THE ASSOCIATION OF ITALIAN CATHOLIC DOCTORS

The AMCI was founded in Rome on 15 July 1944. During the German occupation of after the events of 8 September 1943, an intense work of reconstruction of the Professional Unions that had previously been dissolved by the Fascist regime was begun at the Catholic Institute of Social Activities (ICAS). Some colleagues had worked on the drawing up of the statutes of the Italian Catholic Medical Union, a name that was soon changed to the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors (AMCI). Hardly a month had passed after the liberation of Rome, which had been abandoned by the Germans on the night of 3-4 June.
The inauguration took place with a Holy Mass celebrated on the morning of 5 July in the Church of S. Carlo ai Catinari. This was the feast of S. Antonio M. Zaccaria, a medical doctor and the founder in 1528 of a religious order, the 'Chierici Regolari di S. Paolo', also known as the 'Barnabiti', whose members were responsible for the running of the church. It was in front of the altar of this church that those colleagues, whose were in their thirties and forties (members of hospitals, administrators in public health, and university people) undertook to create a national association of doctors in order to: develop their religious and cultural training and to provide them with fraternal assistance; to spread amongst their colleagues the spirit of their vocation, thereby drawing them near to Christian conduct and culture; and work through professional bodies in order to achieve a correct exercise of the art of medicine and the establishment of legislation that conformed to the Christian tradition of the nation.
The first branch of the Association to be established was that of Rome, which was born in September 1944. This was soon followed by others in Southern Italy, and after the end of the war, in Northern Italy. In January 1946 the National Congress of Catholic Graduates was held in Rome and this was attended by the leaders and representatives of the more than twenty branches which had been established between the end of 1944 and the early months of 1945. They gave rise to the first congress of the Association, which approved the provisional executive committee created by the founders. The first issue of a bulletin which provided an account of the activities of the central committee and the local branches was presented at the congress. The first edition of a journal dedicated to recent developments in the field of medicine, which had just come out under the title 'what has medicine produced during the war', was also presented.

In 1947 this periodical publication acquired the name Orizzonte Medico - it was issued monthly and had a larger number of pages. The articles in this journal were the social subjects and issues of medicine, the principles that had to be respected in the implementation of health care reform, the creation of a Ministry of Health, social security, as well, obviously enough, as the spiritual and ethical training of medical doctors. From its first issue, the untiring 'editors' of the journal were the late lamented G. Villani and Agostino Malterello, who with great dedication then became the real and sole director.
In April 1947 the second national congress of the Association took place. The assembly approved the statutes and duly elected the central Executive Council. Msgr. Pelloux, a Genoese priest who had graduated in medicine and philosophy, was appointed the Association's national ecclesiastical consultant. The second issue of the journal, which ran to ninety-six pages in large format, was also presented at this congress.
The third national congress, held on the subject 'the human person from the point of view of medical science', took place in October 1947 in Padua. Because of the number of the participants, the authoritativeness of the speakers, its perfect organisation, and its vast resonance within public opinion, the congress amounted to a test for the AMCI, which from that moment on was able to engage in its activity with greater stability and effectiveness.
In the same year the third international congress on the subject 'individual medicine and collective medicine' was held in Lisbon on 17-23 June. It was organised with great care by the Association's Portuguese colleagues and two hundred and fifty medical doctors from twenty nations took part. The AMCI was represented by a delegation led by President Gedda, to whom was entrusted a paper on the subject 'the position of the Catholic doctor faced with the issue of the socialisation of medicine'. At the end of the proceedings of the congress, it was decided to hold the next congress in Rome in 1949. This took place in September of that year and seven hundred medical doctors from thirty countries participated. The proceedings culminated in an audience granted by Pope Pius XII.
After expressing his happiness at the fact that doctors from thirty nations had gathered together as brothers in the name of Christ, the Pope - with that very deep knowledge of medical questions and issues by which he was known - outlined during his address the general features of the Catholic Magisterium on artificial fertilisation.
Subsequently, the activity of the ACMI continued to expand with the creation of new branches and the holding of the national congresses in Rome (1950), Bologna (1952), Rome once again in 1954, and Bari (1957). This last congress was concluded at the magnificent hospital built by Padre Pio in S. Giovanni Rotondo. Followed in devoted fashion by everyone present, Padre Pio read for the first time the doctor's prayer which had been written by Pope Pius XII and then sent to the congress by Msgr. Angelini.
In April 1959 Msgr. Pelloux died in Genoa. During his illness his place had been taken by Msgr. Sabattani, the consultant to the Roman branch of the Association.
After his appointment as the delegate of the Cardinal Vicar for religious assistance in the hospitals and clinics of Rome, an office that bestowed the dignity of a bishop, Msgr. Angelini was appointed ecclesiastical assistant to the Association after being ordained a bishop in 1956. With the appointment of H.E. Msgr. F. Angelini as the Association's national assistant an especially active period began for the AMCI. Side by side with the traditional initiatives, there arose others that were completely new, such as a symposium on auxology, a refresher course for religious professional nurses, at which over six hundred sisters were present together with distinguished lecturers - for the most part members of the AMCI, and a symposium on 'the hospital question'. The national congresses continued to be held every three years: in Catania (1959), Genoa (1961), Florence (1964), Castellammare di Stabia (1967), Padua (1970), and on the motorship 'Cristoforo Colombo' which left from Naples and docked at Trieste (1973).
The National Council, after considering the bill presented in the Italian Senate and the Chamber of Deputies to reform the law on abortion, summed up the reservations of Catholic doctors not only from a moral point of view but also from a scientific point of view, and emphasised how the advances in medicine and in particular in obstetrics had by then largely eliminated so-called 'risk pregnancies'. Unfortunately, the law was approved and the subsequent referendum demonstrated that the Italian people had not understood the gravity of the question to the full. The AMCI thus witnessed the opening up of a new sector in which it would be strongly involved: it co-operated actively with the 'Pro-Life Movement'; its members were present in marriage and pre-marriage guidance councils; it supported conscientious objection, and promoted a code of conduct for all medical doctors.
At the fourteenth national congress, which took place in Castellamare di Stabia in 1976, Prof. Geddea gave up the leadership of the Association after thirty-two years of service. Prof. Pietro de Franciscis, Full Professor of Physiology at the University of Naples and the President of the local Neapolitan branch, was elected to succeed him. In May 1978 a pilgrimage to Lourdes was organised in which the National Council and a large number of members took part. During this pilgrimage interesting study meetings were held on the subject of miracles, at which papers were read by Italian colleagues and medical doctors of other nationalities.
1978 was the year of the three Popes. After the deaths of Paul VI and Pope Luciani (a mere thirty-three days after his election), the Cardinal of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, was elected Pope and chose to take the name John Paul II. The first meeting of the new Pope with the AMCI took place on 28 September of the same year. The national leaders of the Association, headed by H.E. Msgr. Angelini and Prof. De Franciscis, were present at this meeting. After the address by the President, the Supreme Pontiff expressed his trust and confidence in our Association, whose activity was well known to him, and encouraged it to follow along the path of courageous witness and exemplary service in favour of human life. The fifteenth national congress, under the emblematic title 'medicine is for life', was held in November 1979. President de Franciscis emphasised the uninterrupted battle which had been sustained in favour of life and the large number of initiatives that had been engaged in to reduce the injurious consequences of Law 194. After intense preparations, which all the members of the National Council and two hundred young doctors belonging to the Rome branch took part in, the World Congress of Catholic Doctors was held in Rome in 1982 on the significant subject 'the medical doctor at the service of life'. 2,500 participants, from the five continents of the world, took part in the intensive days of work in the auditorium of Palazzo Pio. The congress reached its high point when John Paul II entered the auditorium and made his important address, in one passage of which he stated that 'co-ordination at a worldwide level could allow a better proclaiming and a more effective defence of your faith, your culture, your Christian commitment in scientific research and your profession'. The creation of the Pontifical Commission (later Pontifical Council) for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, which took place on 11 February 1985 with the Motu Proprio Dolentium Hominum, was clearly connected with the above-quoted statement of the Pope. H.E. Msgr.
Angelini was appointed President of this Pontifical Commission and the AMCI engaged in close co-operation with this Dicastery. It is significant that once again on the date of 11 February, the Holy Father the World Day of the Sick in 1993 and created the Pontifical Academy for Life in 1995. The world-famous geneticist Jérôme Léjeune was made the President of this Academy.

The eighteenth national congress of the AMCI was held in October 1988 in Florence and during its proceedings the new National Council of the Association was elected. Prof. Domenico Di Virgilio was elected President of the AMCI to general acclamation.
The increasing concern of the Magisterium of the Church with the questions and issues of health care and health amounted to an impelling call to the Association to be increasingly concerned with the new tasks required by the advance of science and technology which often raised worrying questions from a moral point of view. In the assessment of scientific progress the imperatives of ethics and Christian morality itself could not be ignored, according to which what is technically possible is not always licit.
These elements were the subject of study at the nineteenth national congress which took place in Venice in March 1992 on the subject 'medicine at the dawn of the third millennium'. A large number of Catholic doctors from Eastern Europe attended the congress and the AMCI sought to ensure a major increase in this presence not only at the most relevant organisational levels but also through personal contacts and the offer of concrete help.
The appointment of its assistant as a Cardinal on 28 June 1991 was a reason for particular happiness for the AMCI. In his prolusion to the congress of Venice the Cardinal declared that "the Church counts on you and you can count on the Church". On the first point, referring to the Ecumenical Council, the Cardinal observed how the action of the lay faithful in the life and work of the Church was so necessary" that without it the very apostolate of the Pastors cannot attain its full efficacy". On the second point, he invited those present to have firm trust in the support of the Church and to feel encouraged to overcome every human ? and to strive for the upholding of truth.
The fiftieth anniversary of the AMCI was celebrated at the twentieth national congress which took place in Rome in December 1994. The first two issues of the 1995 edition of Orizzonte Medico contained all the proceedings of the congress, beginning with the prolusion of Cardinal Angelini on the subject 'fifty years of life for life', and finishing with the address given by the Holy Father at the audience granted in the Paul VI hall. "I know the loyalty, the courage', the Pope said among other things, 'the coherence with which your Association, during the course of its fifty years of life, has been faithful to its Catholic commitment, rigorously respecting the aims as set out in its statutes to receive, implement and spread the teaching of the Church and the directives of her Magisterium in the medical-moral field. This, which you have always seem as your criterion of recognition, has given exemplary proof every time that you have been called to offer your co-operation to the ministerial and pastoral action of the Church in defending human life from conception to natural end, the quality of existence, respect for the weakest, the humanisation of medicine and its full socialisation. This loyalty has required and requires sacrifices which, in particular circumstances, can reach heroism, as when service to truth obliges you to engage in an incumbent conscientious objection".

To mark the congress a volume entitled 'fifty years of life for life' was published and a medal bearing the effigies of Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II was struck. A large number of the participants attending the congress were also received by the President of the Republic of Italy at the Quirinale, the presidential palace.
Fundamental ethical questions, respect for human life, informed consent, genetic manipulation, abortion, assisted procreation, and cloning continued to be subjects of study and discussion at the meetings of the AMCI at a local and regional level. The Association was also concerned at a deep level with the questions of the employment of young doctors and the suitable employment of necessary resources in health care, and made practical proposals to solve these difficulties. The papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae provided further information of a moral and ethical character relevant to these questions, and became the subject of study and discussions at local and regional meetings.
In order to give greater force to its actions (when these were necessary) connected with public institutions, in June 1996 a Forum was established composed of associations and movements of Christian inspiration active in the socio-health care field. The President of the AMCI, Prof. Di Virgilio, was made its national co-ordinator.
In October 1997 the twenty-first national congress of the Association was held in Naples-Caserta on the general subject 'medicine: an art and science for life'. A session was dedicated to discussion of the question of young doctors. The Italian Minister of Health took part in this session.
In the same month Cardinal Angelini, in a letter sent to the President of the Association, Prof. Di Virgilio, expressed his wish to leave the position of national assistant to the AMCI, which he had held for many years. As the Cardinal wrote in Orizzonte Medico, 'It is not possible, not even when one chooses spontaneously to leave behind one its spiritual guidance, to separate oneself from an Association, such as the AMCI, whose rise, development and growth, and difficult and often sensitive establishment in the world of health care and health I have shared in…The AMCI has always sought to work with a great spirit of internal unity, not so much concerned to achieve uniform unanimity but a unity achieved and borne witness to through multiple and complex relationships between everyone, free from considerations of a political and above all party character. During the many years that I have carried out the responsibility of being the national assistant I have made a constant effort to ensure that this threefold prerogative was not only safeguarded but also strengthened'.
In January 1998 the Permanent Council of the Italian Bishops' Conference appointed Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, the Archbishop of Genoa, the national assistant of the AMCI. Despite his large number of important commitments, the new Assistant has taken part in many meetings of the Association in various parts of Italy. Special reference should be made to the spiritual exercises preached by the Cardinal in Assisi on 24-25 April 1999.
During the Great Jubilee of 2000 the special world congress on the subject 'medicine and human rights' was held in Rome on 3-7July. 1,500 people, medical doctors and their families, took part in the congress, and forty-three countries were represented.
During the congress the National Executive Council of the AMCI was renewed, and Prof. Domenico Di Virgilio was reappointed President of the Association. After the Holy Mass celebrated in the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore by Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini, the inauguration of the world congress was held at the Teatro dell'Opera, with speeches by the Italian Minister of Health, the Mayor of Rome, and a large number of civil and religious authorities.
The congress closed with the Jubilee of Medical Doctors. Ten thousand doctors gathered together in the Basilica of St. Peter's after entering through the Porta Santa. After the Holy Mass celebrated by Cardinal Tettamanzi, the Holy Father gave an important address to those present, and this subsequently printed in the proceedings of the congress which were published in the Association's journal, Orizzonte Medico. Prof. Luigi Gedda, the founder of the AMCI and for thirty-two years its President, passed away on 26 September 2000.
In his memory, Orizzonte Medico published 'Immagine di Luigi Gedda' ('An Image of Luigi Gedda'), a small volume edited by Agostino Maltarello containing the testimonies of a large number of people who had worked with Prof. Gedda and held him in high esteem.