A thousand letters from Manila street children ask Pope Francis to visit them

Published September 24, 2014 6:02am

(Updated 7:44 a.m.) A thousand letters from street children, to be delivered by Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, will ask Pope Francis to see them when he visits the Philippines in January.

The Manila Archdiocese said the children wrote the Pope and also took part in a short video by Anak-TnK (Tulay ng Kabataan) to convince him to visit them.

"Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, archbishop of Manila, will hand over around a thousand letters from these children and the video to Pope Francis in Rome in the following days," the CBCP news site said.

It added Pope Francis, before his visit in Manila in January 2015, had appealed to the faithful to be aware of the poorest.

Children of the Foundation ANAK-Tnk have experienced the horrors of the streets including begging, violence, drugs, and prostitution, the Archdiocese noted.

In the video, the children are shown writing to the pope, inviting him to visit them.

"Dear Holy Father, we are waiting for you!" said one of the children.

The Pope's official itinerary will be known in November. He is expected to visit areas affected by recent calamities, including super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan). — Joel Locsin/ELR/KG, GMA News

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