(Newser)
– It is possible that Italy has broken the record for the hottest temperature on record in Europe and, amid the stifling heat, Pope Francis made a literally cool gesture. A Vatican statement said 15,000 ice creams were sent to prisoners in Rome. Reuters reports that the “gelati” they call dessert were delivered to prisons on behalf of the pope by Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, who, as the “pope’s beggar,” distributes alms to those in need.
It was not an isolated atypical movement, with a statement stating that “visiting prisoners” is between the two works of mercy (there are seven in all, for Guardian) to which volunteers from the Pope’s charity office were engaged. As part of this, “the” charitable arm of the Holy Father “has made small evangelical gestures to help and give hope to thousands of people in the prisons of Rome,” among others. This summer, the office also took homeless people “to the sea or the lake … to spend a relaxing afternoon and dinner at a pizzeria,” sent a computed tomography machine to a health center in Madagascar, and contributed more than $ 2 million to strengthen medical facilities. to three unspecified African countries. (Last month, Francis urged people to get vaccinated against COVID as an “act of love”).