User:ReidManiscalco/Monsignor John Patrick Carroll-Abbing

Monsignor John Patrick Carroll-Abbing (August 11, 1912 Dublin, Ireland - July 9, 2001 Rome, Italy)was an Irish priest of the Roman Catholic Church. He is most noted as the founder of Boys' Towns of Italy.

Monsignor John Patrick Carrol-Abbing was born in Dublin in 1912. He went to Rome in 1930 to pursue his ecclesaistical studies and was ordained in 1936. In 1937 he entered into the diplomatic service of Pope Pius XI.

During the war, he acted as a voluntary chaplain of the Knights of Malta military hospital in Rome.

Immediately following the war, Carroll-Abbing began his work with homeless youths. He first opened a refuge for homeless boys in the basement of a bombed-out school, which he called the 'shoeshine hotel', because many of the boys earned their livelihood in that manner. He later went on to open several Boys' Towns across Italy, providing assistance for homeless and troubled youth, as well as opening numerous nurseries. He actively continued to work with needy children until he died at the Boys' Town of Rome in 2001 from stroke-related complications.

His work with children earned Monsignor Carroll-Abbing great recognition, and in 1987 he was the third non-Italian to become an honorary citizen of Rome. The only other two non-Italians to be given this honor were US Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.