An idea that became reality

“How many tens of thousands of people can this message of peace reach, and how much good can you do to man and society, by committing yourselves with all your strength to this enterprise! It is born small, but it is already large, because you wish to carry it out with a big heart, to the measure of the heart of Christ!»

Thus he expressed himself Bishop Álvaro del Portillo in 1993, during the S. Mass on the occasion of theInauguration of the first academic year of theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma. Don Álvaro's wish was to fulfill a dream of the founder of Opus Dei, St. Josemaría Escrivá: a university clinic in Rome, which offered solutions to the reality of pain and illness, attingI embrace the Christian spirit of service.

He encouraged the birth of the Campus Bio-Medico and then closely followed the people involved in studying its implementation. For this he urged doctors, nurses and all the staff of the University to adopt a particular style of work: "You want the doctrine and love of Christ to orient and inform human society more profoundly, and concretely the exercise of the most noble medical and nursing professions: without the guidance of this doctrine and this love, they easily become cold and blind techniques which, instead of serving the good of men, can be transformed – unfortunately there is no shortage of eloquent examples, even today – actually contrary to the life and dignity of man".

The students were also at the center of don Álvaro's pastoral concern. University training had to favor the harmonious growth of the whole person, combine the highest cultural and scientific level with a sense of responsibility for the ethical implications of the future profession.

With these premises was born in 1993 theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma. «Without don Álvaro's faith and foresight, theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma it wouldn't be there today – recalls the President Felice Barela – At the time it seemed to us an unrealizable undertaking. Instead, the idea became reality.