EUROPE/SPAIN - Spanish bishops and priests send chalices and vestments to parishes in Haiti

Madrid (Agenzia Fides) – There has been a prompt and generous response from bishops and priests in Spain to the appeal launched by the Apostolic Nuncio to Haiti, Archbishop Bernard Auza, through Father Ángel García, founder and president of the NGO "Mensajeros de la Paz," to send Haiti chalices and vestments that were destroyed in the earthquake of January 12. In the capital of Port-au-Prince alone, eighty churches collapsed, including the Cathedral, and the surviving priests do not have the liturgical objects necessary for celebrating the Holy Mass and administering the other sacraments.
The NGO "Mensajeros de la Paz," according to a press statement sent to Fides, then presented this need to the Spanish bishops. The headquarters of the NGO in Madrid began to receive chalices, ciboriums, chasubles, altar cloths, and other liturgical objects. Responses to the appeal even came from individual priests and believers, as well as from companies who produce sacred vessels. In addition, Rosaries were sent from Rome, with the emblem of the Holy Father Benedict XVI, which will go to the seminarians of Port-au-Prince. All material collected will be delivered to the Nuncio by Fr. Julio Millán Medina, President of "Mensajeros de la Paz-Andalucía," who will travel to Haiti on Saturday, March 13th.
"Mensajeros de la Paz" is a public interest NGO founded in 1963 by Father Angel Garcia, who still presides over it. It is present in Spain and 39 other countries around the world, where it operates in the field of child protection, attention to the elderly as well as people with physical and psychological assistance to women victims of domestic violence for community development. Together with the NGO "Infancia sin Fronteras", it immediately began participating in the relief effort in Haiti: only 48 hours after the earthquake, it had already arrived in Haiti with the first volunteers in humanitarian aid, and since then, they have been committed to providing medical, material, social, and psychological support to earthquake victims, both in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. (SL) (Agenzia Fides 11/03/2010)