CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- After the City of Miami issued a violation to the Missionaries of Charity for \u201coperating a business without a license,\u201d a lawyer providing legal support said he is confident the city will withdraw the notice.<\/p>\n\t\u201cThe city has full knowledge\u201d of the sisters' work and has given them \u201cnumerous approvals over the years,\u201d attorney Tom Equels told CNA April 4. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\u201cSometimes they forget so I\u2019m going to do my best to remind them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tOn March 20, inspector Cornellius Pierre of the City of Miami issued a notice of violation to the \u201cMissionaries of Charity, Inc.\u201d for \u201cfailure to obtain a valid certificate of use for the type of business being conducted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe notice stated that if the \u201cviolation\u201d was not corrected by April 1, the sisters would face fines of up to $100 a day for each day the \u201cviolation\u201d went uncorrected.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say what the equivalent is, but picking on these humble nuns is a mistake,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tThe Missionaries of Charity have been ministering to the area\u2019s poorest of the poor since 1980 when Mother Teresa established a branch of her community in Miami, Fla.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cAt the time,\u201d Equels, who had just graduated from law school and began serving as president of the Catholic lawyers\u2019 guild for the Archdiocese of Miami, said, \u201cit was an urban wasteland.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe only buildings of \u201csubstance\u201d in the area were the public hospital, Jackson Memorial, and the county jail.<\/p>\n
\tSince then, the University of Miami Medical Center and Jackson Memorial Hospital have expanded operations and acquired more properties in the area.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cNow the fact that the property has, over these 30 years, become quite valuable doesn\u2019t change the fact that there\u2019s still a substantial homeless population in that area,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tThree times a morning the sisters open their kitchen for those who need food to \u201ccome eat without restriction.\u201d In the evening, the sisters operate a shelter for mothers and their children.<\/p>\n
\tWhen Equels investigated the situation, he found that similar threats were made to the sisters in the past, but that they were all dismissed when the city verified that the shelter was indeed operating as a charitable, non-profit organization dedicated to serving the poor.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cMiami is a very Catholic city where people of all faiths and denominations have the greatest respect for the Sisters of Charity,\u201d he explained, \u201cand at the end of the day the people will not tolerate what is being done here to these holy nuns.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tEquels has supplied the documents verifying that the Missionaries of Charity have the right to use their building to serve food to the poor to the City and is confident the violation notice will be withdrawn.<\/p>\n
\tThe attorney sees his role in this situation as one of his duties \u201cto defend convents\u201d because he was named a Papal Knight of St. Gregory by Pope Benedict XVI.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThis probably falls under one of those ancient obligations of a Papal Knight that don\u2019t get called upon anymore,\u201d he said, \u201cI personally am very honored to be able to help them because they give so much and do so much for this community for nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhen you see what they do and how they live you understand that there is a way for us to walk the path that Jesus set up for us at the very beginning,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\tUpdated April 5, 2013, 02:01 MST: The City of Miami has withdrawn the notice of violation against the Missionaries of Charity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
![](\"https:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/catholicnewsagency\/dailynews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\")
<\/a>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/catholicnewsagency\/dailynews\/~4\/dio5yIZjE-g\")
<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Miami, Fla., Apr 5, 2013 \/ 04:04 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- After the City of Miami issued a violation to the Missionaries of Charity for “operating a business without a license,” a lawyer providing legal support said he is confident the city wil…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\n
Despite threat, lawyer thinks Miami nuns can continue outreach<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Miami, Fla., Apr 5, 2013 \/ 04:04 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- After the City of Miami issued a violation to the Missionaries of Charity for “operating a business without a license,” a lawyer providing legal support said he is confident the city wil...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Despite threat, lawyer thinks Miami nuns can continue outreach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Miami, Fla., Apr 5, 2013 \/ 04:04 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- After the City of Miami issued a violation to the Missionaries of Charity for “operating a business without a license,” a lawyer providing legal support said he is confident the city wil...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-04-05T10:04:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/catholicnewsagency\/dailynews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"CNA Daily News\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"CNA Daily News\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/\",\"name\":\"Despite threat, lawyer thinks Miami nuns can continue outreach\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-04-05T10:04:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-04-05T10:04:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1\"},\"description\":\"Miami, Fla., Apr 5, 2013 \/ 04:04 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- After the City of Miami issued a violation to the Missionaries of Charity for “operating a business without a license,” a lawyer providing legal support said he is confident the city wil...\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Despite threat, lawyer thinks Miami nuns can continue outreach\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/\",\"name\":\"Catholic News\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1\",\"name\":\"CNA Daily News\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"CNA Daily News\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/author\/cna-daily-news\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Despite threat, lawyer thinks Miami nuns can continue outreach","description":"Miami, Fla., Apr 5, 2013 \/ 04:04 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- After the City of Miami issued a violation to the Missionaries of Charity for “operating a business without a license,” a lawyer providing legal support said he is confident the city wil...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Despite threat, lawyer thinks Miami nuns can continue outreach","og_description":"Miami, Fla., Apr 5, 2013 \/ 04:04 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- After the City of Miami issued a violation to the Missionaries of Charity for “operating a business without a license,” a lawyer providing legal support said he is confident the city wil...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/","og_site_name":"Catholic News","article_published_time":"2013-04-05T10:04:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/catholicnewsagency\/dailynews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA"}],"author":"CNA Daily News","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"CNA Daily News","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/","name":"Despite threat, lawyer thinks Miami nuns can continue outreach","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-04-05T10:04:00+00:00","dateModified":"2013-04-05T10:04:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1"},"description":"Miami, Fla., Apr 5, 2013 \/ 04:04 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- After the City of Miami issued a violation to the Missionaries of Charity for “operating a business without a license,” a lawyer providing legal support said he is confident the city wil...","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/despite-threat-lawyer-thinks-miami-nuns-can-continue-outreach\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Despite threat, lawyer thinks Miami nuns can continue outreach"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/","name":"Catholic News","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1","name":"CNA Daily News","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"CNA Daily News"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/author\/cna-daily-news\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1031"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}