Those Darn Jesuits . . . Two Bringing Hope in East Africa

A recent Saint Anthony Messenger article highlights the work of two Jesuit priests in East Africa:

"Enter Jesuit Gene Hattie, an 82-year-old priest with the energy of a man half his age. I walked the streets of Kampala with Father Hattie. I noticed the children’s eyes light up with recognition and friendship when they see him approach.
Crowds walk by these children every day. Many adults are frightened, judging them to be thieves and a threat to their security. Father Hattie sees something else: humanity’s future struggling forward. He is determined to find a way to reach them with a loving solidarity strong enough to reclaim promise in their young lives."


"Jesuit priest and medical doctor Angelo D’Agostino founded Nyumbani in 1992 to care for babies who are abandoned by their families who suspect that the HIV virus has been transmitted to the child. Abandonment is a cruel side effect of the fear that AIDS creates.
At first the Jesuit could accept just three babies, but soon found room for 25. Presently there are nearly 100, while the number of AIDS orphans on the continent mounts. Approximately 15 million children have already been orphaned by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. That number is expected to climb dramatically, perhaps even double, in the coming decade.
“Time will prove the absolute necessity of what we do. This is a problem that has never happened in the history of humanity,” Father D’Agostino tells me. The enormity of the tragedy is clear to him in a most personal way."

read the whole thing here.