They renovated churches, tended to lepers, performed manual labor for farmers and artisans, preached, and prayed.

NEWYORKER: Rich Man, Poor Man

Good lepers to invest in today are financial issues, laid waste by rising interest rates.

FORBES: Buy the Lepers

They live as if in another country from the lepers by the railway tracks.

BBC: British aid to India: Helping Bihar's poor

Marianne Cope is hailed for her self-sacrifice in helping a colony of outcast lepers in Molokai, Hawaii.

CNN: Pope names first Native American saint

The Missionaries of Charity runs hostels for lepers, AIDS patients, the crippled and mentally handicapped, unwed mothers, abandoned children, alcoholics, drug abusers.

CNN: PASSAGE

He has in the past accused fellow church leaders of hypocrisy and forgetting that Jesus Christ bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.

NPR: POPE LIVE: Pope Francis, An Argentine, Meets World

Catholics are still buzzing over his speech last year accusing fellow church officials of hypocrisy for forgetting that Jesus Christ bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.

NPR: Argentine Jorge Bergoglio Elected Pope Francis

He met with lepers and extended a kiss to one.

CNN: St. Francis of Assisi: 'A great, great figure in the church'