Fr. Leocir PESSINI, Superior General

On 11-14 September of this year I had the privilege to take part as a listener, and the only Camillian, in the First World Congress of Bioethics organised by the Fatebenefratelli in Spain, in the historic setting of San Lorenzo del Escorial, the famous and imposing monastery founded by King Phillip II as a large pantheon for the kings and queens of Spain.

This event had as its central theme ‘Hospitality, Bioethics and the Person’. I experienced this event as a very beautiful moment to learn about a charism that is very similar to our own, from closer to hand: a charism which makes its presence felt in the world of health and health care. It was a valuable opportunity to encounter and meet many religious and to perceive how a philosophy of life, ethical values, and bioethical approaches can be transmitted and lived inside the apostolic works and the activities of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God.

This congress witnessed the participation of about 500 people of 25 different nationalities: members of this Hospitaller Order (religious brothers, co-workers and students), but also professionals or students interested in the questions and issues of bioethics. This Hospitaller Order has always paid great attention to the contributions of this new discipline, taking advantage of its ideas and creating promising synergies between its contents and the processes that are now underway, with the optimal development of a model of care inside its own health-care institutions. ‘Bioethics’ is a concept/reality in which this Hospitaller Order has always felt very involved: this is the experience that many participants repeated during the different stages of the congress. It was a congress appreciated by everyone: prepared with precision and carried out with style, in the organisation of both the timetable and the subjects, which were addressed with humanity and professionalism.

The objectives of the First World Congress of Bioethics organised by the General Commission for Bioethics of the Fatebenefratelli Order were the following. 1. To sensitise the Order and all its centres of activity to the importance of bioethics in the development of hospitality; 2. to encourage workers in health care and social assistance to acquire a training in the criteria of bioethics and humanisation in order to offer suitable care for sick people and people in need in society; 3. to create a space to share experiences connected with bioethics; and 4. to discover the importance of the science of bioethics for evangelising activity.

In his inaugural paper at the congress, Fr. Jesús Etayo Arrondo, the Superior General of the Order, emphasised that the mission of the Fatebenfratelli is hospitality which, to paraphrase the words of Pope Francis, leads us to heal the frailty of the world, ‘thus, hospitality for our Institute constitutes the principle, the value, the virtue and the ethical point of reference’. In his introductory paper, the coordinator of the congress, Br. José Maria Bermejo, observed that ‘bioethics must be open to the world, to dialogue, to encounter, to freedom and to respect for all men, independently of their language, culture, social condition or creed’. The Archbishop of Madrid, Cardinal Carlos Osoro Sierra, was present for both the inauguration and the conclusion of this symposium.

The presence was noted of some of the most qualified experts in Catholic bioethics and pastoral care in health of Spain and Italy: Francesco Torralba, Silvino Leone, Francesco Javier de la Torre Diaz, Margarita Bofarull Buñuel r.s.c.j., and His Excellency Msgr. José Luis Redrado Marchite. The final paper was the work of His Excellency Msgr. Vicenzo Paglia, the President of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

All of us know that the Camillians and the Fatebenfratelli have a long history of service to humanity and the Church. The two founders, St. Camillus (Bucchianico, 1550-Rome, 1614) and St. John of God (Montemor-o-Novo, 1495–Granada, 1550), were proclaimed by the Church the patron saints of the sick. In our historical epoch, when there is increasing discussion about the need for, and the importance of, cultivating an inter-Congregational approach, it is possible to look to the future of our religious Institutes specifically starting with our charisms, which, indeed, are so similar: many brothers who were present at the congress, above all the oldest ones, observed that at the beginning of the 1980s the Camillians and the Fatebenefratelli organised many conferences together in Rome.

Some general information on the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God can provide us with a clear idea of its presence in the contemporary world. The religious of this Order, including the novices, number 1,085, and they are organised into 23 religious Provinces (926 perpetually professed; 111 temporary professed; 40 novices and 8 oblates). They are present in five continents of the world, in fifty-three nations; they make up 200 communities and carry out their apostolate in 454 apostolic works. 221 of these are canonical works of the Order itself and 223 are of another kind. These works offer care to sick or vulnerable people without any distinctions (the general secretariat of the Order – up-to-date data of 31 December 2016).

The brothers and the co-workers of St. John of God engage in a service based upon hospitality as a central value, through which integral and humanised care is encouraged, guided by its four values: quality, respect, responsibility and spirituality.

This Hospitaller Order is an institution of the Catholic Church of a non-profit-making character and is dedicated to providing social and health-care assistance through various hospitals and health-care and formation centres that work in the following areas: hospital care, social work, mental health, disability and elderly people. This institution is active in contemporary society and promotes innovation, research and the training of new professionals in the social sphere and that of health care.

The General Commission for Bioethics (GCB) of the Order

The Hospitaller Order of St. John of God is especially sensitive to, and involved in, the field of bioethics in order to reflect upon, and address, in a suitable way the ethical challenges that emerge within its apostolic works, both in the field of social and health-care assistance and in that of management and social and biomedical research. For some years in the Order committees of bioethics have been created, some of which can already boast a notable experience. In the year 2000, the Order published a document, a sort of identity card, in which were indicated the fundamental principles and guidelines for action of health-care institutions in the field of bioethics.

During the course of the sixty-sixth General Chapter, which was celebrated in Rome in October 2006, the Hospitaller Order of the Fatebenefratelli believed that it was necessary to continue to encourage, with greater commitment, the paying of attention to bioethics in all of its own works, aware of the importance of, and need to, train religious and their co-workers in this discipline so as to be able to respond in a correct way to the ethical questions that arise and are increasingly numerous and complex.

For this reason, the Order approved the establishment of a General Commission for Bioethics (GCB). The decision of the General Chapter contained the following sentence: ‘To establish, at the level of the general curia, an organ for connection and consultation, or an observatory, in order to think about bioethical questions at the level of the whole of the Order. This body will be able to advise the Provinces and bring together everything that is experienced in the Order at the levels of ethics and/or bioethics, and share information with the greatest possible number of people, in particular with those who cannot rely on this kind of committee and have to address similar problems’.

The last General Chapter of the Order (the sixty-seventh), which was celebrated in Fatima (Portugal) in 2012, amongst the guidelines for action and priorities strengthened this policy by deciding to ‘strengthen the general and Provincial committees for ethics and bioethics so that they can assure suitable formation and decisions in relation to these questions and issues within the whole of the Order’.

The mission of the GCB) is, in fundamental terms, that of advising and offering guidance on questions connected with bioethics; promoting and coordinating bioethics committees; encouraging formation and ethical sensitivity in centres for care, and proposing guidelines for action, above all in situations of greater conflict that could emerge in the Order; encouraging thought about and the study of ethical questions and issues in the field of care, in that of management and in that of research as a development and broadening of the identity card which will serve as orientation and guidance for the whole of the Order; learning about the functioning of the bioethics committees that already exist within the Order, as well as thoughts, protocols and fundamental guidelines for action; providing information and consultation on questions of bioethics to the central government of the Order; creating spaces for relations with foundations, institutes, entities and centres for biomedical research of the Order, especially with its bioethics committees, in order to learn about, coordinate and assess the ethical criteria for action; promoting participation in congresses and meetings on bioethics; and fostering the exchange of information on questions and issues of a bioethical character.

A final thought comes to my mind after this magnificent fraternal experience together with the Fatebenefratelli. It concerns us Camillians and relates to these current ethical and bioethical questions and issues that involve all those who work and are present in the ‘world of life’, and especially in the field of health care. What place do ethical and bioethical values have in our social and health-care institutions? What investments are made to develop courses and ethical and Christian formation for those who work with us in order to transmit our Camillian charism and to evangelise? We have the Camillianum – the International Institute for the Theology of Pastoral Care in Health. After thirty years of existence, it is useful to ask questions about its future: how much space and what priorities are given to the teaching of bioethics? Have we not perhaps lost an opportune moment– καιρός – to be pioneers and prophetic in this area? Lastly, following on from the Fatebenefratelli – would it not also be interesting for us to be able to draw upon a central commission for bioethics in our Order?