“To you, brothers, the gift and the task of inspiring you with St. Camillus de Lellis.
To look at the reality of suffering,
Of sickness and death through the eyes of Jesus.
You will thus make, of Camillian prophecy, an ‘embodied prophecy’,
That urges one to take on the burdens of others, the sores and anxieties
Of the most vulnerable brothers and sisters.”
Holy Father Francis
Audience to the General Chapter of the Order of the Ministers of the Infirm (Camillians)
May 16, 2022
Dear Confrere,
Peace and joy in the Lord for our life!
We reach out to you with this message in your community, immersed in the everyday life of your Camillian consecration to the service of the sick.
We have just concluded the celebration of the LIX general chapter of the Order where we experienced, in an atmosphere of fraternity and sharing, the joyful sense of belonging to our religious institute, the serious responsibility to take our decisions and the determination to put them into practice, for its growth in fidelity to the charismatic intuition of our founder St. Camillus de Lellis.
What is the Camillian prophecy?
The spirit that pervaded our chapter assembly was well framed by the words of Pope Francis, in May 16, 2022 audience, he granted us: “Animated by the grace proper to a chapter – if lived well in listening to the Spirit, the brothers and history -, you propose to find new ways of evangelization and proximity, in order to realize with dynamic fidelity your charism, which places you at the service of the sick”; “for the church to be a field hospital, it cannot do without your charism.”
We insistently returned to the leading theme of our community discernment, “What is Camillian prophecy today? “. It was a providential opportunity to look at and touch the human reality in which we live daily with the eyes and sensibility of Jesus and with very practical insight of the charism of mercy toward the sick that St. Camillus de Lellis witnessed to us, as the initiator of a new school of charity (cf. Pope Benedict XIV, Bull Misericordiae Studium).
Camillian prophecy is understood as the convinced choice of all Camillians to live in the context of synodality, to discern, indulging the challenge of the spirituality of communion, with a compassionate heart and open mind what God is still signaling about our identity: spirituality, charism and ministry of the fourth vow of service to the sick even at the risk of one’s own life. “We feel the challenge of discovering and transmitting the ‘mystique’ of living together, mingling, meeting each other, taking each other in our arms, supporting each other, participating in this somewhat chaotic tide that can turn into a true experience of fraternity, into a caravan of solidarity, into a holy pilgrimage (…)” (Pope Francis, Evangelii gaudium 87).
A word of thanks and gratitude As we begin our term as the general council of the Order, we would like to express our sincere thanks to our brother capitulants for choosing us to animate the life of the Order during this six-year term (2022-2028). We would also like to thank all the confreres of the Order for their prayers, fraternal support and encouragement shown to us. Your proximity and the intercession of St. Camillus and Mary, Queen of the Ministers of the Sick, will sustain us on our journey!We would like to express our esteem and thanks to the members of the council that preceded us: p. Leocir Pessini – in memoriam! – Fr. Laurent Zoungrana, Br. José Ignacio Santaolalla Sáez, Fr. Aris Miranda and Fr. Felice de Miranda . They dedicated the best of their energies in discerning what was good for our Order, over a span of eight years, punctuated by many challenges and difficulties, but always reviving a sense of hope and trust in the Lord’s providential presence and in the active collaboration of all the confreres! This is an auspicious occasion to show our fraternal appreciation to the provincials and vice provincial superiors who have concluded their service in the three-year period (2017-2020)-transformed into a five-year period (2017-2022) by the storm of the pandemic! We gratefully acknowledge their invaluable efforts particularly for their engaging and determined service to those affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. It was truly a symphonic witness to the Camillian charism of mercy toward suffering humanity; a reflection of the merciful face God, an inspiring icon of the Good Samaritan!Our feelings of appreciation and gratitude to you for the service of authority, guidance, discernment, animation, support, and merciful patience that you have experienced, certainly among lights and shadows, among projected impulses and disappointments in our Consecrated Life, especially as it is lived out in our contemporary times!
The new general council of the Order
For the good governance of the Order and to help Fr. Pedro Celso Tramontin, superior general, in his task, the general consultors will coordinate the following areas of responsibility for the next sixennium (2022-2028):
* Fr. Gianfranco Lunardon, vicar general, will continue to manage the general secretariat of the Order in addition to the General Prosecutor’s Office;
* Fr. Baby Ellickal will be in charge of the secretariat for formation;
* Fr. Medard Aboué will be the secretariat coordinator for the ministry;
* Br. Paul Kaboré will have responsibility for the mission secretariat.
Appointments of provincial superiors, vice provincial, delegates
We thank the confreres – provincial superiors, vice provincial, delegates – who have accepted the commitment to animate and accompany, for the three-year period 2022-2025, the communities in the vast Camillian geography:
- Abathan Fr. Karl – provincial superior of BENIN-TOGO Province
- Ballena Rios Fr. Alex – vice provincial superior of the Vice Province of PERU.
- Cherdchai Fr. Paul – provincial superior of the Province of THAILANDIA
- Foster Fr. Stephen – general delegate for the ANGLO-IRLAND Province
- Gabriel Fr. Jörg – provincial superior of the Province of GERMANY
- Gyorgy Fr. Alfred – general delegate for the AUSTRIACA Province
- Kuliraniyil Fr. J. Bijoy – provincial superior of the Province of INDIA
- Locatelli Fr. Mateus – provincial superior of the Province of BRAZIL
- Marzano Fr. Antonio – provincial superior of the ROMAN Province
- Rigamonti Fr. Giuseppe – provincial superior of the NORTH ITALIAN Province
- Szwajnoch Fr. Mirosław – provincial superior of the Province of POLAND
- Villanueva Fr. Evan Paul – provincial superior of the PHILIPPINE Province
- Yanogo Fr. Pierre – provincial superior of the Province of BURKINA FASO
About the Camillian Province of France; On March 22, 2022, the vicar general, Fr. Laurent Zoungrana, with the consent of the consultors, at the end of an intense journey of confrontation between the Camillians in France and the Camillians in Burkina Faso, canonically suppressed the French province. The religious and houses of the French province are to be considered an integral part of the French delegation of the province of Burkina Faso, governed juridically-and ad experimentum for a three-year period-by the provisions of the French delegation.
For the first time in our history, and as a ‘prophetic’ expression of a renewed ecclesial sensibility, with joy – as provided for in the recent rescriptum ex audientia of the Holy Father Francis about the derogation to can. 588 §2 CIC (18.05.2022) – we introduced at the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the petition in order to obtain the written license to appoint, two of our confreres, religious ‘brothers’, as major superiors:
- Bermejo Br. José Carlos – provincial superior of the Province of SPAIN
- Mangione Br. Carlo – provincial superior of the SICULO-NAPOLITAN Province
To us and to them, we address always the very provocative exhortation that Pope Francis has addressed to superiors on several occasions: “Always know how to exercise authority by accompanying, understanding, helping, loving; embracing everyone and everyone, especially the people who feel lonely, excluded, arid, the existential peripheries of the human heart. Let us keep our gaze turned to the Cross: that is where any authority in the Church is placed, where He who is Lord makes himself a servant to the point of total self-giving” (Pope Francis to participants at the plenary assembly of the International Union of Superiors General – Wednesday, May 8, 2013).
The mission continues
In the perspective of good continuity and innovation in the administration of the goods of the Order, Br. José Ignacio Santaolalla was appointed by the superior general, as the general bursar of the Order.
Aris Miranda and Fr. Felice de Miranda, with a sense of generous willingness, will continue to offer their experience gained in previous years to support the management and development of CADIS‘ emergency and resilience projects and health promotion and protection through the NGO Health & Development.
Bolstered by this stable presence in the Generalate, the new general consultors will reorganize their personal agendas in the coming summer months, linked above all – for some of them – to the laborious handover of their previous responsibilities in their respective provinces.
Presence and availability for every need and eventuality will always be guaranteed, starting with the important appointment of provincial councilors, which will allow the planning and organizational start of the next triennium in various provinces of the Order. Please remember to send the voting ballots for provincial councilors to the general secretary of the Order (‘Maddalena‘ – Rome), by June 15, 2022.
Feast of the Camillian Martyrs of Charity
As we approach May 25, the day that commemorates the birth of St. Camillus and the feast that reminds us of the offering of the lives of our confreres, Martyrs of Charity, let us renew – in imitation of them! – our sincere ideal of remaining on the cross to serve the sick, the fragile and vulnerable, with the offering and investment of our best physical, mental and spiritual resources, as an experience of personal kénōsis, as an opportunity to experience a time of discovery and growth: Let us place everything in the providential hands of God the Father, who transforms our time (χρονος) of life and consecration sometimes charged and distracted, into a perennial καιρός of conversion and salvation, for us and for the confreres, seeking to revitalize the fire of St. Camillus’ charism and Samaritan passion for the needy and sick!
We are confident that this renewed commitment to revitalize our Camillian charism will bear good fruit in vocation animation and promotion, knowing that the most influential vocation motivation is our simple, ordinary and dogged personal and communal witness.
May the Lord continue to inspire and guide all of us to be instruments of God’s mercy, according to the inspiration of our founder, St. Camillus!
God bless us all with the abundance of His Grace!
Fraternally in Christ.
May 25, 2022
Feast of the Camillian Martyrs of Charity
Pedro Celso Tramontin
Superior general
Gianfranco Lunardon – Fr. Medard Aboué – Fr. Baby Ellickal – Br. Paul Kaboré
General consultors
