Retired Vatican envoy from tiny San Marino helped heal world

Published: 2008-04-18

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Little did this pre-eminent surgeon from the tiny Republic of San Marino know that becoming an ambassador to the even smaller Vatican City State would give him a new platform from which to heal the world. Giovanni Galassi, the recently retired dean of the diplomatic corps and San Marino's former ambassador to the Holy See, said, "All my life I've been operating on sick people, and it's always been a one-on-one relationship; me over here and the patient over there." The cancer and transplant specialist told Catholic News Service April 16 that becoming a diplomat made him realize "one person can also help 100, 1,000, even 10,000 people" by speaking out against and trying to rectify the poverty, hunger and other injustices facing the multitudes. The world of diplomacy allowed him "to multiply that sense of hope I felt inside me to help others" and expand his ministry of curing people to promoting a social and spiritual healing of society, he said. Galassi met with Pope Benedict XVI April 7 to say farewell after serving the Vatican for three decades.

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