Caritas celebrates 60 years in vintage style

“Why a train?”. That really was the question. As soon as the tall Central American Cardinal appeared in our carriage - to the bewilderment of the journalists leaning out of vintage train windows like school children, or wiping soot from camera lenses – that was the question we all really wanted to ask. But Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga got there before us.

Sitting on a wooden seat in carriage number 7, the penultimate on the Caritas Express expect for the 1930’s postal car - complete with hessian sacks – the President of Caritas Internationalis was far from the plush velvet of the parlour carriage , the same one used by past Popes, most famously Pope John XXIII on his historic 1962 trip to Assisi. But he seemed rather comfortable, chatting in various languages as the 1915 steam engine puffed its way through the rolling Italian countryside.

Between one tunnel and the next – and despite the constant fog of coal smoke that invaded the train - he explained why Caritas had decided on an train journey to mark its 60^th anniversary and lead into its 19^th General Assembly: “because the train is the union of many efforts, not only the rails but the wagons one after another, it’s a symbol of how love of God can become love of neighbour, and now our train in Caritas has 165 wagons, it means 165 nations that are united in forming the big Caritas Confederation”.

Or , in reality, of a steam locomotive and seven carriages all carefully and lovingly preserved by the Ferrovie dello Stato – the Italian State Railway System. even down to the washroom fixtures. One chief steam engine driver and two engine stokers in period uniforms complete with caps and neck scarves, were already feeding its huge furnace with coal Saturday morning at 8am when passengers began lining the Papal platform of the Vatican Railway Station.

The station itself is situated beneath the giant red brick and granite walls that delineate the border between Vatican City State and Italy. Opened in 1934 by Paul VI, it is a masterpiece of pre-war architecture, complete with fountains, mosaics and an impressive chandelier. But the relationship between the Popes and the railway, stretches further back to before the Lateran Treaty of 1929, when Rome was part of the Papal States and the Popes were at the forefront in the construction of railway lines, connecting towns and cities from Italy’s West to Italy’s East, like Frascati, Civitavecchia, Velletri, Ancona and Bologna.

Today the Vatican still uses its tiny 300 metres of train track for rolling stock trains – carrying goods into the small city state. The Caritas initiative however, marked the first time passengers have replaced freight since Benedict XVI was elected Pope and the excitement was palpable. Vatican police struggled to keep children, their parents, ambassadors, bishops and priests back from the tracks as the train drivers pulled pistons and heaved coal. As the allotted hour grew closer – 10 am – the giant iron doors groaned open across the frontier tunnel and the engine driver and stokers descended from the train dropping to one knee as they and the train were blessed. Then all clambered on board and to the hissing of steam and tooting of whistle, the Caritas Express was off, exploding through the walls of Vatican City State.

“People think of Caritas primarily in terms of emergency intervention”, Cardinal Maradiaga reflected as the train puffed toward its final destination, “but we are so much more, our mandate goes far beyond immediate help in disaster situations, we are there for the long term and this means a fundamental commitment to the Church’s social teaching which is, perhaps, the best kept secret!”

At 12.13 pm on a sunny May Saturday afternoon, a train with a load drawn from all four corners of the Church and of the world drew into Orvieto a medieval hill top town in Umbria where, to the delight of the locals and a proud and coal covered engine driver, the whistle announced that the Caritas Express had arrived -- ahead of time -- and full of expectation.

The Caritas Internationalis General Assembly runs from 22 to 27 May in Rome. Listen: