PMS Spain rewards a missionary who helps prostitutes and Radio María

The Pontifical Mission Societies (PMO) awards in Spain this year recognize Sister Milagros García López, religious worshiper, who helps prostitutes in Cape Verde, and Radio María España for her missionary awareness work.

The Spanish broadcaster has won the Blessed Paulina Jaricot Award, which recognizes missionary dedication, while the Spanish station will receive the Blessed Paolo Manna Award, which is awarded to people or institutions that have committed themselves in Spain to raising awareness about the mission. to the nations.

Worship and rescue women from prostitution

Sister Milagros García was born in Algeciras in 1964 and is a member of the Adorers Slaves of the Blessed Sacrament and Charity (AASC), a congregation founded in 1856 by Saint María Micaela with the purpose of freeing women from the slavery of prostitution.

They are present in 25 countries where they support more than 11,000 women through social programs, teaching centers and residences in which they carry out two main activities: Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the liberation of women victims of prostitution networks.

For 6 years, Sister Milagros García has been a missionary in Cape Verde, where she offers psychosocial care to women and adolescents victims of sexual exploitation, human trafficking, prostitution and sexist violence.

In the country, the missionary adoratrices have been developing the project since 2016 Credits to Bo (“Believe in yourself,” in the local language), where they help exploited women, many of them still teenagers, to have a dignified life.

In addition to this task, they announce the Gospel in pure mission territories and accompany the first Christian communities in places such as the Island of San Vicente.

A station with a missionary vocation

In 2024, Radio María España celebrates the first quarter of a century since its launch and in its programming it has several spaces dedicated to publicizing the missionary work of the Catholic Church.

One of them, Church in Mission, It is carried out by the director of Pontifical Mission Works, Father José María Calderón, together with the group of young people from the Diocesan Delegation of Missions of the Archdiocese of Madrid.

The station also tells the experience of the missionaries through the program The adventure of faith with the objective of “transmitting to listeners that all Christians are called to the mission.”

In addition, Radio María España has other spaces such as Little missionary storieswhere anecdotes from the lives of the missionaries are told; Mission impossiblewhere it is narrated how thanks to the work that God carries out through the PMS, a mission that seems impossible to human eyes is carried out; either Apostles of Americawhich recalls the history of the Evangelization of the American continent by Spanish missionaries.

What is the Domund collection for?

Every October 20, World Mission Day (Domund) is celebrated, in which the Catholic Church invites people to pray for evangelizing activity in territories where the first proclamation of the Gospel is offered and raise funds to sustain these communities.

Currently, the Catholic Church has 1,126 mission territories, which correspond to nearly 40% of the Earth’s surface and which need the Pontifical Mission Societies for their material and spiritual support. They are located in 139 countries.

The Domund collection is carried out in 120 countries and the proceeds go to a universal solidarity fund that is distributed at the annual assembly of the PMS. Then the local OMP are in charge of sending the money. In 2023, the fund amounted to 61 and a half million euros.