World News
Heart's Home in Brooklyn cares for poor, sick and fosters vocations
Published: November 2, 2009
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CNS) -- It might seem unusual for the residents of the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn to see French missionaries walking their streets each afternoon reciting the rosary together. And Catholics might be surprised to learn that the organization which sends out the missionaries encompasses nearly the full spectrum of church vocations -- an order for priests, an order for nuns, a fraternity of consecrated laypeople and lay volunteers. Heart's Home, started in 1990 as strictly a volunteer organization by Father Thierry de Roucy, serves the poor and suffering in the world by letting these people know someone cares about them. Volunteers visit the poor, the sick, the terminally ill and the incarcerated. The French priest found that after a few years, some of the volunteers wanted to continue in Heart's Home through a lifelong commitment. So Father de Roucy founded the Servants of God's Presence, an order of religious sisters within the organization; there are 30 nuns in the order around the world. The Sacerdotal Fraternity of Molokai for the priesthood was founded in 1995 and currently has 28 priests and seminarians. Organizations for consecrated laypeople and for lay volunteers followed later. More information about Heart's Home is available at the community's Web site, http://usa.heartshome.org.
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