To the
participants in the XV International Congress of Catholic Doctors
CATHOLIC DOCTOR REQUIRES A
In the late afternoon of Sunday, 3 October,
the Holy Father met the participants in the Fifteenth International Congress of
Catholic Doctors in the Auditorium of the Palazzo Pio on Via della
Conciliazione. Also participating in the
meeting were Archbishop Eduardo Martinez Somalo, Substitute of the Secretariat
of State, and Archbishop Achille Sivestrin, Secretary of the Council for the
Public Affairs of the Church.
Upon entering the
auditorium, the Pope was welcomed by the more than two thousand five hundred
participants, representing seventy-one countries throughout the world. After the welcoming address by Prof. Pietro De
Franciscis, the Pope delivered the following message.
1.Today it is cause of great joy for me to
greet you who have come together in this important assembly, which is both the
Fifteenth Congress of the International Federation of Associations of Catholic
Doctors (IFACD) and the Sixteenth National Congress of the Association of
Italian Catholic Doctors (AICD), so many and such distinguished representatives
of medical science, that sublime form of service to mankind.
My
joy is increased by the singular variety and, at the same time, the deep unity
which characterize the assembly of yours:
in fact, you come from every part of the world and work under the most
diverse political and social conditions and situations, but at the same time
you are linked by common Christian faith, which sustains and animates your
service to life and to mankind.
To
everyone my cordial greeting and my gratitude, with special thought to those
who have organized this congress with dedication and enthusiasm.
I
owe special thanks to
No
better place than
Congress theme regards
basic human rights
2.The subject of your Congress takes up and synthesizes the problem of
basic human rights, which is of great concern to me. During every age, man's right to life has
been recognized as the first and fundamental right, and as the root and source
of every other right.
Life
therefore is one of the highest values, since it comes directly from God, the
origin of every life (Gen 2:7, Ez37.8-10).
Man, as a living being created in the image of the Creator (Gen 1.26),
is, by his nature, immortal (Gen 2:7; Wis 2.23).
I
see that the concept of the totality of life is appropriately emphasized in the
various parts of the Congress, in the reports, papers, subjects of discussion.
This pleases me, since I hold such a basis to be of fundamental importance.
If,
in fact, service to life defines the final aim of medicine, the limits of such
service can be set only by the true and integral concept of life. In other words: the service to which you are
called must include and at the same time transcend corporality precisely
because this is not all there is to life.
The
Bible, while recalling the frailty of the human condition, vulnerable as a
blade of grass (Is 40:65), fleeting as a shadow (Job 4:2, 8-9), negligible as a
drop of water (Sir 18: 10), emphasizes the boundless grandeur of life, which it
identifies with good, while attributing to sin not only the stain of guilt, but
the very penalty of illness and physical death.
Through sin, man lost immortality for himself and for his descendants
(Rom
Such
a broad view of the concept of life is confirmed by the way in which the
redemption wrought by Christ is presented, which is seen as a recovery of life,
reintroduction of life, gift of life in abundance (In 10:10). The “grace” is life in Christ, and to find
life again means to reinsert oneself into the creative plan of God, who is by
definition “the living God” (Deut 5:23: Mt 26:63, etc.).
For
good reason, therefore, you distinguished doctors, convened here to study the
many problems that relate to health, have placed emphasis upon the defence of
life, inasmuch as in that supreme value are found the ultimate reasons which
justify your commitment in the various areas of the respective
specializations. Yours is the task of
safeguarding life, of taking care that it evolves and develops throughout the
span of existence, with respect for the plan mapped out by the Creator.
The
increased knowledge of the phenomena which control life has greatly broadened
the limits of medical science, whose service takes place in the areas of
preventive, curative, rehabilitative medicine, with an inexhaustible effort to
prepare, to defend, to correct, to recover vital functions, accompanying the
human individual from the earliest stages of life up to the inevitable end.
In
addition, today medicine is more than ever at the centre of community life, as
a determining factor in educational tendencies, in assessment of the whole man,
in the organization of related life styles, in the recovery of compromised or
lost values, in offering to mankind an always new reason for hope.
Search without
despairing of the truth
3.The Church, since its origin, has always looked upon medicine as an
important support of her redemptive mission with regard to mankind. From the ancient xenodochia (houses for the
care of the sick) to the first hospital complexes and up to the present, the
ministry of Christian witness has progressed at the same pace as that of
concern for the sick. And how can we not
emphasize the fact that the very presence of the Church in missionary lands is
distinguished by careful attention to health problems? This happens not in order to replace or
substitute for the function of public institutions, but because service to the
spirit of man connote be fully effective if not presented as a service to his
psycho-physical unity. The Church well
knows that physical illness imprisons the spirit, just as illness of the spirit
enslaves the body.
On
the other hand, it is not without significance that saints canonized by the
Church - such as John of God and Camillus de Lellis, not to mention many others
- have introduced important innovations in the field of an ever more alert and
compassionate care for the sick. On the
other hand, a careful study of Christian ascetical norms would reveal no minor
contribution to the education of man for the total care of his physical and
psychic health. And was it not a
colleague of yours, Alexis Carrel, who maintained, for example, that prayer
reconciles man with God and with himself, confirming it as a medicine of the
spirit with documentable effects upon the total health of the person? (A. Carrel, La prière, Paris 1935).
In consideration of this, the Fathers of the
Second Vatican Council, in their appeal to men of knowledge and science,
affirmed with moving pride: “Your journey is ours. Your paths are never unrelated to those which
are properly ours. We are the friends of
your vocation as researchers, the allies of your toils, the leading spirits of
your conquests and, if necessary, the comforters of your discouragements and
failures. Therefore, we have a message
for you too: continue to search without
ever giving up, without ever despairing of the truth.” (Vatican II, Message to
men of knowledge and science, 7 Dec. 1965).
In
the recent Encyclical Laborem Exercens, I myself paid tribute to the
importance of your role, insisting on the primary right of every individual to
what is necessary for the care of his health and therefore to adequate health
service (John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, n.
9). I would like to return to this
subject in order to reiterate the duty that is incumbent upon medical science
to make progress in order to improve the conditions and the environment in
which work, that basic human activity, is carried out. If we want work to become always more
personalizing, it is primarily necessary that its wholesomeness be guaranteed.
Spirit of service
Your commitment, distinguished gentlemen,
cannot be limited to only professional correctness, but must be sustained by
that interior attitude which is fittingly called “spirit of service”. In fact, the patient to whom you dedicate
your care and your studies is not a nameless individual to whom the fruit of
your knowledge is applied, but a responsible person who must be called upon to
participate in the improvement of his health and the achievement of his cure. He must be put in the position of being able
to make personal choices and not have to submit to the decisions and choices of
others.
The
appeal to “humanize” the doctor's work and the places where it is practised is
placed in these terms. Such humanization
means the proclamation of the dignity of the human person, respect for his
corporality, for his spirit, for his culture.
It is your task to seek to discover ever more deeply the biological
mechanisms which control life so as to be able to intervene in them, on the strength
of a power over things, which the Lord has willed to give man. But in so doing, it is also your commitment
to constantly keep within the perspective of the human person and of the
requirements which spring from his dignity.
In more concrete terms: no one of you can limit yourself to being a
doctor of an organ or apparatus, but must treat the whole person, and what is
more, the interpersonal relationships which contribute to his well-being.
“...providing for the
safeguarding, the defence and the promotion of human life through the filter of
the various cultures”
In
this regard, the presence of scientists, clinicians, physicians and health
workers from every part of the world inspires me to recall a grave and urgent
problem: that of providing for the
safeguarding, the defence and the promotion of human life through the filter of
the various cultures. Inasmuch as he is
the image of God, man is the reflection of the infinite countenances that the
Creator assumes in his creatures:
countenances sketched by the environment, by social conditions, by
tradition, in a word, by culture. It is
essential that in the various cultural contexts the brilliance of that
reflection be not dimmed, nor the features of that image disfigured. It is the task of every citizen, but
especially of those who, as you, have direct social responsibilities, to work
for the recognition and effective prevention of possible forms of intervention
upon man which appear to be in contrast with his dignity as a creature of God.
In order to do this, individual action is not
sufficient. Collective, intelligent,
well-planned, constant and generous work is required, and not only within the
individual countries, but also on an international scale. Coordination on a world-wide level would, in
fact, allow a better proclamation and a more effective defence of your faith,
of your culture, of your Christian commitment in scientific research and in
your profession.
5.There is a message which I sense in your Congress and which must be
made ever more explicit through your individual and collective action. It is the appeal to the social community and
those responsible for it that the limitless resources consumed in the
technologies of death be transformed into the support and the development of
the technologies of life.
Because of a mystery rooted in the complexity and the frailty of the
human heart, the option for good and for evil often makes use of identical
instruments. Technologies which could
work for good are at the same time capable of working immense evil, and only
man is the arbiter of their application and their use.
In
addition, there are numerous projects in the field of scientific research which
have long been awaiting better support in order to be carried on, but instead
have been set aside because of lack of funds.
Laboratories, from which a world of hope is awaited to combat illnesses
particularly widespread in our age, seem to be languishing, certainly not
through the fault of well-prepared men, but because the necessary financing is
diverted to ways of destruction, war and death.
Nor
is the problem different with regard to some other very grave phenomena of our
age. Allow me to point out in particular
the problem of malnutrition and underdevelopment. Vast areas and entire populations suffering
from poverty and hunger emerge today on the demographic map. While rich nations suffer from metabolic
illnesses due to overfeeding, hunger still cuts down its victims, especially
among the weak, children, and the aged.
It
is not admissible to remain silent and passive in the face of this tragedy,
especially when the possible solution can be seen in a wiser utilisation of
available resources. May your voices
join those of all persons of good will in calling upon those responsible in the
public area for a more determined commitment to place in the forefront the
immediate and concrete resolution of this tremendous and dramatic problem.
Catholic is a
qualification
6.Yours is a congress of Catholic doctors. “Catholic” is a qualification which requires
you to witness to faith by word and example in a life which transcends earthly
events and is part of a superior and divine plan.
This
has an importance which is not secondary in the exercise of your profession. In fact, experience teaches that man, needing
preventive as well as therapeutic help, reveals needs which go beyond the
organic pathology taking place. From a
doctor he expects not only an appropriate cure - a cure which, on the other
hand, sooner or later will inevitably prove to be insufficient - but the human
support of a brother who knows how to share with him a view of life in which
even the mystery of suffering and death finds meaning. And where could such a reassuring answer to
the supreme questions of existence be drawn if not from faith?
From
this point of view, your presence beside the sick person is linked to that of
those-priests, religious and laity-who are committed to the pastoral care of
the sick. More than a few aspects of
such pastoral care correspond to the problems and duties of the service to life
carried out by medicine. There is a
necessary interaction between the practice of the medical profession and
pastoral action, since the one object of both is man, taken in his dignity as a
child of God, as a brother as needful of help and comfort as we are. The areas of such possible and necessary
interaction are diverse. Among them I
wish to call to your attention that of the family, often tried - especially
today - by profound difficulties and called to contend with the difficult
problem of responsible parenthood, lived in respect for the divine laws which
govern the transmission of life and at the same time for those which foster
authentic conjugal love.
Consequently, in the hope that sincere availability for rapport, dialogue, for constructive
collaboration grow among all those who work in the health field, I point to the
supreme example of Christ, who was a physician of the spirit and often of the
body for all those he encountered along the paths of his earthly
pilgrimage: Christ, above all, who
agreed to drink to the dregs the cup of suffering. Taking on our human condition and experiencing
pain unto death, and death on the cross without any guilt, Christ became at the
same time the image of illness and health, of defeat and salvation, so that in
him all those on earth and in every age who must contend with suffering would
have hope founded in him.
“May Christ in the
mystery of his Passion and his Resurrection remain before the eyes of your
mind”
Therefore, practitioners of the art of medicine, may Christ in the
mystery of his Passion and his Resurrection remain before the eyes of your
mind. May he constantly enlighten you on
the dignity of your profession and in every circumstance inspire in you those
attitudes and actions which steadfast consistency of faith indicates and
demands. Mankind today does not only ask
for the affirmation of principles, but the contribution of signs, of credible
proof.
May
the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Wisdom, who everywhere is invoked as health of the
sick, guide your paths and grant that you may give to your service to life
those qualities of goodness, understanding, availability and dedication which
saw in her their highest fulfilment.
With
these feelings I impart to you and to all those you represent here my heartfelt
intercessory Apostolic Blessing for every desired heavenly gift.