Monsignor John Patrick Carroll-Abbing, who founded Boys' Towns of Italy, has died aged 88.
Carroll-Abbing was a British-born Irish citizen who had lived in Italy since 1930, when he went to Rome to study for the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Ordained when he was 23, he entered the Vatican diplomatic service in 1937. When the Second World War ended, he got permission from Pope Pius XII to leave and work with refugees.
Carroll-Abbing began by setting up shelters - he called them ''shoestring hotels'' - for Roman street children. On the day the city was liberated by the Allies, he was honoured with a silver medal for valour on the field of battle for his work, even though he was a non-combatant.
The citation commended him for ''rising up with the fervour
of an apostle in defence of humanity tortured and crushed by an oppressor''. The king bestowed several awards on him as well, and honours accumulated throughout his life.
After the war, Carroll-Abbing headed Italy's national medical relief agency, which helped refugees and managed relief projects for malaria victims
in the Cassino and Anzio
battle zones.
At the same time, he founded in 1945 the first of what eventually became nine Boys' Towns in Italy, along with 40 temporary shelters for street children.
Carroll-Abbing also found time to write several books, including A Chance to Live, about children of the war and the founding of Boys' Towns
in Italy, and a novel, Journey
to Somewhere.
Boys' Town is an American charity organisation.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article