At 12:30pm today in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father received in audience a group of Catholic Gynecologists who are participating in a gathering which is promoted by the International Federation of Associations of Catholic Doctors.
Please excuse my late arrival; today .... this has been a very complicated morning, with audiences ... Please excuse me.
The first reflection that I want to share with you is this: we are participating today in a paradoxical situation as regards the medical profession. On one hand, we can see - and I thank God for this - the progress of medicine, thanks to the work of scientists who, with passion and without sparing any efforts, are dedicated to research and to finding new cures. On the other hand however, we risk the danger that doctors might lose their identities as servants of life. Cultural disorientation has also affected what once may have been believed to be an untouchable arena, your arena, medicine! Although by nature they are at the service of life, the health professions are sometimes enticed to disregard life itself. Instead, as we remember from the Encyclical Caritas in veritate, openness to life is at the centre of true development. There is no true development without this openness to life. If you lose a sense of personal and social sensitivity toward the acceptance of a new life, then other forms of acceptance which are valuable for society will also wither. Acceptance of life strengthens moral fibre and makes people capable of mutual help (CV, 28). The paradoxical situation is seen in the fact that, while giving new rights to a person - sometimes even alleged rights - these rights do not always protect life as a primary value and basic right of every man. The ultimate objective of a doctor's actions remains always the defence and the promotion of life.
The second point: in this contradictory sense, the Church appeals to conscience, to the consciences of all health care professionals and volunteers, in a particular way the Church appeals to you gynecologists, called to collaborate in the creation of new human lives. Yours is a unique vocation and mission, which requires study, conscience and humanity. At one time, the women who helped in childbirth called comadre were like mothers to the others, in the real sense of mothers. You too are comadri and compadri.
A widespread mentality of usefulness, the culture of waste, which now enslaves the hearts and minds of many, carries with it a very high cost: it requires the elimination of human beings, especially if they are physically or socially weak. Our response to this mentality is a decisive and non-hesitating yes to life. The first right of the human person is his life. He has other goods and some of them are more precious, but human life is the fundamental condition for all others "(Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , Declaration on Procured Abortion, November 18, 1974, 11). Things have a price and are sold, but people have a dignity, worth more than things and do not have a price. Many times, we find ourselves in situations where we see that life is the least of the costs. For this reason, attention to human life in its totality has become in recent years a real priority of the Magisterium of the Church, particularly for the most defenceless, that is, the disabled, the sick, the unborn child, children, the elderly, those who are the most vulnerable.
In our human fragility, each of us is invited to recognize the face of the Lord, who in his human flesh experienced the indifference and loneliness that often condemn the poorest among us, both in countries in the developing world and in affluent societies. Every unborn child who is unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ, the Lord's face, and even before he is born, and then even as a newborn he experiences rejection in the world. And every senior, and - I talked about the child: let's go to the elderly, another point! And every elderly who is sick, or even if at the end of his days, carries the face of Christ. You can not discard them, as we proposed to do in the culture of waste! You cannot discard these little ones!
The third aspect is a mandate: be witnesses and promoters of this culture of life. Your being Catholic entails greater responsibility: first of all to yourself, for the effort to be consistent with the Christian vocation, and then to contemporary culture, to help recognize the transcendent dimension in human life, the imprint of the creative work of God, from the very first moment of conception. This is a commitment to the new evangelization that often requires going against the current, even personally paying the price. The Lord is counting on you to spread the Gospel of life.
In this perspective, hospital gynecology departments are privileged places of witness and evangelization, because wherever the Church is found, the vehicle of the presence of living God also becomes an instrument of the true humanization of man and the world (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization , 9). Growing in awareness that the focus of medical care is the human person in a position of weakness, the health facility becomes the place where the care relationship is not a job - your job is not merely a caring relationship - but a mission where the charity of the Good Samaritan is the first priority and the face of the sufferer, the Face of Christ (Benedict XVI, Address at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, May 3, 2012).
Dear doctor friends, you who are called to take care of human life in its initial phases, you must remind everyone, with facts and words, that this work is always, in all its phases and at any age, sacred and valuable work. It is not merely a matter of faith - no, no - it is a matter of reason and faith enlightening and in dialogue with science! There is no human life more sacred than another, just as there is no human life qualitatively more significant than another. The credibility of a health care system is measured not only by its efficiency, but also by the attention and love it shows towards people, whose lives are always sacred and inviolable.
Do not ever neglect your prayer to the Lord and to the Virgin Mary, asking them for the strength to do your job well and to bear witness with courage - courage! Today it takes courage - courage to bear witness to the Gospel of life! Thank you very much!
Address of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
to Catholic Gynecologists
Please excuse my late arrival; today .... this has been a very complicated morning, with audiences ... Please excuse me.
The first reflection that I want to share with you is this: we are participating today in a paradoxical situation as regards the medical profession. On one hand, we can see - and I thank God for this - the progress of medicine, thanks to the work of scientists who, with passion and without sparing any efforts, are dedicated to research and to finding new cures. On the other hand however, we risk the danger that doctors might lose their identities as servants of life. Cultural disorientation has also affected what once may have been believed to be an untouchable arena, your arena, medicine! Although by nature they are at the service of life, the health professions are sometimes enticed to disregard life itself. Instead, as we remember from the Encyclical Caritas in veritate, openness to life is at the centre of true development. There is no true development without this openness to life. If you lose a sense of personal and social sensitivity toward the acceptance of a new life, then other forms of acceptance which are valuable for society will also wither. Acceptance of life strengthens moral fibre and makes people capable of mutual help (CV, 28). The paradoxical situation is seen in the fact that, while giving new rights to a person - sometimes even alleged rights - these rights do not always protect life as a primary value and basic right of every man. The ultimate objective of a doctor's actions remains always the defence and the promotion of life.
The second point: in this contradictory sense, the Church appeals to conscience, to the consciences of all health care professionals and volunteers, in a particular way the Church appeals to you gynecologists, called to collaborate in the creation of new human lives. Yours is a unique vocation and mission, which requires study, conscience and humanity. At one time, the women who helped in childbirth called comadre were like mothers to the others, in the real sense of mothers. You too are comadri and compadri.
A widespread mentality of usefulness, the culture of waste, which now enslaves the hearts and minds of many, carries with it a very high cost: it requires the elimination of human beings, especially if they are physically or socially weak. Our response to this mentality is a decisive and non-hesitating yes to life. The first right of the human person is his life. He has other goods and some of them are more precious, but human life is the fundamental condition for all others "(Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , Declaration on Procured Abortion, November 18, 1974, 11). Things have a price and are sold, but people have a dignity, worth more than things and do not have a price. Many times, we find ourselves in situations where we see that life is the least of the costs. For this reason, attention to human life in its totality has become in recent years a real priority of the Magisterium of the Church, particularly for the most defenceless, that is, the disabled, the sick, the unborn child, children, the elderly, those who are the most vulnerable.
In our human fragility, each of us is invited to recognize the face of the Lord, who in his human flesh experienced the indifference and loneliness that often condemn the poorest among us, both in countries in the developing world and in affluent societies. Every unborn child who is unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ, the Lord's face, and even before he is born, and then even as a newborn he experiences rejection in the world. And every senior, and - I talked about the child: let's go to the elderly, another point! And every elderly who is sick, or even if at the end of his days, carries the face of Christ. You can not discard them, as we proposed to do in the culture of waste! You cannot discard these little ones!
The third aspect is a mandate: be witnesses and promoters of this culture of life. Your being Catholic entails greater responsibility: first of all to yourself, for the effort to be consistent with the Christian vocation, and then to contemporary culture, to help recognize the transcendent dimension in human life, the imprint of the creative work of God, from the very first moment of conception. This is a commitment to the new evangelization that often requires going against the current, even personally paying the price. The Lord is counting on you to spread the Gospel of life.
In this perspective, hospital gynecology departments are privileged places of witness and evangelization, because wherever the Church is found, the vehicle of the presence of living God also becomes an instrument of the true humanization of man and the world (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization , 9). Growing in awareness that the focus of medical care is the human person in a position of weakness, the health facility becomes the place where the care relationship is not a job - your job is not merely a caring relationship - but a mission where the charity of the Good Samaritan is the first priority and the face of the sufferer, the Face of Christ (Benedict XVI, Address at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, May 3, 2012).
Dear doctor friends, you who are called to take care of human life in its initial phases, you must remind everyone, with facts and words, that this work is always, in all its phases and at any age, sacred and valuable work. It is not merely a matter of faith - no, no - it is a matter of reason and faith enlightening and in dialogue with science! There is no human life more sacred than another, just as there is no human life qualitatively more significant than another. The credibility of a health care system is measured not only by its efficiency, but also by the attention and love it shows towards people, whose lives are always sacred and inviolable.
Do not ever neglect your prayer to the Lord and to the Virgin Mary, asking them for the strength to do your job well and to bear witness with courage - courage! Today it takes courage - courage to bear witness to the Gospel of life! Thank you very much!
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