels of basic groceries, once a week, on Wednesday mornings.
   
   Running costs for the centre are increasing and stand at about €1.3 million a year at present. A grant of €450,000 comes from the HSE annually, with the rest raised though fundraising.
   
   Winter naturally brings special difficulties to the homeless and marginalised of our society. But even with the "summer" there are still growing problems.
   
   "There is a worrying increase in levels of depression and anxiety among the homeless and poor in Dublin," Br Kevin Crowley, who runs the Day Centre, said recently. "It is particularly acute among the 'new poor', people who have lost their jobs and are really desperate, who are on the verge of losing everything. People are very worried and it’s the not knowing, the worry. it’s increasing and is very much a new thing. It’s very worrying.”
   On 14th December 2011, Pat Kenny visited the Centre for his morning radio program me. A podcast of the broadcast, and of a later interview with Br. Kevin, can be found by clicking the podcast icon below.

2. Remember Shahbaz Bhatti

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   On March 2 masked men sprayed Shahbaz Bhatti’s car with bullets as he left his mother’s home. Shahbaz, a Catholic, was a brilliant lawyer and the only Christian Minister in the government of Pakistan, was murdered for opposing Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
   In his role as Federal Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz frequently criticised the abuse of the blasphemy laws, saying they were used as a pretext to persecute innocent Christians. He knew that he was endangering his own life by speaking out. Pakistani law can impose execution or life imprisonment for offences against Islam. Shahbaz had received death threats since 2009. He predicted his death in a video, in which he said bravely: “I believe in Jesus Christ who has given his own life for us… I’m living for my community… and I will die to defend their rights.”
   
   In August 2009, after reports of a Koran being desecrated in the Punjab province, anti-Christian mobs killed eight people. Shahbaz called for better civil and legal protection for the Christian community. He was also the most vociferous speaker in defence of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was on death row because she was found guilty of insulting Mohammed. (She has now February 2012) spent over two years on death row.)
   
   Shahbaz only served 28 months in government, but from the beginning he took several courageous approaches in support of religious minorities, Baha'i, Christian and Hindu. He launched the national campaign for interfaith harmony and proposed to make hate speech illegal, as well as proposing the introduction of quotas for religious minorities in government posts.
   
   Shahbaz also pioneered the establishment of a National Interfaith Consultation in July 2010, which was the impetus for bringing together senior religious leaders from all religions and from all over Pakistan and resulted in their signing a joint declaration against terrorism.
   Shahbaz was the recipient of many prestigious awards, from the Human Rights Award in 2004 to the International Freedom of Religion Award in 2009. He was also awarded a PhD by South Korea University in recognition for his interfaith work.
   
   

   

3. Syria

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   Four Capuchin friars are working at present in violence-torn Syria, two in Deir Ezzor in the northwest and two in As Suwayda in the southeast, in a place called the Mountain of the Druze”. The presence of these friars is a great source of reassurance for the Christian communities there. The friars report that the situation is worsening and there is a growing fear among the Christians about the future.
   
   
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5. Chad

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   French-speaking Capuchins have been working in Chad, one of the world’s poorest countries for many years. Only 23% of the people have access to drinkable water, which means that cholera, typhoid and intestinal worms are rife. A Capuchin from Quebec, Br. Jean-Jacques Filiatrault worked there for 41 years, concentrating on finding water in the desert. During that period he sank hundreds of wells so that the local people could have clean water, and he saved thousands of lives by his efforts. Br. Jean-Jacques's brother Gerard, also a Capuchin, died in Montreal on 29th October 2010.

6. Justice, Peace and Ecology

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7. The Forest is Weeping

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   José Cláudio Ribeiro Da Silva was shot dead along with his wife Maria do Espírito Santo on Tuesday 24th May in Maraba, Para State, Brazil.
   Jose (known as "Zé" for short) was a tireless campaigner for the protection of the Amazon forest, and had earned the enmity of those engaged in illegal logging. At a conference last November, Zé said:
   
   “I can be here today talking with you, and a month from now you know what could happen to me – disappeared. Ask me if I am scared. I am afraid. I am a human being. I have fear. But my fear won’t let me be quiet. As long as I have the power to walk I will be denouncing those who are harming the forest.”
   
   A banner outside his house reads "A floresta chora" – "The forest is weeping". And we all have reason to, for the cause of the environment on which we all depend is the cause of humanity.
   On the Friday following (28th May) another rural activist was murdered: Adelino Ramos spoke out for land reform and against the illegal logging. According to the Pastoral Land Commission of the local Catholic Church, he was shot by a motorist as he sold vegetables in the northwestern Amazon state of Rondonia.
   Over the past 20 years more than 1,150 conservationists have been killed in Brazil. Others include Chico Mendes (+1988) and Sr. Dorothy Stang (+2005).
   You can read more about Zé
   Here

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