Rome, Italy, Feb 17, 2017 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic Church puts a lot of effort into having excellent schools and hospitals, but what about its orphanages? For Caroline Boudreaux, conditions in orphanages are too often overlooked – something we all have the ability and opportunity to help change.
The Miracle Foundation, founded by Boudreaux, is a nonprofit which operates on the principle that orphaned children have the same fundamental rights as every other child, and that we help them the most when we help and support the institutions they live in.
One way the organization does this is through teaching those who run orphanages the “best practices” for facilitating the mental, physical, and spiritual well-being of the children in their care.
“The idea is to get a model in every single Catholic orphanage around the world. To give every single Catholic orphanage the support that we would be giving our churches and our schools and our hospitals. That’s what I’m trying to do,” Boudreaux told CNA.
Compared to most of our Catholic hospitals and schools, the conditions in orphanages around the world, even those run by religious orders, are appalling, she explained.
We’ve left the religious sisters running these institutions “out to dry: We leave them with not enough resources, overcrowded orphanages, underfunded…”
But Boudreaux is optimistic that this is something people can change.
“I want to stop short of saying we should be ashamed, but you have a Catholic school or you have a Catholic hospital and you know that they’re going to be pretty excellent … and you can’t say that for our orphanages,” she said.
Part of the Miracle Foundation’s method is also based on the belief that, if possible, it is always best for a child to be in a family setting, so they strive to facilitate this as much as possible.
“Growing up without your family is a tough, tough, tough way to grow up,” Boudreaux said. “It scars more than just your stomach and your mind, it scars your heart, which is really the tough part.”
“We help orphanages reunite children with their families, we help orphanages put children in the adoption stream, and for the children that have to be there, until they have a family, we make the standards solid, so that they can thrive in real time.”
Boudreaux was first inspired with the idea for the Miracle Foundation after she went to India with a friend and witnessed the poor living conditions of orphanages there. The place was “like a concentration camp for kids,” she said, “very gray, very dark.”
The beds were wooden slats with no mattresses and the children, “bald and filthy,” were starved for attention. “I just decided somebody better help them, somebody needs to step in here, and that was it – that was the beginning – almost 17 years ago on Mother’s Day,” she said.
Inspired by the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Miracle Foundation created its own list of 12 Fundamental Rights of a Child, focusing specifically on the rights of orphaned children, such as the right to a “stable, loving and nurturing environment.”
In addition to practical issues, such as proper nutrition, clean water, electricity and a clean environment, the Miracle Foundation trains caregivers in the areas they can improve themselves, and for others, helps them to bring in qualified experts, like counselors and doctors.
The children in these institutions are often suffering from grief, trauma, or other psychological issues, Boudreaux said, but the religious sisters who watch over them aren’t prepared to deal with the significant psychological problems they have, let alone “watch them go to bed hungry every night” because of the lack of resources.
The Miracle Foundation isn’t a religious organization and will serve anyone in need of help, she said, but they’ve also found that working with specific religious orders who run multiple orphanages throughout a country, or around the world, is one way to make a large impact and quickly.
The Miracle Foundation has been following their current model since 2011, and has experienced great success, with religious orders asking for their help in all of their institutions. For this, the organization’s principle to “train the trainer” has helped them reach even more children.
For the moment they are mostly based at orphanages in India, but are also helping some in Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.
Nivedita DasGupta, head of their operations in India, gave an overview of a typical day in one of the children’s homes in which they’ve helped implement these “best practices.”
In general, the goal is to make the environment as home- and family-like as possible.
For this reason, there is usually one “house mother” for about every 20 children, who drops them off and picks them up from the bus stop on their way to and from school, who eats dinner with them, and generally spends the day supervising them all.
The organization made it mandatory for a healthy snack to be served after school and for there to be a period of physical activity and playtime. They also implemented different monthly sessions for the children focused on life skills with topics appropriate for different ages, such as career counseling, goal-setting, how to deal with peer pressure, and responsible sexual behavior.
As a way for the kids to have a say in the community, they also have children’s committees (run with supervision by an adult, of course) that are responsible for things like planning meals and organizing sports.
One thing the Miracle Foundation does when they come in to an orphanage is to chart the health of the children, Boudreaux said, which they then train the house mothers to measure and record monthly, so that they have real knowledge about the health of the children and their progress on growth charts.
“We help orphans reach their full potential, that’s what we’re all about,” she said.
A Catholic, Boudreaux said she grew up hearing about the importance of being pro-life, but that after going to these orphanages and seeing the children, you realize that maybe we’ve “succeeded” in one way, so-to-speak, but are failing in another.
These children have all been born, but, she said, you have to ask: “Now what? Now they’re just going to be hungry? We’ve got to step up here.”
“We have an opportunity,” she said. “This is something right here, right now!”
Boudreaux explained that this isn’t something we have to go looking for: It’s easy “because they’re right there, and our nuns are right there, waiting for our help, ready to accept our help.”
“We’re not pro-orphanage, we’re not pro-institution,” she said. “We wish that every child in the world had a family.”
“But the real question is, what happens if we’re not there?”
“Between now and when they can find a family, we must support children, we must support them,” she said.
Elise Harris contributed to this article.
[…]
1 John 4:1-6 1 John 4:1-6 “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already. 4 Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are of the world, therefore what they say is of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are of God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
This article implies that the baby Cardinal is committed to nothing. Ah contraire! Not too many years ago he was elected as part of the ruling Socialist Party. No wonder the Pope lifted this synodalling prodigy from obscurity to the next Conclave. (All this is not to say that Lisbon didn’t need two Cardinals.)
And, should clerical functionaries actually have something elevating to say to youth who are, yes, looking for fraternity, but also deeply hungry for the permanence of Truth? If there is a Truth larger than just the “diversity” thingy.
Maybe by going back to the mentioned first World Youth Day of 1985….Here’s the link to St. John Paul II’s “Letter to Youth,” together with a peek at the confidence and fatherly guidance of a true shepherd: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1985/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_31031985_dilecti-amici.html
” [….] Christ answers as he answered the young people of the first generation of the Church through the words of the Apostle [St. Paul]: ‘I am writing to you, young people, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father… I write to you, young people, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you”. The words of the Apostle, going back almost two thousand years, are also an answer for today. They use the simple and strong language of faith that bears within itself victory over the evil in the world: “And this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith”. These words have the strength of the experience of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, the experience of the Apostles and of the generations of Christians that followed them. In this experience the whole of the Gospel is confirmed. These words also confirm the truth contained in Christ’s conversation with the young man” [who asked: ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’] (part of n. 15).
The difference between a shepherd in season and out of season, and an empty suit.
Young people – they are the true agents who keep converting the rusty, the outdated, the straight-jacketed and other fellow mortals into mobile, flexible, alert, conscientious, and concerned citizens of Planet Earth.
Well, we were the young people yesterday. What happened?
“… concerned citizens of Planet Earth.”
But not be converted to Christ.
I look at the current situation as being spirituality as practiced by the hookup culture. Trying to create a church of the holy hookup and the sacred shack-up, where God had better be putting out. The Gospel according to Harvey Weinstein. Spiritual co-habitation. People who are incapable of making or keeping a promise. Catholicism is a covenantal faith based on promises, vows, and oaths.
I thought it was “in the world but not of the world”.
Matthew 10:32-34
32 “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; 33 but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven. 34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Acts 2:38-40
And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.” And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”
Why are we funding these bums?
Have we arrived at a point where we require a Protestant pastor (Timothy Keller, Making Sense of God) to explain to Catholic clergy why there is no such thing as choosing one’s own path? He compelling explains why everyone, including those who claim to shape their own beliefs, is actually formed/informed by some group or community. The question then becomes, who will form me? This seems so remedial it is sad that priests and bishops are ignorant of this truth, or worse, have rejected it for expediency’s sake.
Jesus wept.
Why does someone like this even become a priest, let alone a bishop?
No accident that such as this person is being promoted upwards. Francis will have a lot to account for when he goes to judgement, and all these appointments will not be able to help him then. “Anything goes” is no way to run the Catholic church.