VATICAN CITY, APR. 11, 2001 (Zenit.org).- John Paul II allocated $7 million to works of charity last year, helping people in countries around the world.
The Pontifical Council «Cor Unum,» in an official statement, said that the Pope wished to respond personally to some of the natural tragedies that occurred last year, by sending money and his special envoy, German Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, president of the council.
«Cor Unum,» an aid-coordinating dicastery, said the Holy Father sent money to express his «personal solicitude and the attentive closeness of the Church and Apostolic See» to victims of the Taiwan earthquake at the end of 1999, and to victims of the floods in Mozambique, last March, and in the Val d´Aosta in Italy, last October. The Pope gave $1,027,800 through «Cor Unum» to populations afflicted by various emergencies.
«Cor Unum» also supported projects of human and Christian development in various parts of the world, for the homeless, the elderly, abandoned children, and the sick. For these, the dicastery gave $888,805 in the Holy Father´s name.
The administrative council of the John Paul II Foundation for the Sahel, established to fight against drought and desertification, approved $2.99 million in financing for 312 projects.
The administrative council of the «Populorum Progressio» Foundation, created by John Paul II in 1992 to encourage the human and Christian promotion of poor indigenous, mixed-race, and black farmworkers in Latin America, gave $1.92 million in financing to 209 projects in 20 Central American, Latin American and Caribbean countries.
