To the
members of the Italian Catholic Medical Association (AMCI)
Your work as Catholic doctors is a privileged
form
of human solidarity and Christian witness
On Friday morning, 9 December, the Holy Father
received in audience in the Paul VI Auditorium, members of the Italian Catholic
Medical Association celebrating the 50th anniversary of its
foundation. Here is a translation of his discourse.
1.I am very happy to address my greetings and
words to all of you, dear brothers and sisters,
gathered
in
I address a particular greeting to your
Chaplain Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini,
who since 1959
has shared
the Association's life with you, enlivening it with ever youthful enthusiasm,
the Founder Members present here, Prof.s Luigi Gedda and Agostino Maltarello, your President Prof. Domenico
Di Virgilio, the members of
the Presidency and the National Council, the Regional Delegates, as well as the
illustrious members who are former National Presidents.
2.By a mysterious divine plan, among the many
graces with which the Lord has desired to
enrich my
Pontificate, I have also received one that I consider the most unusual: a
special relationship with the medical profession. May I therefore consider
myself "at home" with you? I have even had an opportunity to become
directly acquainted with the great professional skill of some of you, as well
as your profound humanity and spirit of sacrifice and dedication.
Quoting the biblical passage "Hold the
physician in honour, God it was that established his
profession"
(Sir 38:1), my venerable predecessor Pius XII, who had your Association so much
at heart, stated: "The doctor is a gift of God, this is why he has the
right not only to be honoured and esteemed by men,
but also to be thanked and trusted by them" (Discorsi e radiomessaggi di
Sua Santità Pius XII, vol.
XIV, p.107).
I wholeheartedly join in this dutiful gratitude
conscious of also having been one to benefit
from this
"gift of God".
3.You profess yourselves to be and your are Catholic doctors. As I have had the
opportunity
to recall
in other circumstances, "Being Catholic
is a qualification which commits you to witnessing by word and example to
faith in a life which transcends earthly events and belongs to a superior plan
of God" (Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo
II, vol V/3, 1992, p. 675).
Your work then, is a privileged form of human
solidarity and Christian witness. You qualify
your
work, enriching it with the spirit of faith. This does not inhibit your
collaboration with those who - perhaps in a different religious perspective or
without any clear opinion on religious issues - recognize the dignity and
excellence of the human person as the criterion for their activity. The Church
is for life and her preoccupation is that nothing should stand against life in
the reality of a concrete existence, however weak or defenceless
it may be, or however underdeveloped or retarded.
Being Catholic doctors then, means feeling that
you are health-care workers who receive
incentives
from your faith and communion with the Church to make your own Christian and
professional training increasingly mature, your dedication tireless, and
inexhaustible your need to penetrate and to know the natural laws - according
to the invaluable instruction of Humanae Vitae (cf.
n. 24) - in order to serve life better.
4.I know the fidelity, the courage, the constancy
with which your Association, in the course of its 50 years of existence, has
remained faithful to its Catholic commitment, rigorously respecting its
statutory aims to accept, implement and spread the Church's teaching and the
directives of her Magisterium in the moral and
medical sectors. This, which you have always considered your claim to
recognition, has been exemplarily proved every time you have been called to
offer your contribution in the ministerial and pastoral activity of the Church,
in defence of human life from its conception to its
natural end, the quality of life, respect for the weakest, the humanization of
medicine and its full socialization. This fidelity has required and requires
sacrifices which in specific circumstances can reach heroism, as when the
service of truth obliges you to dutiful conscientious objection.
5.The Church is aware of the importance of your
active participation in her life and mission.
This
activity - as the Second Vatican Council declared - "is so necessary that
without it the apostolate of the Pastors will frequently be unable to obtain
its full effect" (Decree Apostolicam actuositatem, n. 10). Today it can be seen that the
urgent need for this activity is unmistakably clear at the level of both
personal and group witness.
The Charter
of Health Care Workers, recently published by the Pontifical Council for
Pastoral
Assistance to Health Care Workers, after diligent and carefully considered
preparation, clearly outlines the figure of those (doctors, pharmacists,
religious or lay nurses, voluntary health-care workers) who are called to practise their profession in contemporary reality, which is
marked by the growing and obligatory involvement in the complex problems of
bioethics.
The Church has issued clear
directives in this respect. The commitment of the professed
Catholic doctor who wants to belong to an association recognized by
the ecclesiastical authorities as a form of lay apostolate, cannot but include
acceptance of the statutory norms which imply full and constant adherence to
the principles of Catholic teaching and the directives of the Church's Magisterium, in the matter of bioethics.
6.Fidelity to the Magisterium's
directives has in the past been the safeguard of unity, a factor
of
growth, a qualification of constancy and a criterion for your Association's
recognition. It should also continue to be so in the future. This is all the
more necessary at a time when your witness is called to be transparent and
unmistakable, in the certitude that the Church supports science in its constant
research. In fact, "The development of science and technology, this
splendid testimony of the human capacity for understanding and for
perseverance, does not free humanity from the obligation to ask the ultimate
religious questions. Rather, it spurs us on to face the most painful and
decisive of struggles, those of the heart and of the moral conscience"
(Encyclical Letter Veritatis splendor, n. 1)
Thus there is no conflict between science and
faith in the area of research and medical
practice
in the face of bioethical challenges, but rather a fruitful encounter,
propitiated by the common aim of celebrating in man that life, which is God's
gift. In this sense, your service to life becomes a qualifying form of
apostolate which fits well with the commitment to the new evangelization. Thus
10 years ago now, I wished to establish the Pontifical Council for Pastoral
Assistance to Health-Care Workers, which, through its explicit aim, receives and
spreads, at the level of pastoral assistance, the Christian witness given by
you Catholic doctors and all those working in the field of health care (cf. Motu Proprio Dolentium hominum, n. 6). You should therefore
consider this Pontifical Council as your own dicastery,
the first and most efficient reference for the pastoral dimension of your
commitment as Catholic doctors, especially with regard to the ever closer and
more effective co-ordination with international and national associations of
Catholic doctors.
7.Your Association enjoys a sort of legal
primogeniture in comparison with similar
associations which have gradually come into existence throughout the world. After
your example, and also because of your concerns, the European Federation of
Catholic Doctors (FEAMC) and the International Federation of Associations of
Catholic Doctors (FIAMC), within which you are authoritatively represented,
were established.
This commits you to being an example in the
exercise of your profession. Many eyes are
upon you.
Your words, your actions, your advice, your choices have an echo which goes
beyond the strictly professional field, and becomes, if it is consistent, a
witness of lived faith. The profession is thus raised to the dignity of a true
and proper apostolate. Indeed, as I pointed out already years ago, there is
"a necessary interaction between the exercise of the medical profession
and pastoral activity, since the single subject of both is man, understood in
his dignity as a child of God, a needy brother who requires help and comfort,
like us (Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo
II, vol. V/3, 1982, p. 676), and this proves particularly true in the
sectors that are the most closely connected with the promotion and defence of life, where laws are at stake which regulate its
transmission and preservation.
8.May your worthy Association's 50 years of
existence be felt by all, not as a mere historical
date, but
as a significant step which commits you to a further path of growth and
maturing, to be able to assume, in an increasingly socialized world, tasks
which are progressively more delicate and complex. Be open to collaboration
with all people and institutions which share with you love of life and which
strive to serve it in its dignity, sacredness and inviolability. Be able, in
particular, to harmonize your efforts with those of the priests, religious and all health-care workers, putting yourselves,
together with them, beside those who are suffering. They have great need of all
your support. Be ministers of fraternal charity, over and above treatment,
transmitting to all those you approach, with the contribution of your knowledge
the riches of your “heart”.
My sincere wish for each one of you, is that
you be beside those you assist with as much
care as I
was given by some of you who supported me when I was in need of treatment.
Together with the school of suffering which God assigned me, I have been able
to attend the school
of humanity, of which the doctors who looked after me were the most expert
teachers.
May the Blessed Virgin, particularly venerated
by your Association as Salus Infirmorum
and Mater Scientiae,
bless the resolutions which – as an effective commemoration of your 50th
anniversary – your propose for your future activities.
As a pledge of this cordial wish and
with my entreaty for divine assistance upon you, your
relatives,
and the entire Italian Catholic Medical Association, I impart my affectionate
Blessing to you all.