Fr. Dr. Giuseppe Ambrosoli was beatified at Christ the King Parish in Kalongo, Agago district on Sunday.
In the Catholic Church, beatification is the act of determining and proclaiming that a deceased person is one of ‘’the blessed,’’ or has gained the second degree of holiness.
President Yoweri Museveni attended the ceremony and thanked Pope Francis for recognising Fr. Ambrosoli.
“Fr Ambrosoli, a priest and medical doctor came to Uganda as a Comboni Missionary, he not only healed the people but also preached to them the word of God. I want to thank the Pope through the Apostolic Nuncio to Uganda, Archbishop Luigi Bianco and the Church for recognising the good work of Fr. Ambrosoli, his beatification is the most important step,” Museveni said.
Fr. Ambrosoli becomes the third blessed person in the Acholi Sub Region after Daudi Okello and Jildo Irwa whose shrines are located in Wipolo, Agago district. The two were sanctified in 2002.
The Beatification had been scheduled for November 22, 2020, but was halted because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Who Was Fr. Giuseppe Ambrosoli?
He was a Roman Catholic Priest and Medical doctor, who was declared member of the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, born in 1923 in Ronago a small town in the Province of Como, Italy.
He is best known as a doctor, surgeon, philanthropist, and educator in the missions in Uganda. He was famed as the “saint doctor” or “great doctor” for being compassionate and loving care for the sick.
On December 17, 2015 Pope Francis recognized the heroic virtues of Fr. Giuseppe Ambrosoli, an Italian surgeon, priest and missionary. This is the first of several steps on the road to being named a saint.
In May 2019, the cause for Servant of God Giuseppe Ambrosoli was furthered when the medical commission instituted by the Congregation for the Cause of Saints recognized as “extraordinary and unexplainable” from the clinical and scientific point of view the cure of a young Ugandan woman, as published in the digital newspaper, La Provincia.
It is now up to the Theological Commission of the same Congregation, made up of cardinals, bishops and theologians, to look for proof confirming the intercession of Fr. Giuseppe Ambrosoli, before declaring the miracle which is decisive for the beatification of the Comboni doctor.
It is believed that Dr. Ambrosoli extraordinarily and unexplainably cured a Kalongo woman in 2008, eighteen years after his death in 1987.
Dr. Ambrosoli’s ability to heal Lomoki of blood poisoning was confirmed as a miracle by Pope Francis on November 29th, 2019, a step that has since led to his beatification earning him the title ‘blessed’.
Fr. Ambrosoli was assigned to Kalongo, Uganda in 1956 where he served as a Parish Priest and took charge of running the local dispensary.
The dispensary was started in a grass hut by Comboni Missionary Sister Eletta Mantiero in 1934. Soon after, she started delivering babies and attending to medical and pediatric patients.
In 1957 Fr. Giuseppe began transforming the dispensary into a fully-fledged hospital. At that time the dispensary was treating many leprosy patients.
Fr. Giuseppe revolutionized the care for leprosy patients by admitting them to the same hospital as other patients instead of confining them to the often neglected and poorly managed leprosarium.
Today the Kalongo Hospital, recently renamed the Dr. Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital, is a 350-bed facility that treats nearly 60,000 patients every year.
Another of Fr. Giuseppe’s achievements was establishing the St. Mary’s School of Midwifery in 1959.
Additional Reporting by URN
