The City Of Miami threatened to shut down and/or prosecute nuns who have been feeding the homeless at a soup kitchen set up by Mother Teresa over 30 years ago. Watch the video above.
A Code Enforcement inspector posted a notice at the Overtown soup kitchen run by Missionaries of Charity that read “a business without all required licenses is illegal under state and city law and is punishable by criminal arrest and/or closing the business,” as first reported by El Nuevo Herald.
“What kind of violation are we doing?” convent superior Lima Marie told El Nuevo Herald. “Taking care of the homeless and feeding them is a violation?”
The City reportedly received complaints from neighbors like the elderly residents at the nearby Claude Pepper apartment building.
“What many people do not understand is that it gets very aggressive, that there are 300 people blocking the sidewalk, and that many residents of Claude Pepper are afraid of the homeless,” City Commissioner Wifredo “Willy” Gort told The Miami Herald.
Tom Equels, the lawyer representing the nuns, told Fox News "the use had been approved in 1982 and [the nuns] had been continuously serving the poorest of the poor in Miami by feeding the homeless and providing shelter in a very very dangerous neighborhood."
"Those proofs combined with the public outcry in Miami resulted in a very swift turnaround for the City of Miami," he continued.
Equels says the City has agreed to withdraw the violation and issue all necessary papers to "allow the Sisters of Charity to go forward with their good work without interruption, without harassment, and without threat of criminal prosecution."
Related
Before You Go
