Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God

Roman Catholic religious order

The Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, officially the Hospitaller Order of the Brothers of Saint John of God (abbreviated as OH), are a Catholic religious order founded in 1572. In Italian they are also known commonly as the Fatebenefratelli, meaning "Do Good Brothers", and elsewhere as the "Brothers of Mercy", the "Merciful Brothers" and the "John of God Brothers". The order carries out a wide range of health and social service activities in 389 centres and services in 46 countries.

St John of God, the founder of the order, was born 8 March 1495 at Montemor o Novo in Portugal. Twice he enlisted in the Spanish army against the French and later the Turks. After years of living a highly religious way of life in Spain resulting from a conversion experience, in 1535 he founded his first hospital at Granada, where he served the sick and afflicted. After ten years spent in the exercise of charity, he died 8 March 1550 of pneumonia after he had plunged into a river to save a young man from drowning. He was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII in 1690 and was declared the patron saint of the dying and of all hospitals by Pope Leo XIII in 1898.

John of God's first companion, Antón Martín, O. H., was chosen to succeed him as prior general of the order. Thanks to the generosity of King Philip II of Spain, a hospital was founded at Madrid, another at Córdoba and several others in various Spanish towns. Pope Pius V approved the Order of the Brothers Hospitallers in 1572 under the Rule of St. Augustine. The order spread rapidly into the other countries of Europe, and even into the distant colonies. For example, the Order provided staff to the Fortress of Louisbourg in New France (now Canada) during the mid 1700s; one of their roles was the operation of the hospital. In 1584, Pope Gregory XIII called some of the Brothers to Rome and gave them the Hospital of St. John Calybita, Fatebenefratelli Hospital, located on an island in the Tiber, which then became the motherhouse of the whole order. Brother Sebastiano Arias founded the Hospital of Our Lady at Naples and the famous Hospital of Milan. Another Brother Hospitaller at this time was John Grande, O. H., who was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1852. Activities in the Irish Republic include a base in Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, helping people with disabilities in the area. The Irish postal authority, An Post, recognised and honoured the contribution of the order to society by issuing a special commemorative postage stamp in 1979 for the order's centenary in Ireland. The Hospitaller Brothers were established in the United States in 1941, where they operate health care facilities in southern California offering a continuum of care including: Independent Living, Assisted Living, Skilled Nursing, Residential Care, Retirement Living and a specialized Alzheimer Unit. A large school and training center was established by Brothers from the Irish Province in New Jersey to meet the needs of the mentally and physically disabled. The site was later named Kendall Grange. In 2017, the report of a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse established in Australia claimed that over 40% of the Brothers of the Australian Order of St John of God were alleged child sex abusers. The Order also has many health projects in African countries, such as Malawi, Ghana, Kenya and Sierra Leone. The Brothers operate the Saint Jean de Dieu Hospital in Tanguiéta, in northern Benin. When first built it had sixty beds. Now it is a reference point for the entire region and has 290 beds, serving people from neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso, Togo, Nigeria, and Niger.

The outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa in 2014 had a major impact on the medical centers run by the Hospitaller Brothers in that region. As of September, sixteen members of the staff at St. Joseph Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, and St. John of God Hospital in Lunsar, Sierra Leone, died. Of these, three were members of the Order who served at the hospital in Liberia. The first two to die were Patrick Nshamdze, O. H., a native of Cameroon and the director of the hospital, and George Combey, O. H. A third member, Miguel Parajes, O. H., a priest from Spain, contracted the disease while caring for Nshamdze, who had not tested positive for the disease initially. He was airlifted at his request by the Spanish government for treatment in his native country. He later died, becoming the first victim of the disease to die in Europe. Also returned to Spain with Parajes was Sister Juliana Bonoha Bohé, M. I. C., a native of the former Spanish colony of Equatorial Guinea, one of a group of Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception who worked with the Brothers at the hospital. Once in Spain, she tested negative for the virus. Spain, however, refused to transport her colleague, Sister Chantal Pascaline Muwamemem, M. I. C., from the Congo, who later also died of the disease. He too died several days after his arrival in a hospital in Madrid at the age of 69.

The charism of the order is caring for the sick, as a way of living the beatitudes of Christ.

A particular apostolate of the order is the Special Needs Faith Formation Program, which serves children and adults with special needs in preparing to receive the sacraments within the Roman Catholic Church. The Brothers undergo a special course of training in order to fit them for carrying out their various works of charity to which they devote their life. In some provinces some of them are even graduates in medicine, surgery and chemistry. The members are not in holy orders, but priests wishing to devote their sacred ministry to the Brothers and patients are received. To the three solemn vows of religion they add a fourth vow of serving the sick for life in their hospitals. They assist daily at Mass, meditation, the recital in choir of the office of Our Lady and spiritual reading. The order accepts applications from men between the ages of fifteen and thirty five. The religious habit is usually given to postulants after three months. The time of novitiate is two years, after which the novice pronounces the vows which, although simple, are perpetual. Three years later, he can be admitted to solemn profession.

As of 2014, the Brothers are split into 20 provinces: Africa, Andalusia, Aragon, Austria, Bavaria, Castille, Colombia, France, India, Korea, Lombardy–Veneto, Northern South America, Oceania, Poland, Portugal, Rome, Southern South America, United States of America, Vietnam and West Europe. There is one vice province: Benin–Togo, and two General Delegations: Canada, and Mexico and Central America. There are seven provincial delegations: Brazil (dependent on Portugal), Bohemia–Moravia, Hungary and Slovakia (dependent on Austria), Japan (dependent on Korea), Papua New Guinea (dependent on Oceania) and Philippines (dependent on the Roman Province).

In 2013, the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry (VPI) looked at the order's operations in Victoria, Australia. The current head of the order, Brother Timothy Graham, confirmed to the VPI that sixteen brothers had allegations of sexual abuse made against them and were the subject of two civil actions. The first was relating to the abuse of adults at the Order's Lilydale facility. There were also 20 child related complaints. In 2014, seven of the brothers accused remained in the order, nine had left, and the remainder were deceased. Graham told the VPI his order had no scrutiny or accountability mechanisms in place to prevent the abuse of the vulnerable children in their care. In 2020, the second episode of the ABC documentary series Revelation followed the criminal trial of McGrath at the New South Wales District Court. Presenter Sarah Ferguson interviewed McGrath in his maximum security prison, where McGrath revealed that he was part of an institutional cover up, with former leaders Brother Brian O'Donnell and Brother Joseph Smith aware of his offending. McGrath also told Ferguson that following complaints from his victims, Smith had taken him to meet Father Brian Lucas, the priest responsible of the Australian Catholic Church's response to the child sexual abuse scandal. This meeting took place in 1992 at the presbytery of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney. Shortly afterwards, Smith accompanied McGrath to a treatment facility in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, United States. During McGrath's stay at Jemez Springs, Smith was formally notified of a police investigation and called McGrath, telling him he should stay in the United States. McGrath decided to return to Australia and was arrested and convicted of sex crimes against Jason Van Dyke.

The order ran the Marylands School which taught pupils with learning difficulties, in Christchurch, New Zealand. Events there in the 1970s would later lead to a high profile scandal with sexual offence charges being laid against four members of the order: Brothers Bernard McGrath, Roger Maloney, Raymond Garchow, and William Lebler. In 2020, it was announced that the Hospitaller Brothers of St John of God would be specifically investigated by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care and its sub inquiry into care by the Catholic Church in New Zealand. The royal commission undertook to investigate the sexual abuse of children under the care of the Brothers of St John of God in Marylands, their residential school in Christchurch. Public hearings into Marylands School abuse were held by the Commission during 9–17 February 2022. The Commission plans to hold public hearings into two further St John of God, Christchurch institutions: St Joseph's Orphanage and the Hebron Trust. In early August 2023, the Royal Commission released an interim report, titled "Stolen Lives, Marked Souls" to the Governor General, which focused on three Christchurch institutions run by the Order: Marylands School, Hebron Trust, and St Joseph's Orphanage. The report documented several cases of depravity, sexual, physical and spiritual abuse at these institutions, with Marylands School and Hebron Trust being described as "hell on earth." Australian convicted sex offender Brother Bernard McGrath, who worked for four years at Marylands School, was identified by the report as a "prolific abuser."