A cardinal who carries out acts of charity in the name of the pope has restored electricity for 150 families after climbing down a manhole to access a switch in Rome, according to Italian media. 

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski broke a police seal to turn the electricity back on Saturday evening in a Rome building, where 450 people – including some 100 minors – had been living without light or hot water since 6 May. 

It is believed to be as a result of unpaid electricity bills amounting to around €300,000.

“I intervened personally to turn the meter back on. It was a gesture of desperation. There were over 400 people without electricity, families and children,” the head of the Vatican’s alms office told ANSA news agency.

The cardinal ”was fully aware of the possible legal consequences, and acted in the conviction that it was necessary to do it for the good of those families,” sources close to the alms office told AdnKronos news agency.

Pope Francis has transformed the centuries-old job of Vatican Almoner into a hands-on, door-to-door charitable mission.

Krajewski has just returned from the Greek island of Lesbos, where he travelled to deliver financial donations to projects helping refugees, assuring both those living in tent camps and local residents that the pope has not forgotten about them.

© – AFP 2019