Countless lives have been ruined by addiction in Brazil. It often falls to the Church in Brazil to help care for and improve the lives of young addicts. One of the priests deeply involved in this ministry, Fr. Renato Chiera, explains the importance of his work and the support Aid to the Church in Need provides to his ministry.

By ACN Staff

Brazil is a beautiful country. Unfortunately, like many parts of the world, there is a lot of poverty and crime in the South American country. Much of the crime and the resulting tragic loss of human life is related to drugs. The Church is at the forefront in helping young people rid themselves from the grip of addiction. One of the priests at the forefront of these efforts in Brazil is Fr. Renato Chiera. The Italian priest has spent 42 years in Río de Janeiro and has spent a large portion of this time working with young people suffering from addictions. It became very obvious to him that this is a major issue in Brazil. Scores of young people in his parish were murdered over drugs during his first month in Brazil.

While speaking to Aid to the Church in Need, Fr. Chiera detailed the dramatic events that convinced him that he had to help the young people in his parish suffering from addiction. A young orphan boy called Pirata came to Fr. Chiera. Pirata had be shot in the neck. He said to Fr. Chiera:

“Father, I don’t want to die. They’ve shot me; they’re going to kill me.”

Fr. Chiera details what happened next:

“I took him in, and as soon as he began to feel loved, he no longer wanted to take drugs or rob people. He started to learn about the faith and began to work.”

Tragically Pirata was murdered by drug gang shortly after turning his life around.

Fr. Chiera became determined to minister to addicts after this experience. He quickly realised that it was often not physical poverty that drove many young people to drugs but rather poverty of spirit. Fr. Chiera detailed how his work began and further developed:

“I began to take in these boys, first of all in my own presbytery, then on the verandah and then in the garage. It was okay for my little car to spend the night on the road and “sleep” outside, but not for Jesus, who was living in those boys. So that’s how my story began…We are not simply a refuge, we are a home, a family! Today these youngsters have ‘fathers’ and ‘mothers’, thanks to whom they can live the experience of being beloved sons and daughters.”

He eventually set up Saint Michael the Archangel’s Children’s Home for these young addicts and other disadvantage young people and children.

Saint Michael the Archangel’s Children’s Home received support from ACN. Over 100,000 young people and children have passed through the home’s doors. Fr. Chiera wanted to share his thanks to ACN’s benefactors:

“We thank ACN for the important help they’ve given us, both for the infrastructure and for their spiritual formation and growth. I would like the benefactors to be able to rejoice with us at the miracles of transformation and the rescuing of these lives, which were once under a death sentence. Dear benefactors, your donations are saving the lives of babies, children, adolescents and now also young people and adults, who were living in a state of abandonment, without hope and without the basic means of living. The thousands of children and young people whom we have rescued in the course of 34 years are the fruit of the little and large gestures of love by unknown and generous individuals such as yourselves. Without you we could do nothing. You are the arms of God’s providence, who loves them through us. You make a material donation, and God gives you the joy of knowing that you are useful, today and in the future. And He will grant you Paradise.”