UGANDA: Beatification of Fr Dr Joseph Ambrozoli to Take place at Kalongo in Uganda’s Gulu Archdiocese.
Picture of Fr Dr Joseph Ambrozoli to be beatified at the time of his service as medical doctor at Kalongo hospital in Gulu Arch diocese
Fr Isaac Ojok
The preparations are on for the beatification of Fr Dr Joseph Ambrozoli, an event that will take place in the Uganda’s Gulu Archdiocese on the 20th November 2022.
In an interview with AMECEA News correspondent, Most Rev John Baptist Odama of Gulu Archdiocese disclosed that a Central Organizing Committee (COC), with sixteen sub committees have been formed and they are all working to see how to accommodate people who will come to grace the occasion.
He went on to say that formerly all beatifications, canonizations were done in Rome but for the case of Fr Dr Joseph Ambrozoli, his beatification has been decided by the Pope to take place at Kalongo where he worked so that his life inspires people he worked among them.
Archbishop John Baptist Odama said, the beatification of Rev Fr Doctor Joseph Ambrozoli is a great gift to the local and the entire church at large and that it will be the avenue to glorify and thank God for His goodness and seek the intercession of the beatified.
Most Rev John Baptist Odama noted that Fr Dr Joseph Ambrozoli inspired many people with his life of prayer, humility, dedication to serving people, kindness to the needs of the vulnerable people.
He further described Fr Dr Joseph Ambrozoli as a priest who had a special gift as a medical doctor who discharged his duties diligently and as a result, many people got healed by his touch of being a doctor.
He reiterated that it is timely for the people to emulate the virtues Fr Ambrozoli had such as love, humility, kindness, honest, the spirit of dedication to the ministry and of service to the suffering people.
Fr Ambrozoli who was a priest and a surgeon has been described by many who sought for help from him as a person who had attentive love, care and concern for the sick.
According to the Archbishop, if all medical doctors were like Fr Ambrozoli, many sick people could be healed.
He asked the Christians and the people of good will to support the ongoing preparations for the beatification so as to accomplish it successfully.
Born in 1923 on 25th of July in Italy, Fr Ambrozoli was ordained a priest of the Congregation of the Missionaries of Sacred Heard of Jesus popularly known as Comboni Missionary (MCCJ) in 1951. In 1955, he came to Uganda and was sent to Gulu Archdiocese at Kalongo Dispensary, the health facility he transformed and spent almost 36 years serving the people there. He died on 27th March 1987 in Ngetta, in the current Lira Diocese.
The term Beatification is raising a person who has been “Servant of God” to the level of Blessed, one step before being raised to sainthood.
The beatification of Fr Dr. Joseph Ambrozoli comes after 20 years when Blessed Daudi Okello and Jildo Irwa the two martyrs of Paimol, a place in the same region, were in 2002 beatified in Rome by Pope John Paul II, now a Saint.
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