On February 18-25, 2018, Friar Joseph BLAY, the Delegate General for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (GPIC) together with Friars Jarosław WYSOCZAŃSKI and Alphonse VAZHAPPANADY from the General Secretariat for Mission Animation (SGAM), visited the Province of St. Joseph, Spouse of the B.V.M. in Romania to witness some of the friars’ pastoral activities in the area of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation.
In Bucharest, all three visitors took part in an initiative to feed the poor and homeless. Our friars distribute food every night to more than seventy people, food which comes to them from Providence.
At Roman, the Province operates the “Peace Foundation”, where the friars provide schooling for gypsy youngsters and other poor children. The friars provide food, clothing and teach reading and writing to children preparing for public school. Friar Lucian BOBÂRNAC is the head of the Foundation. Every day the friars pick up children from the neighborhood and provide them with schooling and after school activities, then, they bring them back to their parents.
Our confreres offer spiritual assistance to the Missionary Sisters of Charity. In Bucharest and Bacău, the friars have a close relationship with Mother Teresa’s sisters, as well as with the sick and disabled. Their formation activities very often integrate the Franciscan values of Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation. The seminarians in Roman, the novices of Prăjeşti and the postulants of Viişoara, were able to discover that we Franciscans are privileged to embody the values asked for and required by the encyclical Laudato Si‘.
The visitors experienced extraordinary hospitality and fraternity at each community they visited. The landscape surrounding them was beautiful, white, and icy-cold.
Friar Joseph BLAY, Delegate General for GPIC
