29 December 1600: Clement VIII grants to the Order the Bull ‘Superna dispositione’

IMG_1724The Bull ‘Superna dispositione’ of Clement VIII was called the Magna Carta of the Order. This is not the place to explain why St. Camillus brought it about. I will say only that this Bull soothed his worries, gave peace to his spirit, and calmed the storms that had been raised within the Order. In this Bull we read that the purpose of the institute was: ‘non solum in aegrotis Hospitalium in necessitatibus spiritualibus et corporalibus curandis, sed etiam in iis invisendis qui sparsim in civium privatorum domibus et carceribus aegrotant et in agonizantium animis Deo rite commendandis. These phrases of the Bull are very clear. When speaking about what the members of our Order must do in hospitals, they openly say that they should attend ‘aegrotis curandis in necessitatibus spiritualibus et corporalibus’. When they want to specify what they have to do in private homes, they say that it is of the same character as what has to be done in prisons: ‘in iis invisendis et in agonizantium animis Deo rite commendandis’.

 

IMG_1729From Fr. Giovanni Sandigliano in ‘Domesticum’, 1926, p. 50.

Download here the Bull ‘Superna dispositione’ in PDF. Italian/Latin

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