HISTORY

The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has provided a religious presence to Los Angeles County Hospital since 1876, with the Daughters of Charity and the clergy from Sacred Heart parish. In 1889 the Archdiocese began to provide chaplains to Los Angeles General Hospital. The original, 100-bed county hospital was built in 1878 and became affiliated with the USC School of Medicine in 1885. Priests from the three nearby parishes -- Sacred Heart Church (1889- ), Santa Teresita (1923- ), St. Brigeta (1940?- ) -- all provided Catholic chaplain priests for the patients' needs. In 1930, the cornerstone for the current hospital building was laid and the hospital was completed in 1933. (The TV soap opera "General Hospital" featured the building in its opening scenes.)

In 1954, St. Camillus was founded and since that time has has provided Catholic chaplains to LAC+USC Medical Center. In 1985 and under the vision of Pastor Fr. Don Kribs, the parish boundaries were reworked and it became St. Camillus Center for Pastoral Care. Now, the chaplains' full-time focus are the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center & Hospital, and USC University Hospital.

Today, St. Camillus Center for Pastoral Care still provides 24-hour ministry to these populations.

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“This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a set along the what, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own."

-- Oscar Romero

"We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence.
But I maintain that far more undreampt of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence."

-- Mahatma Gandhi