On the occasion of the 25th
anniversary of the election to the Pontificate of the Holy Father
John Paul II, FIAMC deemed it appropriate to underline the important
event with a tool able to convey the word of the Pope on issues
concerning health, life, health care assistance, biomedical
sciences, bioethics, and profession to doctors and the other health
care workers.
The idea was thus born of a
CD-Rom which would contain all the speeches, letters and messages by
the Pope on the issues mentioned above, besides the official
documents of the Magisterium directly related to medical doctors and
the other health care professions.
We therefore collected in a
single work of reference the numerous materials produced during the
25 years of the Pontificate, in the midst of events which not only
marked world history, but were also responsible for deep
transformations in science and in medical practice.
Since October 16th
1978, in the middle of the winds of stormy changes, John Paul II has
been the helmsman which leads with steadfast hand Peter's boat
towards the open sea: Duc in altum!
In the course of the past 25
years the word of the Pope has been a constant point of reference
for medical doctors and the whole world of health.
We appreciated the abundance
of his Magisterium on the issues related to our profession, starting
from "Salvifici Doloris", the first pontifical document on
the theological value of suffering, and from the great Encyclical "Evangelium
Vitae", a true magna charta for all those who put their
profession at the service of human life.
We admired his love for the
sick in the many meetings he had with the sick and disabled and in
the visits to Hospitals in Rome and in many parts of the world.
We rejoiced in receiving the
motu proprio "Dolentium Hominum" with which, for the first
time in the history of the Church, an organic and coordinated work
was started on a world wide scale in the field of the Health
Pastoral, and the motu proprio "Vitae Mysterium", with which
the Pontifical Academy for Life was established.
We were filled with joy also
at seeing him raise to the honour of the altars some significant
figures of doctors of the present day, such as Giuseppe Moscati,
Riccardo Pampuri, Gianna Beretta Molla.
We participated, in the
course of the last few years, in the celebration of the Day of the
Sick, in the dioceses and on a world scale, contributing to give
life to a positive intuition of his, intending to bring to the
attention of the authorities, of public opinion, and of the Church
the suffering man, icon of Christus patiens.
We received from the Pope,
in the course of the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, the Prayer of
the Doctor, which we had asked and which was specifically composed
for us, daily source of inspiration and comfort in the hardships and
dilemmas of the profession.
Above all, the Holy Father
has been for us a Teacher on the desk of suffering, since the days
when someone attempted to take his life in 1981, when, together with
so many people from all over the world, we prayed that Divine
Providence and Mary's intercession could save his life for the good
of the Church, and, thanks to God, our prayers were answered.
Personally, as a specialist
in Neurology, I was taught every day by the strength, dignity and
serenity with which he faced the illness that has been a companion
for him during the last years.
These few words are
sufficient to point out the great and lasting attention that the
Pope has paid in these years of Pontificate to the issues of
medicine.
However, it is only by going
back and reading his speeches and writings that it is possible to
fully grasp the love and esteem with which he has surrounded our
profession.
A love and an esteem which
are certainly due to his awareness that the problems of birth, of
suffering and of death are at the center of man's religious
experience and that the way in which they are faced is the measure
to evaluate the level of civilization of human societies.
They are, however, also the
esteem and love which come from a man who is personally deeply
marked by the experience of suffering and is able, therefore, to
fully appreciate the value of the medical art and the importance of
health care and of scientific and biomedical research.
The CD-Rom is a witness of
this love and esteem.
We wish to make this disk an
instrument of study, research and consultation. In fact, we hope
that its use will not only allow doctors and other health care
workers to reflect upon the words of the Pope, meditating upon them,
but also be useful in the preparation of texts and interventions
which can find in the Magisterium of the Pope an authoritative point
of reference on the issues of human health.
In order to facilitate its
consultation, the CD, published today in the English and Italian
languages, hoping however there will be a second version including
other languages, has an inner search function which allows you to
individuate texts according to their title, occasion and date.
Moreover, thanks to its Word format, it is possible to search for
single words or lines of text.
The documents which are
present in only one of the two languages are very few. We hope to
fill this gap in the next version.
The CD also provides several
colour photographs and brief videos which allow you to see and
listen to the Pope during some significant events referred to in the
texts.
The making of this CD was
particularly difficult due to the lack of one source only. It was
therefore necessary to search many internet websites, starting from
that of the Holy See, all the available CDs containing the archive
editions of the Osservatore Romano, the Italian National Library,
the journal "Dolentium Hominum". To all these sources, and
especially to the Osservatore Romano, we address our heartfelt
thanks.
The making of such work
would not have been possible without the cooperation, in the search
for texts, of many people whom I wish to thank individually.
First of all I wish to thank
Prof. Domenico Di Virgilio, President of the Italian Catholic
Medical Association (AMCI), and Prof. Agostino Maltarello, who is
the only living founder of that Association. They made available the
texts gathered for a book published in Italian, which provided most
of the texts in the Italian language. The remaining documents in
Italian and all those in English are fruit of the research work
carried our by the PIME seminarist Dario Semino, by Ms. Isabelle
Biondi, Executive Director of FIAMC in Rome, by Ms. Giovanna
Barbetti from Udine, by Fr. Walter Black and Dr. Michael Shanahan
from Perth, Australia, and by Dr. George Isajiw from Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
We obtained some of the
materials related to Pharmacists thanks to the President of FIPC,
Prof. Alain Lejeune. I also wish to sincerely thank S.E. José
Redrado, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral
Care, for having helped in the research of texts published in "Dolentium
Hominum"; and Fr. Pascual Piles, Superior General of the Brothers of
St. John of God.
Very special thanks to Ms.
Francesca Leita, who with competence and dedication carried out all
the editing work, besides participating in the search of texts.
The videos present in the CD
were kindly provided by CTV (Vatican Television Centre) which we
thank for the collaboration offered.
This work would not have
been possible without the computer science know-how of Mr. Mauro
Nascimben, who created the research engine and handled the
production of the disk.
I would also like to
thank H.E. Msgr. Elio Sgreccia, Vice-President of the Pontifical
Academy for Life, for having honoured with his preface this work and
for the nice words of appreciation that he had for FIAMC. We are
proud to have been working close to him in the course of the past
years, at the service of the Church and of medical ethics.
The intelligent and
dedicated work of many people notwithstanding, this work would not
have been published without the generous support of the Pfizer
Foundation (Italy). Special thanks to the President of the Pfizer
Foundation, Dr. Maria Pia Ruffilli, for having understood the
meaning and spirit of the initiative and having accepted to support
it in the interest of the medical profession.
Finally, many thanks to my wife Maria Rosaria,
for the uderstanding she showed during the preparation of this work,
forgiving the time I was not with her and our five children. I think
that only her love, her devotion for the Holy Father John Paul II,
and the fact that she also is a medical doctor allowed her to
tolerate my absence from the family.
Gian Luigi Gigli, MD
President of FIAMC
