The Giacomo Cusmano Association - Italia

The Giacomo Cusmano Association is a Catholic association of lay faithful called to follow the Cusmanian ideal of “Charity without limits”, convinced that the Christian life is founded on love, “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself” (Lk 10:27).

The Association is born from the will of its Founder, Blessed Giacomo Cusmano, to save the poor involving even the rich in a single project of love: “Our mission is twofold, to help the poor to make their suffering milder and to win them over to God, to bring the rich to the poor, to enable them to earn the grace of the Lord” (Blessed James Cusmano).

The Association pursues exclusively aims of social solidarity and in particular deals with:

• caring and helping the needy, the sick and the elderly;
• to intervene in situations of hardship encountered in the area of action (city, district, parish);
• to collaborate with the Missionary Servants of the Poor and the Sisters Servants of the Poor in the conduct of charitable activities (Canteens and Social Centres, Retirement and Reception Houses for Minors and Elderly, etc.);
• to encourage the adoption or temporary care of abandoned or poor children;
• to recover funds for charitable and missionary projects;
• the promotion and organisation of educational, training and cultural activities.

Each Associate, empowered by the invitation of the Founder “do not lie down without your conscience giving you witness to a service to others”, is committed to living his Baptism through the “Morsel” that is the daily practice of Love towards the least, works in communion with the Pastors of the Church and with the Major Leaders of the Cusmanian Family.

In a spirit of fraternal collaboration, the associate feels co-responsible, together with the other associates, for the same mission and the sharing of the same project, even in the variety of tasks of each one. In addition, the associate takes part responsibly in spiritual formation and in the planning and implementation of various apostolic initiatives with other ecclesial groups for a unified Church action.

The Association, on 26 April 2006, by decree of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life of the Holy See, was recognized as “Work Proper” of the Congregations of Missionary Servants of the Poor and of the Sisters Servants of the Poor, while on February 17, 2011, was registered in the registry of non-profit organizations.

The Association is present in Italy with 10 Centres: Palermo (2 Centres), Santa Ninfa, Mazara del Vallo, Camastra, San Cataldo, Valguarnera, Giarre, Savoca, Rome.