Saint Camillus of Lellis

Saint Camillus of Lellis (born May 25, 1550, Bucchianico, Kingdom of Naples [now in Italy]—died July 14, 1614, Rome; canonized 1746; feast day July 14) was the founder of the Ministers of the Sick. Along with St. John of God, Camillus became patron of the sick.

The son of an impoverished nobleman, Camillo became a soldier of fortune and an inveterate gambler. In 1575 he was converted and became a servant and later an assistant at St. James’s Hospital for incurables in Rome, where he had been a patient with an ulcerated leg and rupture that impeded him his whole life. Camillo was ordained in 1584, and in 1586 he obtained approval for the congregation of priests he had founded, devoted to hospital service. There originally were 12 members, without vows, working in the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Naples, but in 1591 Pope Gregory XIV approved their becoming a religious order called Ministers of the Sick, wearing a red cross on the cassock. By the time of Camillo’s death there were nearly 300 members. Camillo was general of the order until 1607. He insisted on the utmost care for both the soul and the body of his patients. Though his own health worsened, he exhausted himself for charity.