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Ladies and gentlemen


Dear Brothers of the Hospitalier Order of S. João de Deus:

I am happy to share with you this very special moment when we place another marker in the history of your Order and at the same time celebrate four centuries of your presence in Portugal.
I am honoured by your invitation.

The Hospitalier Order of S. João de Deus has significant achievements in Portugal, which unfortunately did not always merit the attention or the recognition of the Portuguese.

The reason is understandable. When choosing to work with the more excluded amongst our people, mainly with the mentally handicapped, the brothers of the Order condemn themselves to certain oblivion.

The Portuguese, and in this we are not alone, deal badly with this problem. The stigma which is associated with it is so powerful that even their families try “to ignore” or “to forget” their close relatives. And this is only because they do not know how to deal with their strangeness.

This is why I greatly admire your work, your persistence, the total commitment that fulfils your lives. It is a glorious way to live the love for your neighbour, but so difficult that only a few can reach it.

To live with prolonged human suffering, whatever its type, demands not just therapy but, as S. João de Deus reminded us, “inherent human warmth”.

This “human warmth” is probably becoming rarer, which makes it more and more necessary.

We face, in one instance, a growth of certain materialism in our day-to-day lives but, in another, and I speak from experience, there are more and more willing people feeling fulfilled when voluntarily helping others.

I know the Hospitalier Order of S. João de Deus has been broadening its activities. There are ever more children, aged people and dependants that benefit from the support of the various welfare centres in Portugal, Mozambique, Brazil and East Timor.

Thank you for your work and for your love and dedication to the cause of the poor among the poorest.

The S. João de Deus Foundation, officially incorporated today in this ceremony, faces great challenges. I hope this is the remedial institutional solution required for the purpose.

Today’s society does not commiserate with traditional voluntary work.

A greater and better organization of the welfare institutions is required to render better services and to provide more well being and dignity to those who, touched by sickness and exhaustion, have the right to be treated as human beings, as persons and as neighbours.

Your neighbour is the person next to you and that needs you – a golden rule that the brothers have exemplarily fulfilled for many centuries and continue yet further, trying to help even those who do not have the strength or discernment to come hither.

With the lack of means and facing increasing problems, it is also necessary that these institutions join forces, share the available resources and coordinate their actions in order to provide greater sustainability for their welfare work.

I am thus very pleased to witness the incorporation of the Foundation into the Ismaili Centre, associated to the Aga Khan network. I hope the cooperation between these two institutions may go even further – I am thinking of Mozambique, where they are present through deserving works and projects and this, as everyone already knows, is a country which will always be linked to my heart – and may become an example as to how cooperation among institutions is the path to be followed.

We all have, in the end, the same objective: to fight against poverty and social exclusion, to defend as fully as possible the cause of bringing happiness to thousands upon thousands of human beings who suffer the horrors of war, of sickness, of poverty, without being able to share with us the benefits of progress and well being.

At this moment when the official incorporation of the S. João de Deus Foundation is taking place, and concerning the evils of war, I particularly wish to call your attention to its first equitableness campaign: Innocents of War

The S. João de Deus Hospital in Montemor-o-Novo, birth place of S. João de Deus, has been for more than half a century providing assistance in the area of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation and, because of this, is especially dedicated, with our help, to lead this task to a good haven. With the Foundation we will all help the children who were victims of mine blasts in Angola, a problem to which Princess Diana, who died 10 years ago, called the world’s attention.

The project is ambitious because, apart from the rehabilitation of the young “innocents of war”, it includes their schooling and training in specific areas of rehabilitation, allowing them to return home with the possibility, in their turn, to help others.

This opportunity to establish another link with Angola cannot be allowed to fall. Angola is a country with which we are united by history, good and bad, and by affection, all of this only good. .

I leave my best wishes for the attainment of your objectives, and my gratitude for the work you have been building up in Portugal and a bit all over the world, for the benefit of the more disfavoured.

My sincere wish is that this new step has all the success that you intend for it.

That people come to know more, about what you have been working on for the last 4 centuries amongst us, because this will give them a greater wish to help.
Out of sight, out of mind – is the popular saying. Do not leave our sight so that our mind may be with you.

When I visited the Hospice of S. José in Vilar de Frades, I had the opportunity to see with my eyes and my heart, to share with unforgettable moments, and to understand the difficulties you encounter in the areas where you exercise your sharing of love.

Many thanks for the very much you have already done!
Many thanks for the very much you will be doing!