Our best wishes to the Pope through support for the Santa Marta pediatric dispensary

Next September 14th Pope Leone XIV He will turn 70. An important date for the Church and for all the faithful who in recent months have learned to love his sober style, directed and close to people. To celebrate his birthday, the San Paolo editorial group launches a special initiative of affection and solidarity: The whole community of readers has the opportunity to wish the Holy Father to wish (Below, all the instructions on how to do), a unique opportunity to make him feel his warmth. As a further concrete gesture of proximity to the pontiff, the group will support the Santa Marta pediatric dispensary In the Vatican, who has been taking care of many families and children in difficulty for 103 years where we went to see what you do every day.

On one of the walls stands this phrase of Sant’Agostino: “Where greater love is, the less the weight of fatigue”to remember that that former carpentry – which today hosts the medical structure – has become a house for thousands of mothers, dads (when there are) and children who would not have had, otherwise, access to care. And which provides, together with medical examinations, drugs and therapies, also listening, support, affection and endless love. Sister Anna Luisa Rizzello The door of the structure opens, just inside the Vatican walls.

A coming and going of wheelchairs that are left in the small courtyard before the entrance. It was 1921 when Dula Draeck, A rich New York lady shareholder from the Drycko powdered milk company, had proposed to Benedict XV to create a milk distribution service for poor children in Rome. The following year, in 1922, with the pope’s applause, the project had taken shape and had been entrusted to Daughters of Charity of San Vincenzo de ‘Paolithe nuns operating in the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

The work, become a foundation in 2008 by the will of Benedict XVI (Currently chaired by the Holy See Elemosinier, Monsignor Konrad Krajewski), has always been in the heart of every pontiff.

Francesco had wanted to visit her a few months after his election, in 2013, and, last Christmas, “when, for health reasons, he had not been possible to come here”, recalls Sister Rizzello with emotion, «We had gone, with volunteer doctors, mothers, children, families, to greet him in the college of Santa Marta. He had wanted to tighten everyone and bless, one by one, the babies. To reread that gesture now was his farewell ».

But it’s not time to regret. The work goes on.

At the door knocked in many, over three thousand in the first six months of the year. “They come to us above all with word of mouth, or sent by parish priests or by the life help center”. In fact, here we take care of the child before even born.

«There were many situations of mothers who had decided to stop pregnancy. When they came to us, however, feeling supported both from an economic point of view, which with gynecological, psychological and all -round support visits have changed their mind and today they are happy with their children “.

In the dispensary they alternate about seventy volunteers and volunteers, doctors of the Child Jesus, of the Gemelli Polyclinic, «but also basic pediatricians That, after the time of your study, they come here to help, “underlines the nun. In three years, “I arrived on May 22, 2022 when the hundred years from official birth were celebrated,” he recalls, saw the services expand even more.

“From psychomotricity to the neurologist, to the dermatologist we follow the child from all points of view”. First they book the appointment at 06/69.88.49.06 or via Whats- App at 320.6854918 And then they are listened to and follow. «We also try to integrate the family unit into the territory, to direct it, when they have the health card, to the basic pediatricians. In this period they come mainly from Peru and India, but, underlines the nun, «The origins are from 87 different countries in the world. With milk and visits also the clothes arrive, some game and, for the family he needs, some food genre.

“Just today,” the nun smiles, “they gave us two quintals of oil. It is incredible how it happens, but every time we need something some benefactor is going on. Providence makes us walk. We never missed. “