In Uganda, the medical missionary, Father Ambrosoli, is beatified

Fausta Speranza – Vatican News

Priest and physician Giuseppe Ambrosoli, missionary in Uganda since 1956 for 31 years, is blessed. On the occasion of the celebration of Christ, the beatification ceremony took place in Kalongo, near Gulu, in the land where he died on March 27, 1987, leaving the hospital he wanted as a health and reception center. He was born in Ronago, in the province of Como (Italy), where Cardinal Oscar Cantone will celebrate Thanksgiving Mass in the afternoon.

The Apostolic Nuncio in Uganda, Monsignor Luigi Bianco, celebrated beatification This morning in Kalongo and delivered a sermon in English. The Vatican diplomat highlighted, above all, the value of Father Ambrosoli’s testimony, explaining that the blessed’s choice to embrace the priesthood as a physician prompted him to spend all he had tending to wounds of body and soul. He did it by going to Africa.

The missionary is a bridge between churches and peoples

He said that his response to the missionary call has brought important fruits of rapprochement between peoples. Monsignor Bianco spoke specifically about the role of the bridge between the church that sent him, he said, and the church that welcomed him. A kind of twinning between Ronago in Como Province and Kalongo near Jolo, but also between two cities. Indeed, Monsignor Bianco spoke of an “Italian and Ugandan Mubarak”.

On the occasion of the feast of Christ the King

In an explicit reference to the celebration of Christ the King today, Monsignor Bianco referred to the meaning of the kingship of Christ, who sacrificed his life for love and did not seek power. He repeated that his kingdom differs from his kingdom in the world because God does not have the power to increase his strength and crush others. He does not rule by armies and force. His kingdom is the kingdom of love: when he says “I am king,” Jesus explains that he is “king” the kingdom of those who give their lives for the salvation of others. All this – as Monsignor Bianco said – inspired the choices of Father Giuseppe Ambrosoli, who put his medical knowledge at the disposal of a region particularly poor at the time, without neglecting the care of the person as a whole. He explained that it means that he takes care of the ailments and pains of the body and also the wounds of the soul.