Reporter Seth Mydans showcased Fr. Joe Maier and his 50 years of ministry in Thailand in a front page article in the New York Times published on October 14.

Shunned by Church officials because of his “boorish behavior,” Fr. Joe initially came to Klong Toey, one of Bangkok’s poorest neighborhoods, as a sort of exile. “Nobody wanted me around,” he said. “I was drunk; I was always angry about something, an angry young man. I didn’t fit in.” But in Klong Toey, Fr. Joe, now 82, found his place in the world, an outcast among outcasts.

A tiny, threadbare preschool in a pigsty was only the beginning of Fr. Joe’s life’s work as a socially engaged priest, as interested in people’s material well-being as in their spiritual growth. In the years that followed, he started the Human Development Foundation and its related Mercy Center.

The foundation has grown to include a network of more than 30 schools that have taught more than 30,000 children; a home for abandoned mothers and children; and an AIDS hospice that evolved into a home care system.

Read the entire article free at: https://www.nytimes.com/.../bangkok-priest-father-joe.html?
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