A WORK
OF MERCY
—The Pope THE. Pope last week received more than a hundred experts from the Housing Committee of the European Economic Commission of the United Nations. The Committee is currently meeting in Rome.
The Pope asked the delegates to recall the words of Christ, who loved to stress the fact that He was among the poorest of the poor, and as a consequence of divine poverty, He too, was with. out a house.
The Holy Father said that in the precepts of Christianity there are 14 points of real assistance and practical aid: there are the four• teen works of mercy. including that of sheltering the homeless and the pilgrims. as travellers; how much more urgent, therefore, is the command to help those who are permanently without homes.
"Wherever the pathway of war has passcd," he said, "it has brought in its wake devastation and destruction, and made the problem of housing even more acute. It is highly reassuring to see such a fervour of reconstruction everywhere."