Every day, it seems, there’s some big media-oriented bullshit thing the Vatican is doing to prove how wonderfully nice they are now in the New Era of Francis MercyChurch!!!

Here’s the lastest…

Vatican gives free health care to Rome’s poor.

Uhhh yeah, except, there are already teams of volunteers who go around the city every day checking up on poor people, including the “homeless” who turn the sheltered areas in front of the shops and offices on the Via Conciliazione and the big corridor thing at St. Peter’s train station into dormitories – people who are, in fact, mostly Bangladeshi and African illegal immigrants doing illegal street peddling during the days. If you go home on the Civitavecchia line from St. Peter’s every day, as I did for several years, you will see these guys camping out in large groups. They’re the same guys who shove umbrellas in your face … “for you, Ma’am, only twenty-five euros!” and who have begun setting up their illegal vending tables in such a way as to force the crowded streets to bottleneck past them. They mostly make me want to kick over the tables. But I’m a bad person.

Anyway, there are and always have been volunteer groups, mostly organised by the Church, who go around to all the sheltered spots where these people bed down for the night to make sure they’ve got food and blankies and that whatever diseases they’ve got aren’t spreading too much.

Oh, and the last time I was in the Gemelli emergency room some years ago when the pain from chemo was being unexpectedly severe and was not responding to the analgesics they gave me, I got my shot of contramal, and then had to listen to the nice doctor complain for 20 minutes that because Italy offers free emergency care in hospitals to anyone, whether they are on the national system or not, whether they are illegal or not, the illegal immigrants flood into the pronto soccorso every day with their children and use it as a free walk-in clinic. This means that people who really are sick and really do need help, have waits that can be hours and hours long. She said, “If we just made the people who come in here regularly but who have no medical emergencies pay 20 Euros, the entire thing would start working.”

Free care to anyone who actually has a medical problem that needs immediate attention. If you’re just there to get some attention, you pay 20 bucks. She said the burden on hospital emergency rooms just meeting with the hundreds of un-insured illegals who show up to try to get some non-emergency attention – often she said they come in and ask for free legal advice – is close to collapsing the whole system.

And let’s not forget the time Francis said, Hey, I know what Bernini’s Colonnade needs! Showers for poor people!

Except that the Missionaries of Charity have their help-the-poorest-of-the-poor station about 35 feet away, and did all that stuff.

But of course, Francis! NewImprovedChurch! Mercymercymercy!!!

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