Church's health care role is crucial, says head of order aiding sick

Published: 2004-02-03

WAUWATOSA, Wis. (CNS) -- As head of an international religious order that ministers to the sick and elderly, Father Anthony F. Monks understands the important role the church plays in health care. Thanks to Pope John Paul II, he said, the rest of the church has come to understand that role as well. "The church has woken up, after centuries, to the fact that more people pass through a hospital in a week than any Sunday through a church," said Father Monks, superior general of the Order of St. Camillus, also known as the Order of the Servants of the Sick. "Everybody is touched by illness and everybody begins to think of life in a different way as a result of illness," he added. Father Monks was in Wauwatosa in January to seek donations for his order's health care institute in Rome known as the Camillianum, established in 1987 at the request of Pope John Paul. "We are involved today in the Camillianum because of the present Holy Father," he told the Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

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