a College of Medicine in Warangal

The Indian government officially recognized the college of Andhra Pradesh, dedicated to the most neglected. It is a project promoted by the PIME missionary who died in 2009 and is invoked even by non-Christians. Today, the nuncio, mons. Girelli was present at the blessing of the first stone of the center, which will be dedicated to the training of nurses and paramedics. “It is the first miracle of Father Augusto,” said the bishop, Mons. Bullet.

Warangal () – Fourteen years after his death, the dream of Fr. Augusto Colombo 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 in India, Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, together with the 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 the new wing of the Fr. Colombo Institute of Medical Science, from the diocese of Warangal, in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. This includes a large hospital and the medical school, both promoted by the Italian missionary of PIME deceased in summer 2009after almost sixty years of apostolate among the population.

Today’s ceremony came just months after an important step: in March, the Indian government granted official recognition to the Medical College, which has thus become a full-fledged university. This is an extremely significant fact, since it is the third complex of its kind in all of India: it will work together with St. John’s National Academy of Health Science, a work promoted by the Indian Bishops’ Conference in Bangalore, and Fr. Muller Medical College of the diocese of Mangalore.

“I think this recognition is Father Colombo’s first miracle,” said Monsignor Udumala Bala, smiling. He grew up in the PIME missionary parish and has been a bishop for ten years in this community where the majority of Catholics – barely 75,000 – belong to tribal groups. But Fr. Augusto continues to be the patrimony 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 to be cured of an illness or to have children, they entrust their stories to him in the register of visitors. That is why we are working on opening the cause for beatification. Everyone remembers how much Fr. Augusto did for the formation of young people. Even local politicians proudly mention his name during their speeches, a bit like it happens at the national level with Mother Teresa.”

Father Colombo was born in Cantù (Como) in 1927, and arrived in India in 1952. In almost sixty years of missionary work, in addition to his pastoral work, he carried out a large number of initiatives for the promotion of the poor. Among them, a company for the production of “miraculous rice” to rural banks, from assistance to lepers to work for women. In the field of education, he left works like the Institute of Technology and Science, which has already trained thousands of engineers in Warangal. And now the Faculty of Medical Sciences has joined, which will complete the project started with the opening of the hospital.