HOSPITAL BROTHERS OF ST. JOHN OF GOD (FATEBENEFRATELLI). — A religious order founded by s. Giovanni di Dio, who in 1537 established a hospital for the poor in Granada and gathered a number of fellow apostles around him. After the Saint’s death (1550), the Institute increased in numbers and, having founded hospitals in Spain and Italy, was approved as a Congregation by s. Pius V (1571, bull Licet ex debito) under the Rule of s. Augustine, with its own constitutions and permission to have some priest members. In addition to the three common vows, the Fatebenefratelli take a vow of hospitality. In 1586, by Sixtus V (bull Etsi pro debito), the Congregation was elevated to the status of an Order, then reduced again to a simple Congregation by Clement VIII in 1592 (bull Ex omnibus), and once more elevated to an Order by Paul V (1611 and 1617, brief Romanus Pontifex). From 1608 to 1867 the Order was divided into two distinct congregations, Spanish and Italian, each with its own Constitutions and superior generals.
It spread rapidly throughout all the continents: after a century it already numbered 16 religious provinces, 2,595 brothers, and 262 hospitals with 6,893 beds, in which 113,345 patients were treated annually. In Italy there were six provinces and 86 hospitals.
Religious men of outstanding virtue and marked charity, possessing great ability in nursing, medicine, surgery, chemistry, and also missionary work, raised the Order to high prestige, making it highly deserving of gratitude both for caring for the sick in their own hospitals and for the assistance they provided to poor populations in towns and the countryside. During 12 epidemics in Spain, from 1581 to 1832, 200 brothers died as victims of their apostolate. In the navy
OSPEDALIERI DI S. GIOVANNI DI DIO - HOSPITALITY
In the Spanish navy and army, the O. constituted almost a military medical corps, officially appointed as physicians, surgeons, and nurses in the various fortified places. From approximately 1580 to 1779, about 300 brothers took part, as medical personnel, in 33 expeditions to the Americas. In Italy, France, Austria, Germany, and other nations, including those outside Europe, they everywhere devoted themselves to fraternal assistance for soldiers wounded in war and for those infected during epidemics. Through their methods of care they made a substantial contribution to the progress of hospital medicine, especially in the treatment of the mentally ill and of rachitic and scrofulous children.
The French Revolution, the political and military upheavals, the suppressions of the last century in Europe and America, the Spanish Revolution of 1936–39, and the Second World War inflicted many losses of personnel and hospitals on the Order. It soon regained its former vigor, however, began to spread again, founded new hospitals, and gave impetus to new works under the guidance of men hardened in virtue and sacrifice, such as Giovanni di Dio and Magallon in France, Benedetto Menni (v.) in Spain, Portugal, and Mexico, and Giovanni Maria Alfieri, the soul of the restoration of the Order. Likewise, the hostile attitude and legislation toward the Church caused it to lose many houses in Eastern Europe. In 1951 the Order numbered 2,065 professed members, divided into 16 religious provinces and 5 vice-provinces, with 155 houses in Europe, 27 in America, 3 in Africa, 1 in Asia, and 2 in Australia. Recently the Fatebenefratelli have also gone to Japan and Indochina.
Their activity is carried out in hospitals, clinics, psychiatric hospitals, leprosariums, institutions for blind, physically and mentally disabled children, homes for the elderly, institutions for epileptics and for intellectually disabled adults, night shelters for the poor and homeless workers, rehabilitation homes for minors, and homes for orphaned minor workers.