Pope visits a once-troubled neighborhood in Lisbon to draw attention to the church’s charitable side

LISBON, PORTUGAL >> Pope Francis visited a once-troubled and crime-plagued neighborhood in Portugal’s capital on Friday to draw attention to the charitable side of the Catholic Church and to press his case for a church that goes to the peripheries and welcomes everyone.

Francis continued his busy schedule in Portugal, hearing confessions of some young people who were in Lisbon for World Youth Day, the big Catholic festival, and then having a festive pasta and steak lunch with others. Later Friday, he was presiding over the solemn Way of the Cross procession recreating Christ’s crucifixion.

Francis visited a community center in the city’s Serafina neighborhood, which sits beneath a giant 18thcentury aqueduct that is a symbol of the bounty of the bounty that gold from Portugal’s Brazilian colony once afforded the country.

Two decades ago, drug and crime problems dogged the neighborhood, but Serafina has tried to put that past behind it, thanks in part to efforts by church charity groups, including one that was created to provide an alternative to parents considering abortions or who otherwise couldn’t care for their children.

Speaking off the cuff to young people and the charity organizers, Francis said true service must be done with concrete gestures that make an impact. He said he couldn’t come to Lisbon to celebrate World Youth Day without visiting the center because “this is also youth, in the sense that you generate new life continually.”

“With your conduct, your commitment and getting your hands dirty by touching the reality and misery of others, you are giving inspiration and generating life,” he said.

Francis has long said that true service and charity has to hurt, and that it’s not enough just to give a beggar a coin on the street. He has championed the charitable side of the Catholic Church, including boosting the Vatican’s efforts by providing showers and medical care to area homeless people while also sending regular truckloads of aid to Ukraine and other places wracked by conflict or natural disasters.

Pedro Duarte, who works at the St. Vincent de Paul social center in Serafina, said Francis’ visit was important because he was backing his words with action.

“It is so important that the pope not only said that one should go to the peripheries, but that he actually came to the periphery,” he said outside the center where other community members had gathered to cheer Francis as he came and left.

In Lisbon, Francis has also emphasized the inclusive message of the church that he has championed throughout his 10-year papacy, telling the World Youth Day opening ceremony on Thursday that “in the church, there is room for everyone.” He led the crowd of a half-million people in a chant of “todos, todos, todos” or “everyone, everyone, everyone” to make his point.

That message of inclusivity has resonated in particular with LGBTQ+ Catholics, who have long felt ostracized by a church that considers homosexual activity “intrinsically disordered.” Francis, though, has offered a message of welcome to LGBTQ+ Catholics, starting from his very first World Youth Day in 2013, when he famously said “Who am I to judge,” when asked about a purportedly gay priest.