Mags Gargan
A Belfast church is set to open a soup kitchen service for the city’s homeless, in response to Pope Francis’ call to reach out to those in need with concrete acts of mercy.
St Patrick’s Church in Donegall Street hosted a Mass of Hope for Belfast’s homeless community on Wednesday and will begin distributing food from the church’s Door of Mercy next week.
The initiative came about through a conversation between Fr Dominic McGrattan CC, Chaplain to the Mater Hospital and community worker and nurse, Paul McCusker.
“Paul suggested that the parish host a Mass of Hope for the homeless and the charities who serve them,” Fr McGrattan told The Irish Catholic. “We discussed whether there is something more we could do, and conscious that we hosted Door of Mercy for the diocese last year, we thought it appropriate to have a legacy, that the door should remain open with concrete acts of mercy.”
Pledges
The parish has received pledges of support from community workers and volunteerswho will distribute hot drinks and sandwiches from the Door of Mercy.
Tesco has also been in contact offering food, as have a number of individual donors, and the Knights of St Columbanus have offered financial support for the project.
The soup kitchen service starts next week, provisionally for two evenings to “see how it goes and the level of interest”. “A lot of support has been pledged since the idea was first mooted and we would be hopeful we could offer a bigger level of service,” Fr McGrattan said.
St Patrick’s, founded in 1815, is one of Belfast’s oldest and most historic city-centre churches. It played host to an historic royal visit by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall in 2015 and hosted the Door of Mercy for the Diocese of Down and Connor in 2016.
