It’s official: the philatelic office of the State of the Vatican City will issue a postage stamp dedicated to the fourth centenary of the death of St. Camillus.

This stamp, of which we have received a final version, will have on it the painting entitled ‘St. Camillus amongst the Plague-stricken’ which is kept in the museum of the Order in Piazza della Maddalena in Rome.

Attributed to the painter, Sebastiano Conca, the painting is set in Rome and portrays St. Camillus while giving food to people with the plague, together with other Camillian religious, with the Coliseum in the background and at the top a group of angels in glory.

With a few brushstrokes the meaning of the famous fourth vow taken by the Camillians, that they should ‘care for the sick, even the plague-stricken, even at the cost of their own lives’,  is condensed.

This postage stamp is added to that already issued on 26 May by the Sovereign Military Hospital Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, and to that to be issued on 14 July by the Italian Postal Service.

This is a further sign of the attention paid by the Church to our ‘Giant of Charity’.

Look here at the press information