World Leprosy Day: When good will bears fruit

“Do not call them lepers anymore, no please remove that word, they are leprosy patients”, says Father Jospeh Raja Roa, a Montfort Missionary from Bangalore, who for years has worked among people suffering from Hansen’s disease, more commonly known as leprosy.

Marking the 59th World Leprosy Day this Sunday, January 29th, President of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers states that “even though the official number of new cases of the infection continues to decrease and at the present time are about 200,000, according to the estimates of the World Health Organisation for the years 2010-2011”, leprosy, “has not as yet been eradicated”.
Archbishop Zimowski writes in his message that this strong reduction “in the number of people infected by this disease, certainly does not exempt governments and international organisations from increasing the attention they pay to, and their work to combat, the spread of leprosy”.
And the story of Bangalore’s Sumanahalli project is proof of the success that can be achieved when government, civil society and religious organisations work together towards this goal. Sumanahalli, literally means, the “Village of Good Will”.

According to Fr. Raja it began as an idea, planted in the mind of a layman: “Mr. Anthony, during a homily delivered by a Redemptorist priest in his local church, felt really inspired and he decided to start something to help the many leprosy sufferers he found on the streets of Bangalore in the 1970’s. So with the help of a few likeminded people, he then met with the local Archbishop of the time and sought more help, more qualified help. In the city we were lucky in those days, because the Chief Minister of Karantaka State was a Hindu, a philanthropist, a man who really gave his heart for the people, and luckily the Chief Secretary of the State was a Catholic and with their help we organised a centre called Sumanahalli. In 1977 the Montfort Father’s really launched into the project”.

The project, says Fr. Raja, had three aims: “To teach the people that Leprosy was curable, to raise awareness among larger society and to organise a long-term plan in order to rehabilitate the leprosy patients”.


And in the 30 years since it first began spreading its good will Sumanahalli has borne abundant fruit: “We carried out a survey and we found that in 1979 there were 5 cases for every 10 thousand people, by 2003 it had been reduced to 1.8 percent. Deformities had decreased from 28% in 1979 to 2% in 2003. A great progress has been made, so much so that today the government, seeing al the progress, it is saying that we no longer need leprosariums, rather we will treat each case in any medical school or hospital”.

Fr. Raja says that on a personal level he has received as much as he has given: “The first thing that you find when you meet these people who are affected by leprosy is gratitude and that is a beautiful thing”.

Today Sumanahalli is home to over 120 patients many of them elderly, and is run by the Claretan missionaries. The Monfort fathers have since opened up a second project caring for the families of leprosy patients: “Apart from treating these people, we began to care for their children and their children’s children, who were stigmatised too. They had lots of problems. We have started a small place for these children, especially female children, we have 30 girls and we are seeing they are provided for and that they have access to an education for a brighter tomorrow”. Listen to Emer McCarthy’s full interview with Fr. Raja:


Below the full text of Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski’s Message for World Leprosy Day


‘In the Fight Against Hansen’s Disease the Commitment of All Men of Good Will is Required’People treated for, and cured of, leprosy can, and must, express all of the riches of their dignity and spirituality, as well as full solidarity towards others, above all those who have been equally afflicted and have been marked indelibly by this infection! All the forces involved in the fight against Hansen’s disease must at the same time continue their work tenaciously so that the successes that have been obtained are made definitive and always improved, reducing as much as possible relapses and new cases.

Mycobacterium Leprae, in fact, has not as yet been eradicated, even though the official number of new cases of the infection continues to decrease and at the present time are about 200,000, according to the estimates of the World Health Organisation for the years 2010-2011. In addition to supporting the free distribution of those drugs and medicines that are required, one should, therefore, further promote speedy diagnosis and perseverance in receiving therapies. It is of fundamental importance, furthermore, that the work directed towards sensitising and training communities and families that run the risk of contagion be strengthened.

The gospel phrase ‘Stand and go; your faith has saved you’ (Lk 17:19), chosen by the Holy Father Benedict XVI as the theme for the twentieth World Day of the Sick which will be held on 11 February of this year throughout the world, constitutes an exploration and a call that touches in a particular way those who have been afflicted by this infection; in this passage from St. Luke, indeed, we are told about ten lepers who were healed by Jesus, readmitted to the community and reintegrated into the social and occupational fabric.

As is emphasised by the Holy Father in his Message for this year, ‘help us to become aware of the importance of faith for those who, burdened by suffering and illness, draw near to the Lord. In their encounter with him they can truly experience that he who believes is never alone! God, indeed, in his Son, does not abandon us to our anguish and sufferings, but is close to us, helps us to bear them, and wishes to heal us in the depths of our hearts (cf. Mk 2:1-12).

The faith of the lone leper who, on seeing that he was healed, full of amazement and joy, and unlike the others, immediately went back to Jesus to express his gratitude, enables us to perceive that reacquired health is a sign of something more precious than mere physical healing, it is a sign of the salvation that God gives us through Christ; it finds expression in the words of Jesus: your faith has saved you. He who in suffering and illness prays to the Lord is certain that God's love will never abandon him, and also that the love of the Church, the extension in time of the Lord's saving work, will never fail’.

This love, which is also expressed through individual action and through Church institutions and volunteer organisations, amongst which the Raoul Follereau Foundation and the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta, as well as the successes that have been obtained hitherto in terms of a strong reduction in the number of people infected by this disease, certainly do not exempt governments and international organisations from increasing the attention they pay to, and their work to combat, the spread of leprosy, or from their responsibilities as regards prevention, in educational and hygiene/health-care terms, and the ‘readmission’ of people who have been cured, as well as support for all the victims of infection.

On the other hand, those who have been cured and have followed the difficult pathway of social reintegration can communicate their gratitude in a practical way as well, becoming themselves witnesses, contributing to the dissemination of the criteria of prevention and the swift identification of this disease, as well as providing moral support for those people who have been infected; and, where possible, in addition, cooperating with institutions and ad hoc initiatives so that the necessary therapies are completed and then followed by the social reintegration of those who have been cured. Those who have attained a cure can in this way communicate all their interior riches and experience and at the same time, in helping their neighbour, all their dignity and profundity as people touched by suffering and involved in working for the health of the community to which they belong.

This will amount to a further and relevant contribution to progress in the fight against Hansen’s disease which for millennia has constituted a terrible scourge and involved automatic exclusion from society. Indeed, only the involvement of everyone – and at all levels – will allow the transformation of leprosy from being a threat and a scourge into being a memory, however frightening, of the past.

To Mary, Mother of Mercy and Health of the Sick, we entrust our brothers and sisters who are afflicted by leprosy so that her maternal compassion and nearness may accompany them always, in the daily events of life as well.