To the Italian Catholic Medical Association
(AMCI)
Freedom
of conscience and defence of life
On 28 December John Paul II received in
audience the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors (AMCI) and delivered the
following address.
Beloved Sons of the Italian Catholic Doctors
Association,
Welcoming you heartily to this house, which has now become mine, I want
to express to you in the first place my
joy at this meeting where I can make the acquaintance of so many persons
eminent for their scientific merits, admirable for their high sense of duty,
and exemplary for their courageous profession of Christian faith. I am
sincerely grateful to you for the courtesy and affection of which this visit of
yours is a manifest and consoling sign, and I am happy, therefore, to address
my greeting to your zealous Ecclesiastical Assistant, our reverend Brother, Mons. Fiorenzo Angelini; to your illustrious President, Prof. Pietro de Franciscis, efficiently
assisted by the three Vice-Presidents; to the indefatigable Secretary General,
Prof. Domenico Di Virgilio; to the members of the National Council; to the
Regional Delegates and Presidents of the diocesan sections; to the
representatives of the members of the Association, as well as to the group of
Catholic nurses whose presence today
wishes to be a testimony of the close collaboration which they intend to
carry out with you doctors in the service of the patients.
Esteem for medical profession
I am glad to take the opportunity to express
publicly my great esteem for a profession such as yours, always considered by
everyone more as a mission than as ordinary work. The dignity and
responsibility of such a mission will never be sufficiently understood, or
adequately expressed. To assist, treat, comfort and cure human pain is a
commitment which, in its nobility, usefulness and ideality is very close to the
priest’s vocation. In both offices, in fact, there is a more direct and evident
manifestation of the supreme commandment of love of one’s neighbour,
a love called not infrequently to assume forms which reach the point of real
heroism. We must not be surprised, therefore, by the solemn admonition of Holy
Scripture: “Honour the physician with the honour due him, according to your need of him, for the Lord
created him for healing comes from the Most High” (Sir 38:1-2).
Association’s aims
Your Association came into being to promote the
attainment of the high aims of the profession and to enrich them with the
specific contribution of Christian values. To measure the importance of the
contribution it intends to make to your activity as Christian doctors, it is
enough to recall the terms of article 2 of the Statute. The latter indicates as
purposes of the Association the qualification of the moral, scientific and
professional formation of members; the promotion of medico-moral studies in the
light of the principles of Catholic doctrine, the animation of the spirit of
real human and Christian service in the relationship of doctors with their
patient, action to ensure the most dignified exercise of the profession and
for protections of the just interests of the medical class; and education of members to rightful ecclesial
co-responsibility and to generous availability for every charitable activity
connected with the exercise of the profession.
These are not resolutions which have remained
only on paper. I am glad to acknowledge the action of sensitization and
orientation carried out by the Association in these years among the Italian
medical class, both through varied and specialized publishing productions, and
through the appreciated periodical “Orizzonte
Medico”, and in the “Study Courses” (the Proceedings of the recent one on “The
Man of the Holy Shroud” were kindly presented to me) which have seen, in the space of eleven
years, eminent specialists of the different sciences deal with anthropological
subjects of fundamental interest, in search of an answer that will satisfy man
and the Christian. I cannot but express appreciation and praise: the formative
purpose, which is pursued by means of these instruments, deserves to be
cordially approved and efforts made in this direction must be warmly
encouraged.
That applies particularly today, when powerful
movements of opinion, effectively supported by the great media of mass
communication, are trying to influence the consciences of doctors in every way,
to induce them to lend their services in practices contrary not only to
Christian, but also to natural morality, in open contradiction with
professional ethics, expressed in the famous oath of the ancient pagan doctor.
Prophetic appeal
In the Message for the World Day of Peace on first of January last,
my great predecessor Paul VI of revered memory, addressing a special word to
doctors who were pointed out as “wise and generous defenders of human life”,
expressed his confidence that alongside the “religious ministry” there could be
the “therapeutic ministry” of doctors in affirming and defending human life in
all “those particular contingencies in which life itself can be compromised
through the positive and wicked intention of human will”. I am certain that
this heartfelt and prophetic appeal has met, and still meets, with wide support
not only among Catholic doctors, but also among those who, though not sustained
by faith, are, however, deeply aware of the
higher requirements of their profession.
As minister of that God who is presented in
Scripture as the “Lord who loves the living” (Wis. 11:26), I, too, wish to
express my sincere admiration for all medical practitioners who, following the
dictates of sound conscience, are able to resist daily enticements, pressure,
threats and sometimes even physical violence, in order not to stain themselves
with behaviour that is harmful in any way to that
sacred good, which is human life. Their courageous and consistent testimony is
a very important contribution to the construction of a society which, in order
to be fully human, cannot but be based on respect and protection of the prime
premise of every other human right that is the right to live.
Freedom of conscience
The Pope willingly unites his voice to that of all doctors with a sound
conscience, and adopts their fundamental request: the request, in the first
place, for recognition of the deeper nature of their noble profession which
wishes them to be ministers of life and
never instruments of death. And then the request for full and complete respect,
in the legislation and in facts, of freedom of conscience, understood as the fundamental
right of the person not to be forced to act contrary to his conscience or
prevented from behaving in accordance with it. Finally, as well as the request
for an indispensable and firm juridical protection of human life at all its
stages, also the request for adequate operational structures, which will
encourage the joyful acceptance of life about to be born, its effective
promotion during development and maturity, its careful and delicate protection
when its decline begins and up to its natural extinction.
Service of life should see committed, with
generous enthusiasm, Catholic doctors particularly. These, in their faith in
God the creator, whose image man is, and in the mystery of the eternal Word who
descended from heaven in the frail flesh of a helpless child, find a new and
higher reason for industrious dedication to loving care and disinterested
safeguarding of every brother, especially if he is little, poor, defenceless, threatened. It consoles me to know that these
convictions are deeply rooted in your hearts; they inspire and direct your
daily professional activity and are able to suggest to you, when it is
necessary, even public, clear, and unmistakable stands.
Exemplary witness
How could I fail to mention, in this
connection, the exemplary witness you bore, with timely and compact adherence
to the indications of the Episcopate in the recent and distressing matter of
the legislation in favour of abortion. It was a
witness in which – I proudly stress in my capacity as Bishop of Rome – this
City distinguished itself particularly, offering non-Catholic doctors also a
reminder and a stimulus of providential efficacy. This responsible gesture will
reach more effectively its aims of asserting the right of the medical and
ancillary personnel to freedom of conscience, a right sanctioned by a special
clause in the law: to personal consistency; to defence
of the right to life and to social denunciation of a legal situation
prejudicial to justice, a right adopted with authenticity of motivations and
confirmed by disinterested generosity open to all the commitments and
initiatives in the service of the human person.
I make no secret of the fact that
consistency with Christian principles may mean for you the necessity of
exposing yourselves to the risk of incomprehension, misunderstanding and even
serious discrimination. In this sad case may you be assisted by the
programmatic words by which a great colleague of yours, Blessed Giuseppe Moscati, was constantly inspired: “Love truth”, he wrote in
a personal note on
Help from Mary
Confirming to you, therefore,
together with my esteem, cordial encouragement to continue along the way of
courageous testimony and exemplary service in favour
of human life, I implore upon your good resolutions the help of the Blessed
Virgin, whom you love to invoke as “Salus Infirmorum et Mater Scientiae”. I
implore the protection of St. Luke “the beloved physician” (Col. 4, 14), whom
you honour as your patron saint. And thinking with
fatherly affection of your colleagues of the Association scattered all over