ALESSANDRO DE FRANCISCIS

Dr. Alessandro de Franciscis - his friends call him Sandro – was born in Naples, Italy on 24th November 1955 and has earned his Medical Doctorate, summa cum laude, in July 1980 from the University of Naples (Europe's oldest State University founded by the Emperor Frederick II in June 1224) and from that same University his degree of Specialist in Pediatrics, summa cum laude, in July 1984. The following month he moved to Boston, Ma (USA) as a student of the Harvard University School of Public Health where he earned the degree of Master of Science in Epidemiology in 1985. During the Academic Year 84/85 he was elected President of the SCC, the Students Coordinating Committee, member of the Faculty-Students-Administration Liaison Committee and Class Secretary for the Class of '85. In 1995 he earned from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, School of Medicine in Rome, Italy his degree in Bioethics, Optimum. A student of the Southern Italy's Pontifical Faculty of Theology « Saint Thomas Aquinas » at Naples in the years 1993-1997 he has earned in 2011 his degree of Bachelor in Sacred Theology, summa cum laude. 

In February of 2009 Dr. de Franciscis was invited and appointed by the Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, France - Msgr Jacques Perrier – to become the 15th Médecin Permanent and, therefore, President of the Bureau des Constatations Médicales de Lourdes and of AMIL, the Lordes International Medical Association (est. 1928) and Secretary of the CMIL, the Lourdes International Medical Committee (est. 1954). He is the first non-French physician to be appointed. The Bureau, or Lourdes Office of Medical Observations, was founded in 1883 to record, study and judge the hundreds of healings and cures reported by pilgrims at the Shrine of Lourdes, where Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous. Since, more than 7.500 cases of unexplained cures from severe medical conditions have been recorded and collegially studied. A total of 70 medically unexplained cures, related to Lourdes, have been declared a «Miracle» by the roman catholic bishop of the cured persons in different european countries. The latest in February 2018. Dr. Alessandro de Franciscis lives permanently in Lourdes since April 2009. 

Alessandro de Franciscis has always considered himself a clinical pediatrician with strong interests in epidemiology, public health and society. From 1984 to 1988 he was a full time neonatologist at Caserta’s General Hospital and from 1988 he was a tenured Lecturer and, later, a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Department of Pediatrics of the Medical School of the University of Naples until 2011. During his medical career he has researched, published and taught in the fields of general pediatrics and bioethics. In the past 40 years Alessandro de Franciscis has lived, next to the medical profession, through many enriching experiences. His military service as a Medical Officer in the Italian Navy. His voluntary service to the poor in the Vincentian (St. Vincent De Paul) religious family, in humanitarian missions in Europe and serving in different Government Institutions having been elected to the municipal Council, the national Parliament (2001-2006) and as President of the Province of Caserta (2005-2009). He has been actively engaged in UNITALSI (since 1973), the italian charity for the service to the sick and disabled pilgrims to Lourdes and in the Italian Association of Catholic Physicians (AMCI, since 1978). In 2004, in Bratislava, he was elected Secretary General of the FEAMC, the European Federation of Catholic Doctors Associations; he resigned the following year. Member of the Hospitalité de Notre Dame de Lourdes (1993) and of the Hospitalité de Notre Dame de Salut. 

Alessandro de Franciscis is a member and a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International, Club de Lourdes (France – District 1700), and - among others - of the Italian Society of Pediatrics and of the Harvard Alumni Association. He has authored or co-authored several papers on topics of his interest. 

Dr. de Franciscis was admitted in 2012 to the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta as a Knight of Honour and Devotion and has been a Knight of Justice, a religious in solemn vows since 2017. At the extraordinary General Chapter of January 2023, Fra' Sandro was elected Grand Hospitaller of the Order for a six-year term.