- After struggling to make money during coronavirus lockdown, a group of transsexual street prostitutes contacted their local priest in a town near Rome for help with finding money buying food, Reuters reported.
- When the priest realized the parish's resources were already overwhelmed by helping those affected by coronavirus, he contacted the head of
Vatican charities , who wired the money. - Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the distributor of alms who is known as "the Pope's Robin Hood," told Reuters that though the distribution made headlines, it is "ordinary work for the Church, it's normal."
- Krajewski earned his "Robin Hood" nickname from previous deeds in his charitable role like restoring electricity for hundreds of homeless people against officials' demands.
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Lockdown policies aimed at stopping novel coronavirus outbreaks in cities and countries across the world have left many without work and reliant on donations and aid programs.
Among those struggling to keep up with costs during the pandemic was a group of transsexual street prostitutes who contacted a local priest in a beach town near Rome for help with finding money to buy food, Reuters reported.
When the priest realized the parish's resources had already been overwhelmed as the virus ravaged the country, Reuters reported that he contacted the head of Vatican charities, who wired the money.
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the distributor of alms who is known as "the Pope's Robin Hood," told the outlet that despite the attention his helping the group of prostitutes sparked, it was just another day in the Church trying to help those affected in the health crisis.
"I don't understand why this is getting so much attention," Krajewski told Reuters by phone. "This is ordinary work for the Church, it's normal. This is how the Church is a field hospital."
The cardinal told the outlet that the transsexuals most likely were undocumented and unable to collect aid from Italian state welfare.
"They are really in difficulty because sometimes their passports were taken away by the mafia pimps who control them," he said. "We follow the gospel."
This isn't the first time Krajewski has sparked attention with an act of goodwill that earned him the "Robin Hood" moniker since Pope Francis named him to head Vatican charity in 2013.
Last year, the cardinal went underground via manhole to restore electricity for at least 400 homeless people who were living in an unused state-owned building.
He was responding to Sister Adriana Domenici's request for help, she told Italian broadcaster RaiNews24, and left a note so when utility workers returned to disconnect power again, they left it running.
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