The FE Program, which is responsible for sustaining the mission of the Catholic Church in Argentina, carries out a campaign to accompany the oldest and sickest priests in their health treatments.
With the slogan “Caring for those who care for us,” the program encourages collaboration with priests at all stages of life. On this occasion, the campaign is animated by the bishops of each diocese, and is carried out exclusively through social networks.
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“Let us renew the commitment to raise awareness that our pastors also, like any other person, need care and support in their physical and emotional health,” the call states.
“Caring for and sustaining the lives of those who guide and encourage us is a fundamental part of the commitment we have, as faithful, to sustaining the mission of the Church,” he adds.
In this framework, the FE Program offers a training meeting to learn more about the initiative that seeks to “continue accompanying the life and health of priests.”
Father Máximo Jurcinovic, in charge of communication for the Argentine Episcopal Conference and responsible for the FE Program, spoke with ACI Prensa about this new campaign that “was born in the last Plenary Assembly of the Episcopate, where the bishops decided to generate sustained awareness in the people of God, that there are beginning to be more and more older priests who need much more complex health care, and recovery treatments that are much longer.
“The clergy of the dioceses are also beginning to become older and older,” said the priest, and many times “rehabilitations, recoveries, treatments that are extraordinary to what is the usual health of priests” are needed.
“We often meet priests in their ‘useful’ life, when they are parish priests, when they are in charge of pastoral activities, but Argentina also has many priests who are already in another stage of life, dedicating a lot of time to prayer. , a lot of time studying, and because of their age they do not have many functions that have to do with the visibility of their ministry,” he indicated.
For this reason, he considered that “it is a good time to set our sights on these priests and commit ourselves financially.”
“The campaign is carried out from the dioceses, because many of these priests are no longer in the parishes, but are in some priestly homes, or living in parishes that have amenities for older people, often accompanied by their families,” he explained. .
“This is also very important: it is a campaign so that people not only think about the priest of their parish, but in the dioceses we think about the older priests, who have been in another stage in our parishes and today perhaps need older priests.” care,” he concluded.
Those who wish to collaborate can do so through https://programafe.org/salud.
Juliet Villar
I am a journalist, with a degree in communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non-governmental organizations. Since 2016 I have been dedicated to Catholic journalism, first at the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as ACI Prensa correspondent for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.