JAKARTA (UCAN) - Jesuit Cardinal Julius Darmaatmadja of Jakarta has called on parishes throughout the archdiocese to organize public kitchens to feed the needy during the current economic crisis.

"I want parish priests and parochial social sections to collaborate with local communities to open public kitchens to provide meals for the hungry. Cardinal Darmaatmadja told reporters on Jan. 17.

"It should be well organized, because the crisis will perhaps last long," he said, while clarifying that the social program he was calling for was not an exclusive Catholic charitable work.

Instead, it "should be made a joint public movement involving people of all faiths as a common effort to avoid social unrest. I hope this program could be started as soon as possible," the cardinal said.

The main goals he outlined were to register people who badly need help and to ensure that the hungry get a meal every day.

To support the public kitchens, parish priests and community leaders would need to approach well-to-do people for help, he advised.

Cardinal Darmaatmadja noted that the public kitchen program would actualize the joint call by Indonesia's bishops to Catholics nationwide last November to build solidarity with and share the suffering of the poor during the economic crisis and the severe drought that has caused famine in several provinces.

The Jakarta archbishop added that the current economic crisis prompts the whole nation to come together as one.

"Let us forget our respective self-interests or group interests. Now we are faced with a difficult situation that requires us to stand united to overcome the economic crisis," he said.

For now, Cardinal Darmaatmadja urged that special attention be given to people who recently lost jobs due to companies closing and low-income groups who cannot afford to buy food due to the current price hikes.

"Those people badly need immediate help. What we fear the most is mass unemployment, since many companies will go bankrupt in the coming months," he said.

Earlier in the day, in his speech after installing a chaplain for the Jakarta chapter of Perhimpunan Mahasiswa Katolik Republik Indonesia (Catholic union of university students of the Republic of Indonesia), the cardinal asked Catholic student activists to develop their capacity to analyze socio-political issues so that they could understand what society needs most.

"Like the Blessed Mother Mary who went around to see the partygoers during the wedding feast in Cana and told her son Jesus what they needed, you should learn what people badly need now," he exhorted.

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