The Social Works
The Social Works of the Shrine of Pompeii
“I said that Charity, in the widest sense of the word, that is love, must be the basis, the foundation of every pedagogical system which wants to attain certain and praiseworthy outcomes; and now I add that with love and for love you can educate also the most incorrigible boy, or as many say, a born-delinquent. Make him to understand that you love him, because is unlucky; that you educate him only because you love him; and he will love you, and for your sake’s he will effort to correspond to your constant and loving cares in order to educate him. And you will find in the reality of facts that Charity overwhelms all means suggested by Pedagogy and Science; and within the didactic field, as within any other field, it assures certain, great and definitive victories. But Charity, as I have proved on other occasions, is not an enemy of Science… Therefore, if I put Charity at the basis of rejected and bad born Children’s Education, I do not exclude any discovery in Science’s field and precisely in Pedagogy, which is destined to form Man, and therefore is the most difficult as well as the most important among sciences. But I only say that the foundation of every education is Christian love”.
Bartolo Longo
Il Triplice Trionfo della Istituzione a pro dei Figli dei carcerati,
Pompei, 1895, pp. 66-67
Through these words of the Blessed Bartolo Longo stands out clearly his pedagogical ideal, his full trust in love as an educational principle and in charity as a means to improve the life of the minors in difficulty who, as everyone, have the right to grow surrounded by the love of those who take care of them. The charitable institutions realized by the Founder were born and developed according to a sociological-pedagogical path, which remain faithful to its original charism. In more than hundred years of existence, these works have housed, prepared to life and to labour world, thousands and thousands of boys and girls. But the Institute, which was the formula adopted by the Blessed to realize his works of charity, has been put under discussion, beginning from the 50s, by a series of authoritative publications which have underlined its limitations and damages.
Today, after a very long bureaucratic procedure, the Italian law which regulates the housing of the needy minors, beginning from January 2007, foresees the transformation in family-homes or daytime boarding schools of the Institutes which house and educate those minors. At Pompeii also has arisen the urgency of reorganizing the structure of today’s Educational Centres, which, on the footsteps of the Founder, have lovingly welcomed and helped all the people in difficulty.
The charitable realities of the Church of Pompeii are at present:
“I said that Charity, in the widest sense of the word, that is love, must be the basis, the foundation of every pedagogical system which wants to attain certain and praiseworthy outcomes; and now I add that with love and for love you can educate also the most incorrigible boy, or as many say, a born-delinquent. Make him to understand that you love him, because is unlucky; that you educate him only because you love him; and he will love you, and for your sake’s he will effort to correspond to your constant and loving cares in order to educate him. And you will find in the reality of facts that Charity overwhelms all means suggested by Pedagogy and Science; and within the didactic field, as within any other field, it assures certain, great and definitive victories. But Charity, as I have proved on other occasions, is not an enemy of Science… Therefore, if I put Charity at the basis of rejected and bad born Children’s Education, I do not exclude any discovery in Science’s field and precisely in Pedagogy, which is destined to form Man, and therefore is the most difficult as well as the most important among sciences. But I only say that the foundation of every education is Christian love”.
Bartolo Longo
Il Triplice Trionfo della Istituzione a pro dei Figli dei carcerati,
Pompei, 1895, pp. 66-67
Through these words of the Blessed Bartolo Longo stands out clearly his pedagogical ideal, his full trust in love as an educational principle and in charity as a means to improve the life of the minors in difficulty who, as everyone, have the right to grow surrounded by the love of those who take care of them. The charitable institutions realized by the Founder were born and developed according to a sociological-pedagogical path, which remain faithful to its original charism. In more than hundred years of existence, these works have housed, prepared to life and to labour world, thousands and thousands of boys and girls. But the Institute, which was the formula adopted by the Blessed to realize his works of charity, has been put under discussion, beginning from the 50s, by a series of authoritative publications which have underlined its limitations and damages.
Today, after a very long bureaucratic procedure, the Italian law which regulates the housing of the needy minors, beginning from January 2007, foresees the transformation in family-homes or daytime boarding schools of the Institutes which house and educate those minors. At Pompeii also has arisen the urgency of reorganizing the structure of today’s Educational Centres, which, on the footsteps of the Founder, have lovingly welcomed and helped all the people in difficulty.
The charitable realities of the Church of Pompeii are at present:
- the Polyvalent Daytime Centre Growing up Together which accepts pre-teen-agers and teen-agers in a semi-boarding school system;
- the Group Apartment for the residence of young girls around eighteen years or who have reached their majority;
- the “Emanuel” House for the housing of pregnant women, mothers and children in difficulty;
- the Centre of Aid to Life, which supports women in difficulty who decide not to abort welcoming the dawning of life with the certainty to be helped from the very moment of birth until the first years of the life of their child;
- the Movement for Life, which organizes many initiatives for the spreading of the culture of life;
- the “Myriam” Hearing Centre open to the acceptance, to the information, to the orientation and to the accompanying of persons afflicted by different social emergencies, with a special concern for the necessities of immigrated women.
- the Educational Family-Like Community “Garden of Smile” has been set up in via Arpaia for the housing of minors from 4 to 10 years of age, which is run by Dott.ssa Fortuna Apuzzo.
- the Polyvalent Daytime Centre has been operating at the Educational Centre “Bartolo Longo” in via Sacra, which gives to the pupils of the Pontifical Schools the possibility to participate in the afternoon activities: from ceramics to sports and music and it houses also sixty boys coming from families with serious social problems who, thanks to the commitment, financial as well, of various voluntary services, are well integrated in the school classrooms and participate in the afternoon activities. The Director pro tempore is at present Brother Giovanni Decina of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.