Venerable Servant of God

Brother Fortunatus Thanhäuser

(al secolo: Bernard)

 

Founder of the Congregation of the “Sisters of Charity if St John of God”.

He introduced the Order into India.

Born in Berlin on 27 February 1918.

Died on 21 November 2005 at Kattappana (India).

The eldest of three brothers, Brother Fortunato spent his child hood and adolescence in Volpersdorf (today's Wolibórz), a small village in Silesia. In 1935 he entered the Order of the Brothers of St. John of God in Breslau (today's Wrocław) and was admitted to the Novitiate on 20 September that same year. After waiting ten years to make his simple profession on 21 November 1936, he was not able to make his solemn profession until 1946 because of ostracism by the Nazi authorities and the Second World War.

He first qualified as a nurse and then as a medical technician working in the Brothers' hospital in Breslau, until 1950 when, together with other German Brothers, he was expelled from Silesia, which in the meantime had become part of Poland.

In the years that followed he was one of the main players in creating and developing the Rhineland Province, which has since become part of the Bavarian Province.

In 1969, at the request of an Indian bishop, this young Province decided to establish a missionary centre in India, entrusting the project to Fr Fortunatus, who was 51 years old at the time, together with two other Brothers. In the federal state of Kerala, he built and started a hospital in Kattappana, which has since become the most important health centre in the region.

In 1977, he entrusted the hospital to an Indian Brother in order to dedicate himself to his "House of the Poor", located near the hospital. That same year, in order to continue serving the poor, he and a group of women founded the Congregation of the 'Sisters of Charity of St John of God', which obtained diocesan recognition in 1994, and today has about 90 Sisters.

He undertook numerous projects to assist the poor, the sick and the elderly, and in the same year, together with some women, he founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of St John of God, which was recognised by the diocese in 1994 and which today numbers some 90 Sisters. He implemented numerous projects to help the poor, the sick and the elderly, laying the foundations for today's Indian Province of the Order. Revered as the 'Father of the Poor', Brother Fortunatus died, after a long illness, in Kattappana in the odour of sanctity on 21 November 2005, at the age of 87.

On 22 November 2014, the ordinary process for his beatification and canonisation was officially opened in the parish church of Kattappana, in the presence of over ten thousand people, during a solemn Eucharistic celebration presided over by Bishop Matthew Arackal.