To the
members of the Italian Dental Association (AMDI)
IN HELPING THOSE WHO SUFFER
On Friday, 14
December, the Holy Father received in audience members of the Italian Dental
Association (AMDI) and delivered the following address:
1.
It is cause for sincere joy for me to meet with you, presidents of the
Provincial Sections and Members of the General Secretariat of the Italian
Dentist's Association. You are welcome,
along with your families, for your appreciated gesture of filial devotion and
for the opportunity that it offers me to speak with you about your profession.
You
represent here an association which proposed to carry out intense cultural
exchanges with the major international stomatological associations for the
study and updating of the dental profession.
Your association has approximately seven thousand member dentists, and
its specific and noble aim is the defence of the oral health of the citizen
through initiatives aimed at the sensitizing public opinion to the importance
of preventive oral hygiene and dental care and the certification of products
intended for this.
Considering how much on other occasions my predecessors have said during
more than one meeting with professional doctors with your specialization, I
would like to reaffirm the esteem which, in the name of Christ, the Church has
for your work. It is a question of a
science, but at the same time of an art, at the service of man for the relief
of sufferings often very serious and notably connected with health problems
which reflect on the whole person, on both a physical and a psychic level. We must consider it a worthy conquest of
science that today dental and stomatological care is no longer seen as
something quite separate from the care of the person, but as something of
highest importance for the entire human organism.
2.
With a spirit of attentive observation my predecessor Pius XII described in an
admirable discourse (cf. Discorsi e
Radiomessaggi, XIV, 1952, p. 372) the demands for discernment and skill
required by your profession, realizing in addition the rapid technological
progress of your activity. This involves
a constant and rapid demand for updating for the good of the patient; but even in the most developed and evolved
technology your work remains highly personalized and continuously engages,
along with science, your inventive capacity.
Each patient is a case in himself, gifted with his own psychology or
with his own state of mind. Your
profession therefore involves special relations of a human character. It is up to you to advise and convince those
who need care, to comfort and support during moments of tension, distress and
fear. At times it is a question of
rather simple circumstances; but very
often you must face cases which are the result of profound and grave injuries,
of situations which, unresolved, would gravely exclude persons from common
social relation. The wonderful steps
taken by dento-maxillofacial orthopedics, especially with regard to damage to
the faces of persons injured by various unfortunate causes, are to be hailed as
a providential conquest of your work. In
addition, we must consider as a gift from God the effectiveness of your corrective
interventions with regard to dental malformations in children. In this way you help nature to develop
normally, correcting defects and dysfunctions while there is still time. And it is the result of your work if this
type of intervention today is no longer considered a rare event, but a right
well recognized by the people and therefore a type of therapy which can be
applied normally and which is at the disposal of anyone who needs it.
3. I
have noted among your initiatives the establishment of the “Dental Prevention
Month” and the creation of mobile units
for the dental care of the handicapped by offering your professional assistance
during certain periods at no cost. I
cannot but be pleased by this witness.
In
the light of the recognized importance of your therapeutic specialty for the
overall health of persons, and especially with regard to the recognized need to
more greatly sensitize people to preventive therapy, it is important - you know
the problem - that every form of social assistance meant to guarantee everyone
dental care, necessary at all ages, be continuously updated.
4.
You understand, however, how in the face of even the most perfect organizations
a task remains for you which is never reducible to only social norms or
structures. The very personal relationship
of dialogue and trust which is established between you and the patient demands
in you a charge of humanity which is resolved, for the believer, in the
richness of Christian charity. It is
this divine virtue which enriches your every action and gives to your acts,
even the most simple ones, the power of an act performed by you in interior
communion with Christ, in whom you believe:
“As often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me”
(Mt 25:40). It is still this power of
charity which must urge you, in the name of Christ, to seek - and it will be a
precious gift from God in your profession, a witness very rich in significance
among your colleagues - the poor person who does not have the means, the
strength, the courage, to seek your care.
It will be charity which will give you the joy of being able to give
your help and your skill to those who are suffering. As much as our society strives to guarantee
rights for man, nothing is able to replace the brotherly love which Christ asks
us to have and which is resolved especially in the search for the needs of the
suffering and humiliated person.
May
my Apostolic Blessing accompany your work, comfort you in your witness, and
include your families, your collaborators and the persons who are especially
dear to you.