MISSIONARIES OF CHARITY AND 14 DISABLED CHILDREN FROM KABUL ARRIVE AT ROME AIRPORT
(CNA Rome Newsroom, Aug 26, 2021)
Religious sisters from the Missionaries of Charity and 14 disabled children from an orphanage in Afghanistan arrived safely on Wednesday at Rome’s international airport.
A Catholic priest and five sisters from the order founded by Mother Teresa arrived on one of two evacuation flights from Kabul that landed in Rome on Aug. 25 carrying a total of 277 people.
Fr. Giovanni Scalese, the ecclesiastical superior of the Catholic mission in Afghanistan, also arrived on the flight. He spent eight years in Kabul, offering daily Mass for foreign residents in the city at the only Catholic church in Afghanistan, located inside of the Italian embassy.
“I would never have returned to Italy without these children,” Fr. Scalese told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
“We could not leave them there.”
The children, aged between six and 20 years old, were residents of an orphanage founded in 2006 by the Missionaries of Charity in Kabul, which has now been forced to close due to the Taliban’s takeover of the city.
Sr. Bhatti Shahnaz, another Catholic religious sister who arrived in Rome on the evacuation flight, also worked with disabled children in Afghanistan with her community, the Sisters of Charity of St. Jeanne Antide.
“The 50 intellectually disabled children we looked after are still there,” she said with tears in her eyes.
Accompanying this article was a photo and description from Fr. Doriano Vincenzo De Luca from his Facebook page: (1) Doriano Vincenzo De Luca | Facebook
Fr. De Luca: The small Catholic community in #Afghanistan arrived in Rome. They arrived yesterday afternoon in Fiumicino with one of the many flights from Kabul Father Giovanni Scalese, five nuns and fourteen disabled children.
Joan's Rome 