The Camillianum, the International Institute of the Theology of Pastoral Care of the Order of the Ministers of the Sick, has reached its twenty-fifth year. To celebrate this event, the academic year of 2013-14 was opened with two days of meetings which formed a part of the celebrations of the fourth centenary of the death of St. Camillus de Lellis, the founder of the Order.

Amongst others, there took part in this Monsignor Rino Fisichella, the President of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation; Monsignor Enrico Dal Covolo, the Rector of the Pontifical Lateran University; and Father Carmine Arice, the Director of the National Office for Pastoral Care in Health of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.

The Camillianum, which since 2012 has been a part of the Faculty of Holy Theology of the Pontifical Lateran University, is a centre of theological and pastoral formation for  people who work in the world of health and health care. It explores various aspects of health-care questions and issues: the Biblical, the theological, the pastoral, the spiritual, the philosophical, the sociological and the historical.
‘Our Institute’, the Vicar General of the Order Father Paolo Guarise said during the first session of the deliberations, ‘arose with special reference to people afflicted by frailty or the victims of illness, committed to the belief that health and salvation are the linchpin of the theology of pastoral care in health, the point of departure for accompanying man on his life itinerary, whatever the surprises (physical and moral suffering) that he may encounter during his journey’.

Fr. Leocir Pessini, M.I., Province of Brazil, on Wedensday November 20th:

It was the Dean of the Camillianum, Massimo Petrini, who presented the statistics of the institution which has diocesans, religious and lay people. Last academic year there were 87 fully enrolled students belonging to 28 religious institutes and from 27 countries. ‘The fact that the student community comes from all over the world’, he emphasised, ‘constitutes an authentic and profound human enrichment’.

Monsignor Rino Fisichella, the President of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation, when introducing his lectio magistralis, expressed ‘great nearness to the Camillians’ and observed that ‘the new evangelisation must be expressed in every setting, including health-care institutions’. ‘For Christians’, he added, ‘there must always be a place for the suffering and the sick. In a world where suffering is no longer accepted because it pushes into crisis the idea of omnipotent man, the first evangelisers are the sick, even before those who take care of them’.

Monsignor Enrico Dal Covolo, the Rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, dwelt upon the role of a university as a ‘place of universal knowledge, inasmuch as philosophically and ideologically founded, which must pursue as its ultimate goal a synthesis of the science of God and the sciences of man’. A university that ‘promotes high quality, and accompanies the members of the academic community towards an integral formation of students and their involvement across the board’.

The inauguration of the academic year of the Camillianum also witnessed the launch of the volume ‘Lineamenti di teologia pastorale della salute’ (‘Lineaments of the Theology of Pastoral Care in Health’), published by Edizioni Camilliane, which brings together the thoughts of the lecturers of the institution over the last twenty-five years.

‘From a reading of this book’, commented Father Carmine Arice, the Director of the National Office for Pastoral Care in Health of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, ‘emerges the contemporary relevance of the message of St. Camillus and his recommendations, amongst which the need for qualified care for suffering people. The whole of the Church community of Italy is in debt to St. Camillus de Lellis and his successors for the witness that they have borne and which is immensely stronger than any shadow’.

During the morning of the first day, after a celebration of the Eucharist presided over by Monsignor Zygmunt Zimowski, the President of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, the deliberations continued with a round table conference on ‘Forms and Models of Pastoral Care in Health’, in which lecturers of the Camillianum and the San Paulo university of Brazil took part.

PHOTO GALLERY

[Press of the activities for the IV Centenary]