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The Government of India has officially recognized the Andhra Pradesh State College, dedicated to the most abandoned. This is a project promoted by a PIME missionary who died in 2009, and even non-Christians are calling for it. Today Nuncio, Mons. Ghirelli was present at the consecration of the first stone of the center, which will be dedicated to the training of nurses and paramedics. “This is Father Augusto’s first miracle,” Bishop Mons said. Bullet.
Warangal (AsiaNews) – Fourteen years after his death, Father Augusto Colombo’s dream is coming true: a great medical university among the most neglected people in Warangal, in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. This afternoon, during a mass presided over by the Apostolic Nuncio to India, Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, together with Indian Cardinals Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Mumbai and Felipe Neri Ferrao, Archbishop of Goa, and all the bishops of Andhra Pradesh, the first stone was laid. The university will be dedicated to the training of nurses and paramedics and will operate in a new wing Father Colombo Institute of Medical Sciences, from the Diocese of Warangal, in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. This includes a large hospital and medical school set up by the Italian missionary PIME. died in the summer of 2009after almost sixty years of apostolate among the population.
Today’s ceremony comes just a few months after an important step: in March, the Government of India officially recognized the College of Medicine, which thus became a full university. This is extremely important as it is the third facility of its kind in all of India: it will work in conjunction with St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, promoted by the Conference of Indian Bishops in Bangalore, and Father Muller Medical College of the Diocese of Mangalore.
“I think that this confession is the first miracle of Father Colombo,” said Monsignor Udumala Bala, smiling. He grew up in the PIME missionary parish and served for ten years as a bishop in that community, where the majority of Catholics—75,000 in all—belong to tribal groups. But Father Augusto continues to be the property of everyone in Warangal: “He lives in the hearts of the poor,” says Msgr. Bala, “many Christians come to pray at his grave: they ask for his intercession for a cure for an illness or the birth of children, they entrust their stories to him in the register of visitors. That is why we are working on opening a case for beatification. Everyone remembers how much father Augusto did for the development of youth. Even local politicians proudly mention his name in their speeches, as they do nationally with Mother Teresa.”
Father Colombo was born in Cantu (Como) in 1927 and arrived in India in 1952. In nearly sixty years of missionary activity, in addition to his pastoral work, he carried out a large number of initiatives to encourage the poor. Among them are companies producing “miracle rice” for rural banks, from helping lepers to working for women. In the field of education, he left behind such works as the Institute of Technology and Science, which has already trained thousands of engineers in Warangal. And now the Faculty of Medical Sciences has joined and will complete the project that began with the opening of the hospital.
