To the
participants in a Workshop of Neonatal Nephrology
Science is subordinate to other values
7 May 1993
Address, delivered in Italian, to the
participants in the Fourth International Workshop of Neonatal Nephrology
received in audience on May 7th, 1993
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
1.I am happy today to meet you, the participants
in the Fourth International Workshop of Neonatal Nephrology, and I sincerely
thank Prof. Luigi Cataldi for having briefly
explained to me the goals of your conference.
Along with my cordial greeting I express my
great appreciation to the conference’s organizers, to the members of the
Scientific Committee, to the chairmen, moderators, speakers and scholars
comprising the research group, and to the family members of the children with
renal pathology. These little patients are helped with ever more promising
results in the specialized departments of the Agostino
Gemelli Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the
I extend a special welcome to the distinguished
scientists who have come here from other European countries and from overseas.
2.Care for pathologies occurring during
the infant’s perinatal and neonatal stage is a necessary
requirement for medical research that truly serves the human person; it is
based on an ethical and moral choice of the highest value. In this regard it is
significant that your work opened with a report on “Bioethics in infant
nephrology”.
Scientific knowledge certainly has its own laws
that must be followed. However, as I had the occasion to say in a similar
context: “Science is not the highest value to which all other must be
subordinated. Higher up in the scale of values is precisely the individual’s
personal right to physical and spiritual life, to his psychic and functional
integrity” (cf. Address to two congresses on medicine and surgery, 27 October
1980, L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 17
November 1980. p. 19).
Ethics has priority over technology
Everyone is aware that the concern of the
Church and of her Magisterium is not expressed in
the name
of a particular competence in the field of experimental science, but rather in
order to reaffirm the “priority of ethics over technology”, the “primacy of the
person over things”, the “superiority of spirit over matter” (cf. Encyclical
Letter Redemptor hominis, n.
16).
I appreciate, therefore, the strict
methodological organization of your work, since genuine
scientific
research can only receive from it a positive, significant impetus. The work
done in researching infant pathologies is an outstanding service to the human
person at a decisive, extremely fragile stage of his development; as such it
represents a worthy homage of the human intellect to the mystery of life. “Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involved the
creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relationship with
the Creator, who is its sole end” (Instruction Donum Vitae, Introduction, 5).
3.Often the painful and, unfortunately,
widespread experience of kidney failure, even at a very young age, has roots
that can already be diagnosed at the prenatal and perinatal
stage. A timely diagnosis is the essential condition for suitable prevention.
At the same time it is a priority requirement for reducing the pain and burden
of possible therapy for so many families with relatives afflicted by the
serious problem of kidney disorders. Indeed, because of the successful work
done by scientific societies and associations in this field, in recent years a
consoling reduction has been noted in cases of chronic renal insufficiency
among children.
The difficult journey for a person on dialysis
can begin with infancy, foreshadowing a picture whose social repercussions
prove increasingly more worrisome. Thus it is necessary to reduce further the
number of children on kidney dialysis, while taking into account the extension
of this pathology among adults. It is an illness which, more than others,
involves families and, with them, society, which is not always able to
guarantee adequate means of treatment. All progress, however, requires of
everyone an increased awareness of the real gravity of the situation, leading
to the implementation of a health-care policy that encourages research and the
involvement of more and more institutions at the service of life and its
quality.
Resist threats to dignity of human person
The Church is sensitive to these problems, a
further sign of her concern is the fact that the
upcoming
Eighth International Conference sponsored b the Pontifical Council for
Assistance to Health Care Workers will have as its theme: “The child and the
future of society”.
4.Distinguished ladies and gentlemen!
The
The severity of a disease, its human, personal
and social cost, and the disproportion between
supply
and demand that sometimes makes the wait for a kidney transplant critical and
futile, do not excuse science, both in research and practice, from the duty of
increasing its efforts. Through projects like that of our workshop, it is even
called to inform public opinion and those responsible for health care so that
achievements in service to life may be promoted and encouraged.
In the context of this effort, which must be
made by all, your profession becomes a mission,
your love
for your little patients becomes the expression of an authentic service to life
and your willingness not to surrender in the face of so many difficulties
becomes an exemplary witness to human solidarity.
To you, then, involved in such a lofty task, I
express my shared encouragement and gratitude. To these sentiments I add my
assurance of a continual remembrance in prayer. I call upon the Lord especially
for the family members of these little patients, that through the intercession
of Mary, the Mother of God and men, they may find each day the strength to overcome,
with the support of Christian hope, the painful suffering they are
experiencing.
I sincerely impart to all my Blessing.