Brother Fortunatus Thanhäuser, O.H., (1918-2005)

The "Father of the poor"

Bernhard Thanhäuser was born on February 27, 1918 in Berlin, the first of three children. After the Great War his parents moved to Silesia where his father, who had fought in the World War, became head of the forestry department. Bernhard joined the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God at 17 years of age, on May 27, 1935, in the province of Silesia and was later sent to Wroclaw where the Order ran a large hospital. He was admitted to the novitiate on September 20, 1935, receiving the religious name Brother Fortunatus. He made his first vows on November 21, 1936, before receiving formation as a nurse, then as a radiologist and laboratory technician.  He only professed his perpetual vows on July 21, 1946, due to the Second World War, which was, in fact, providential because his advisers had been imprisoned by the secret police of the Nazi regime on the originally scheduled date of his profession of temporary vows. Brother Fortunatus was master of the novices from 1953 to 1969 and general delegate from 1959 to 1964. After the general delegation was elevated to the vice-provincial level, he became the first vice-provincial, in office until 1968.

Brother Fortunatus had long dreamed of spreading the Order in the countries in need of missionaries, especially in India, for he was convinced that this was God's will. He was still vice-provincial of the German province in Frankfurt when he was called to Kattappana by the Archbishop of Changanasserry, Msgr. Mathew Kavukattu. The mission entrusted to him was to provide for the health needs of the most remote populations in the Kerala Mountains. There he opened a clinic and a community, beginning to build the St. John of God hospital which is now the largest and most important hospital in the region, able to serve a population of about a million people. Brother Fortunatus also opened a school for nurses, an orphanage, a home for the elderly, a psychiatric hospital and many other social services to better help the people, who quickly venerated him as the "Father of the Poor."

Brother Fortunatus also founded the religious congregation of the Sisters of Charity of St. John of God in Kattappana on September 8, 1977, to work alongside the Brothers according to the charism and spirituality of St. John of God: in service of the poor, the sick and the needy. Today, the congregation has about a hundred religious, not only in India, but also in Austria, Germany and Italy.