On Saturday, 7 May, in the Vatican’s Paul VI audience hall in Rome, Doctors with Africa CUAMM met with Pope Francis in a special papal audience.

Joining us were more than 9,000 people from all over Italy and elsewhere – individuals and groups, volunteer workers, supporters and friends, aid-workers, doctors and other medical staff, the young and the old, families, children –people who share CUAMM’s vision and resolve to meet tough challenges day in and day out in order to carry out its mission.

In remarks to the CUAMM membership on Saturday, Pope Francis said

«In the wake of these great witnesses of missionary and evangelically fruitful closeness, you carry on your work with courage, giving expression to a Church that is not a clinic exclusively for super A-list VIPs,  but rather a ‘field hospital’: a Church with a great heart, close to the many wounded and humiliated of history, to the poorest of the poor».

Don Dante Carraro, director of Doctors with Africa CUAMM:

«Thank you, Pope Francis. We truly feel that you are with us, all of us». Read don Dante Carraro’s adress

The Holy Father concluded, saying

«I assure you of my closeness and my prayer: I bless all of you, your families, and your commitment to the present and the future of the African continent».

⇒ Read the full speech of Pope Francis

⇒ Click here to hear Vatican Radio’s report