The first General Councillor, Brother Joaquim Erra, has spent two months in the Austrian Province conducting the Canonical Visitation which concluded in Vienna in mid-April.

Brother Joaquim began the Visitation in mid-February, subsequently visiting all the Order's centres in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The Visitation followed a similar pattern in each centre: in addition to meeting the Brothers, the General Manager, the collegiate management and the management staff, he held talks with the pastoral team, and with the Sisters who are working in our centres, and met the staff, and paid a visit to the Brothers' graves. The Visitor also examined the catalogues of our artistic heritage and checked the registers. His programme also set aside moments of prayer and worship. Brother Joaquim was thus able to learn about the daily routine, the organisational structure, current developments and challenges facing the centres and their plans for the future.

In addition to the hospitals and health and social care facilities, Brother Joaquim also visited the Postulancy in Gorizia, the software company "Care Solutions", which the Province runs jointly with IT Business Management and IT-Operations in St. Veit/Glan. The highlights included visits to the kindergarten in Brno and the homeless centre in Bratislava. The Visitor also held one-to-one meetings with three bishops: the diocesan bishop Josef Marketz of Klagenfurt, Archbishop Franz Lackner of Salzburg and Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna.

The Visitation ended on 16 April as it had begun, with a solemn Eucharist in the chapel of our Vienna House. The Mass was celebrated by the Provincial, Brother Saji Mullankuzhy together with Brother Richard Jombik and the Prior General, Brother Jesús Etayo Arrondo, who had flown from Rome specially for the occasion.

The day before the celebration, on 15 April, the provincial leadership of the Austrian Province held a meeting with the Prior General, Brother Jesús, the Visitor, Brother Joaquim Erra and the Brother Provincial, Rudolf Knopp, and the Provincial Councillor, Brother Thomas Väth of the Bavarian Province.

A Provincial Assembly was then convened on the morning of 16 April. In the first part, the Brothers met the Prior General, Jesús, and the General Councillor, Joaquim. The second part of the meeting was attended by the General Managers of all the centres of the Province. At this meeting, Brother Joaquim presented his final report on the General Visitation while Brother Jesús delivered the concluding address.

As part of the closure of the Visitation, Adolf Inzinger, the CEO of the Austrian Province was presented with the document of Affiliation to the Order. Mr Inzinger has been a close collaborator with the Order for over 40 years. He served the Order in various positions, initially at the local level, and then from 1983 at the provincial level. On 6 June 2007, he was appointed General Manager or CEO of the Province. Mr Inzinger was a member of the Enlarged General Definitory from 2007 to 2012, and has sat on the General Curia's Finance Commission since 2012.

At the end of the Visitation, on 17 April, the Prior General and Brother Joaquim, accompanied by the Brother Provincial, Saji, visited the hospital in Budapest, Hungary, where two new pieces of equipment were inaugurated: a CAT (Computerized Axial Tomography) scanner and an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine. The inauguration was attended by numerous public and church representatives, including the Secretary of State for Ecclesiastical Affairs and the Secretary of State for Health. The Brothers of St John of God Hospital in Budapest was founded in 1806. It delivers its services to people from all over Hungary. Approximately 350,000 patients are cared for each year. The hospital has 40 outpatient clinics, 309 acute care beds, 40 long-term care beds and 135 rehabilitation beds and employs 120 doctors and 450 nurses.

On the following day, 18 April, the Prior General and Brother Joaquim joined in the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the foundation of the St. Elizabeth Retirement Home in Pilisvörösvar, also in Hungary. The Order had acquired this house from the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 2021.