The Homiletic & Pastoral Review + the Right Reverend Monsignor Anthony J. Figueiredo, S.T.D.


"Charity and the mission of the priest"


This snippet is from his timely article in HPR's December 2010 issue.


"From the earliest times, bishops were to take seriously this responsibility.

"The Didascalia Apostolorum, an ancient Christian treasure written in the middle of the third century, exhorts the bishop with these words: Let his hand be open to give; and let him love the orphans with the widows, and be a lover of the poor and of strangers (ch. IV, ii.3).

"Pope Callistus I (d. 222), who himself had been a slave, instituted a sort of bank of the poor, which sheltered widows and orphans from being sold into slavery.

"St. Basil of Caesarea (d. 379) was the first to found hospitals and, in this same period, St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) manifested the pivotal role exercised by the bishop in regard to the poor to such an extent that he was honored as the friend of the poor or vir venerabilis.

"Later in the medieval Tregua Dei, Church pastors safeguarded the goods of the common people against an avaricious nobility.

"Or when secular European states brutally forced other countries into colonization, the Church's missionaries transmitted the faith and brought beautiful Christian culture to them as well..."