Papal Nuncio to the Philippines Archbishop Charles Brown on Friday, July 16, met with some widows and orphans of drug war victims when he visited the St. Arnold Janssen Kalinga Center in Tayuman, Manila.
CBCP News said during the visit, the nuncio expressed the Pope’s closeness to them.
“I am deeply sorry for everything that you have to go through,” CBCP News quoted Brown as saying.
“I assure you that Pope Francis is close to you. In fact, I would be going to see Pope Francis in October and I promise you I will tell him about this experience in person,” he added.
The nuncio’s visit to Kalinga Center was to grace the facility’s 6th anniversary celebration of its establishment, where he also listened to testimonies of some street dwellers.
Brown said such initiative is something that is “close to the heart” of Pope Francis.
“He wants us to take care of the marginalized and the people who are in the periphery, people who are poor and overlooked,” he said.
The center was established by the Society of Divine Word (SVD) congregation in the city’s Tayuman district in 2015 to provide services for the homeless.
In 2016, SVD missionary Fr. Flavie Villanueva founded the “Paghilom” program to reach out to those who lost loved ones due to killings under the government’s bloody war on drugs.
The program offers support to the bereaved families in five aspects: food, psycho-spiritual intervention, legal assistance, educational assistance, and livelihood assistance.