Ribbon cutting this morning with the Cardinal Vicar Agostino Vallini who opened the "door" (work of the artist Father Marko Ivan Rupnik) of the Hostel named after Don Luigi Di Liegro, the Roman priest who had made a life choice of Mercy . “A city in which a single man suffers less, is less sad,” Don Luigi loved to repeat, right there, at Termini station, where most of his time was spent in works of charity, solidarity, welcoming the poorest . A few steps from Termini station, this morning a response took shape for the most vulnerable, the excluded of the city, a welcoming and comfortable place to host the homeless for short periods. Moreover, Don Luigi Di Liegro had opened that place on 2 June 1987, on the initiative of the then director of Caritas to whom it is now dedicated, in a property made available by the State Railways and managed from the beginning according to an agreement with the Municipality of Rome. Connected to the Hostel there will be the social canteen, named after Saint John Paul II, which, in addition to the guests welcomed for the night, will offer 500 meals every evening to those who are in difficulty and are reported by the parish listening centers and municipal services . At the inaugural event there were Bishop Nunzio Galantino, general secretary of the Italian Episcopal Conference, the director of Caritas, Monsignor Enrico Feroci and Luigina Di Liegro, founder of the Don Luigi Di Liegro Foundation, together with representatives of important Italian companies that contributed to the realization of the work. The testimony of Don Luigi di Liegro still lives today within the Foundation of the same name, an international, non-profit organization engaged in prevention and fight against social marginalization, on the front of mental distress and unemployment of the over 40s. Solidarity is needed, but we need a new way of conceiving it, we need charity, but now, as Pope Francis tells us, it is the time for Mercy.
