The Papal Household Prefecture announced that at 10:30 am on Friday, November 5, Pope Francis will celebrate Holy Mass in the Roman headquarters of the University of the Sacred Heart, on the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the opening of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery.
Pope Francis sent a letter to the Rector of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart last July. In it, he renewed his gratitude for the care received. “Care is an expression of the heart. The Catholic University of the Sacred Heart carries in its name the vocation to take care of the human person,” wrote the Holy Father after his hospitalization in the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic on July 4, for a colon operation.
The Pontiff encouraged the educational center to continue the “cultural and integral promotion of the human person, which opens the door to the future. He also expressed his gratitude and affection “for the closeness he felt, for the genuine and solidary cordiality that he saw on every face, for the professionalism of all those that cared for him.”
The Bishop of Rome highlighted the fact that his hospitalization in the Gemelli Polyclinic “took place, in fact, in the year in which the Catholic University has completed a century of life, celebrating the Anniversary with a phrase that has made an impact on me: A century of future.”
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
As pointed out on its Webpage, the Rome campus of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, located on Largo Francesco Vito 1, was created with the establishment of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and the adjacent A. Gemelli University Hospital.
Father Agostino Gemelli, Founder of the Catholic University, wished to create a Faculty of Medicine and Surgery no sooner he created the University. He explained the basic lines in an article of great resonance entitled “Why Italian Catholics Want to Have a Faculty of Medicine” (Vita e Pensiero, 1958), where he specified: “We, Catholics, are ever more conscious of doctors’ need to live their Christian inspiration in the exercise of their art. In other words, we need doctors whose souls are educated in the observance of the rules dictated by Catholicism, and who see in the patient a brother they must help.”
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
