The Camillian order: a numerical overview
July 18, 2026
Today marks the liturgical memorial of St. Camillus de Lellis (1550-1641) in the United States; the saint is commemorated on July 14 on the General Roman Calendar.
St. Camillus founded the Ordo Clericorum Regularium Ministrantium Infirmis (Order of Clerics Regular of Ministers to the Sick), popularly known as the Camillians, in 1582. The institute gained Church approval in 1586.
According to the latest edition of the Annuario Pontificio, 1,130 men, 824 of them priests, belonged to the Camillians in 2024. Membership stood at 330 at the saint’s death in 1614, fell to “about 100 members, all of them in Italy” in the nineteenth century, and grew again in the twentieth, the New Catholic Encyclopedia notes.
In the latter half of the twentieth century, membership peaked at 1,346 in 1963, fell to a low of 1,023 in 1995, and has since experienced modest growth.
The order has 166 religious houses worldwide. In the United States, the delegation of the order’s Brazilian province is based in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, with 14 priests and one brother. In addition to its presence in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Camillians are also present in the Diocese of Pittsburgh and the Diocese of Savannah, according to the most recent (2025) edition of The Official Catholic Directory.
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