2024 Lenten Message from the Executive Director
This Lenten season, will you give the gift of freedom to a suffering person?
By making one special donation to The Society for the Propagation of the Faith, you can give that gift in two powerful ways today:
FIRST, you can give the gift of true spiritual freedom in Christ, because The Society for the Propagation of the Faith supports the proclamation of the Gospel and the building of churches along with mission priests, religious Sisters and Brothers, and lay pastoral leaders all over the world. Across massive swaths of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, countless people have yet to encounter Christ, but the Pope’s Missions are bringing these people to Him and the Church every day.
SECOND, you can also give a more temporal form of freedom by helping missionaries provide food, education, and medical care to suffering people. Through initiatives like the wheelchair project in Cambodia, we are even restoring mobility to people disabled by the scourge of war.
During Lent, as we commemorate the 40 days Jesus Christ spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, it’s important to remember the people in our mission territories who live in something of a “spiritual desert.” Many have endured unspeakable evil . . .
. . . and you can reach them with life-giving support and Christian witness by donating a special gift of $80, $150, $200, or another amount to The Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
Let me share with you about an area deep in the heart of war-torn Cambodia where there is a workshop on the side of a humble church where people whose bodies were scarred by war make wooden wheelchairs and give them away – for free – to men and women whose bodies were ravaged by landmines.
This is the powerful story of Jesuit Enrique “Quique” Figaredo, affectionately dubbed “the Bishop of the Wheelchairs” who heads a wheelchair project that during the past three decades has given away more than 30,000 wheelchairs.
His story is a testament to the profound difference that can be made in people’s lives when faith meets action. I wanted to share it with you because it’s such a powerful example of the kind of work you make possible through your support.
Bishop Enrique began working with the Cambodian refugees in 1985 following the devastating violence Pol Pot’s brutal regime inflicted on the population.
Impoverished Cambodians were left with deep emotional scars along with millions of landmines that dot the lush landscape. In response, Jesuits opened a mission and almost immediately began bringing wheelchairs to disabled people.
Thirty new churches have been built in three decades (serving about 75,000 Catholics today) with the vital support from the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
Today, the wheelchair project employs 18 people — all of whom are amputees due to landmine injuries. They build an average of 100 chairs a week, selling a third of them to large organizations so they can give the rest to beneficiaries unable to cover the production costs (about $150). What a glorious example of faith in action!
You and I are called not only to abstain from luxuries during Lent, but to a true inner conversion of the heart as we seek to follow Christ’s will more faithfully. We know that people left maimed and disabled by war are close to God’s heart, and your contribution today will help bring them comfort, support, and the gospel.
Thank you for considering this heartfelt appeal on behalf of the Pope’s missionaries. May the peace and joy of Christ be with you as we prepare to celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection.
-Monsignor Terrance Fleming, Executive Director