Why "Benedict"?
Around the turn of the 6th Century, a young nobleman revolted by the depraved decadence of his peers fled from Rome to live a hermit’s life in a cave in Subiaco. There, the young Benedict of Nursia grew in holiness. Those early years in solitude were the seeds that gave rise to his prayerful work founding Western monasticism according to the Rule of St. Benedict. The wisdom and guidance of the Rule remains a pillar of the Church, offering the faithful a path of Christian discipleship some 1500 years later.
Much as St. Benedict retreated to Subiaco to formulate his Rule as a gift to renew a decadent society, the Benedict Medicine Consortium seeks to preserve the essence of Western medicine—once a powerful expression of Christian charity and means of evangelization—by serving others without compromising our faithfulness to Jesus Christ the Divine Physician.
Much as St. Benedict retreated to Subiaco to formulate his Rule as a gift to renew a decadent society, the Benedict Medicine Consortium seeks to preserve the essence of Western medicine—once a powerful expression of Christian charity and means of evangelization—by serving others without compromising our faithfulness to Jesus Christ the Divine Physician.
In a 1969 broadcast on German radio, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger (who would later become Pope Benedict XVI) addressed a question about the future of the Church in a period of great social and ecclesial turmoil, the effects of which resonate today. His response echoes prophetic in our time:
"Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret....The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith....It will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”
As the “Dictatorship of Relativism” described by Pope Benedict XVI makes it harder for Catholics to live according to the Faith in secular society, the Benedict Medicine Consortium promotes a revival of practice founded on the dignity of the person as Imago Dei, offering hopefulness to combat the crisis of our times.
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