More Than Placards

Catherine Fitzgibbons was an Irish immigrant to New York City.  She became a Sister of Charity, the Mother Seton order.  She was teaching school after the Civil War where some thirty thousand homeless children wandered the streets of New York. Those were the ones that servived.  Babies were left in abandoned lots, or on doorsteps of whoever.  Mothers could not care for the babies, and in alms houses many children died from lack of care. Catherine decided to act hands on.  She got permission from her order to rent a house with a couple of other sisters.  They had $5 and ate their first meal on the floor with old newspapers as place settings. They took in the children and loved them and gave them a home-feeling.  A sign at the front door with a basket said, “Home For Foundlings.”  It became today the welfare agency for children called “New York Foundling.”  It helps thousands every year.  What would Catherine do today about unwanted children or poverty that cannot give them a life beyond the womb?  If you walk around with a sign every January 22, are you willing to take care of all the newborns who are unwanted, or are born into abject poverty?