YOUR APOSTOLATE SERVES HUMAN LIFE
1.I am pleased to meet you on the
occasion of the third plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral
Assistance to Health Care Workers. It is significant that your session should
be taking place at the time when the Church is liturgically living the special
season of Lent, during which invitations to prayer and penitence, to conversion
and renewal, become pressing priorities. The liturgy in this period emphasizes
the value of suffering, which, when alleviated and comforted becomes the
opportunity for love; accepted and offered in union with the Sufferer of
Golgotha, it assumes redemptive, paschal efficacy.
How is it possible in this context
not to recognize the full importance of the Pontifical Council that you
constitute and represent? Its task is to show “the Church’s solicitude for the
sick”, carrying out and guiding “the apostolate of mercy” (cf. Pastoral
Constitution Pastor bonus, n. 152).
I therefore address my grateful and
cordial greetings to you, first of all to Cardinal Fiorenzo
Angelini, President of the dicastery,
whom I thank for his courteous words and for his rapid sketch explaining the
work achieved and yet to be accomplished; I then extend greetings to my
venerable brothers in the Episcopate, members of the dicastery,
to the Secretary and Undersecretary, to the priests, religious, lay people, consultors and experts. I express my most sincere gratitude
to all for their intense and enlightened activities over the past two years.
Human suffering has been redeemed in Christ's
cross
2.The ancient question, posed to the
human mind and heart by the existence of pain, recurs in our day on an
increasing scale and intensity. One observes with painful amazement that
suffering, the result of malice, selfishness and the detestable greed for money
and power, are assuming such proportions as to cause dismay.
The gift of life is attacked and violated
with regard to millions of unborn babies as well as numerous children condemned
by hatred and selfish calculation to having no future. At the same time, many
families are destroyed and entire social communities are threatened by
extinction in the ruthless massacre and holocaust of fratricidal wars.
The Church lives every form of human
suffering with deep, heartfelt participation, never giving in to the temptation
to become inured or passively resigned, but raising her maternal cry of warning
and entreaty, requesting her children to react with a commitment of love and
prayer. Even when the Christian feels humanly impotent before the tide of evil,
he knows that through prayer he can count on the omnipotence of God who does
not abandon those who trust in him.
The Church that prays and hopes
discovers in faith the answer to the daily question posed by suffering. She
knows that "it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the
mystery of man truly becomes clear" (Gaudium et spes, n. 22). She knows in particular
that "in the cross of Christ not only is the redemption accomplished
through suffering, but also human suffering itself has been redeemed" (Salvifici doloris, n.
19). In Christ, who "opened his suffering to man", man rediscovers
his own sufferings "through faith, enriched with a new content and a new
meaning" (ibid., n. 20).
3.Nevertheless, the Church is not
limited to offering the enlightened response of faith to those who are
suffering, but in accordance with her ancient practice, she assumes the burden
of human suffering. In accordance with the example of the divine Master who
"went around to all towns and villages...curing every disease and
illness" (Mt 9:35), she does not tire of increasing her efforts to
alleviate humanity's pain and suffering. With this aim, she exhorts every
Christian to act like the Good Samaritan in what is "critical for fully
understanding the commandment of love of neighbour"
(Veritatis splendor, n. 14).
Dear brothers and sisters, it is
your task to promote and invigorate this apostolate characterized by serving
life, whose value and nobility are particularly radiant in those who suffer.
Hence, I cannot fail to be satisfied with the many projects that your dicastery has sponsored with tireless zeal - in sensitizing
people, forming consciences, co-operating at all levels and assisting the needy
- in support of the magnificent work of safeguarding life when it is
threatened. This is demonstrated by your participation in national and
international projects for promoting health, by your constant contact with the
other dicasteries of the Roman Curia and with the
Episcopal Conferences, by your pastoral visits to hospitals, by your publishing
activities to publicize the directives of the Church's Magisterium,
by your participation in important international conferences on topics
regarding the protection of life, by your effort for inter-Church and
ecumenical communion, by your concrete attention to specific situations
requiring immediate intervention, and finally, by the recognition you have
received from the most important world organizations involved in health care.
It is demonstrated, finally, by this new Academy for Life, created by the Holy
See and presided over by Professor Lejeune.
4.On 11 February last, for the second
time the Church celebrated the World Day of the Sick. On that occasion I wished
to recall the publication of the Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris. That document was the immediate
prelude to the foundation of your dicastery, which,
in conformity with the content and indications of the "Gospel of
suffering" has so effectively contributed to increasing new awareness
throughout the ecclesial community, in service to human suffering.
During the nine years of its
existence, your Pontifical Council has experienced constant growth. Hence it is
significant that I chose 11 February last to sign the Motu
Proprio Vitae mysterium, with which I established the Pontifical Academy for Life. Associated
with the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers,
this new institution must operate closely with it, to fulfil
its specific task to "study and to provide information and training about
the principal problems of law and biomedicine pertaining to the promotion and
protection of life, especially in the direct relationship they have with
Christian morality and the directives of the Church's Magisterium"
(n. 4).
We meet Christ in those suffering injustice
5.In a general effort of
evangelization, the Church today is committed to accepting the challenges of
society in our time, the boundless and rampant forms of suffering and
loneliness are perhaps one of the most disturbing aspects of these challenges.
Dear brothers and sisters, you are
called to work in this arduous apostolic and missionary field, supported by
faith and strengthened by prayer. In meeting suffering humanity, believers know
that they are meeting Christ himself, whose Holy Face is the face of those who
bear the endless crosses imposed on them by injustice, violence and selfishness.
One perceives in this service to
those who suffer the most fertile ground for vocations. This is confirmed
by the growing forms of Christian
volunteer work and the number of vocations to the priesthood and to special
consecration that are growing in the parts of the world most afflicted by
suffering.
In this regard, I am pleased with
what your dicastery is doing, in terms of study,
proposals and projects, for the celebration
of the Ninth General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which
next autumn will address the theme of the consecrated life and its mission
in the Church and in the world. Indeed,
it is your task to examine in detail the particular charism
of religious in serving the sick, considering health and illness as the
privileged area for consecrated individuals to preach the Gospel, in the
well-founded awareness of the close bond between pastoral work in health care
and in promoting vocations.
As I entrust your projects and
intentions to the Blessed Virgin, “the living icon of the Gospel of suffering”,
since in her heart “the pain of the Son for the world’s salvation was reflected
in a unique and incomparable way” (Message
for World Day of the Sick, n. 6, L’Osservatore Romano English
edition, 22 December 1993, p.7). I
encourage you to persevere in your work with fresh enthusiasm and I impart my
Blessing to you and your co-workers as a token of special affection.