In today's society, Pope Francis denounced in his Speech to Catholic Gynecologists, «
health professions are sometimes induced to not respect life». «
A doctor’s final objective − he said −
is always the defense and promotion of life».
The Speech
1. The first reflection that I would like to share with you is this: today we are witnessing a paradoxical situation, with respect to the medical profession. On the one hand we see—thanks to God—progress in the medical field, thanks to the work of scientists who passionately and unreservedly dedicate themselves to the search for new cures. On the other hand, however, we also encounter the risk that doctors lose sight of their identity in the service of life. The cultural disorientation has also affected what looked like an unassailable area: yours, medicine! Although by nature they serve life, the health professions are sometimes induced to disregard life itself. Instead, as the Encyclical Caritas in Veritate reminded us, “Openness to life is at the center of true development.” There is no true development without this openness to life. “If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away. The acceptance of life strengthens moral fiber and makes people capable of mutual help” (n. 28). This paradoxical situation is visible in the fact that, while new rights are attributed to or indeed almost presumed by the individual, life is not always protected as the primary value and the primordial right of every human being. The ultimate aim of medicine remains the defense and promotion of life.
2. The second point: in this context of contradiction, the Church appeals to the conscience, the consciences of all health care professionals and volunteers, in a particular way to you Gynecologists, who are called to collaborate in the birth of new human lives. Yours is a singular vocation and mission, which necessitates study, conscience and humanity. There was a time when the women who helped in childbirth were called “co-mothers”: is like a mother to the other, with the real mother. You as well are “co-mothers” and “co-fathers”, yes you too.
A widespread mentality of utility, the “culture of waste,” which now enslaves the hearts and minds of many, has a very high cost: it requires the elimination of human beings, especially if they are physically or socially weaker. Our response to this mentality is a decisive, unhesitating “yes” to life. “The first right of the human person is his life. He has other goods and some are precious, but this one is fundamental—the condition for all the others” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion, November 18th, 1974, n. 11). Things have a price and are sold, but people have dignity, they are worth more than things and do not have a price. So often, we find ourselves in situations where we see that what costs the least is life. This is why, in recent years, attention to human life in its totality has become a real priority of the Church’s Magisterium, particularly with regard to the most defenseless, that is, the disabled, the sick, the unborn, the child, the elderly, which is the most defenseless life.
In the fragile human being each one 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, both in developing countries and in affluent societies. Each child that is not born, but is unjustly condemned to be aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, has the face of the Lord, who, even before he was born and then as soon as he was born, experienced the rejection of the world. And every senior—I talked about the child: now let's add the elderly, another point!—and every elderly person, even if he or she is sick or at the end of his/her days, bears the face of Christ. They cannot be discarded, as the "culture of waste" proposes! They cannot be discarded!
3. The third aspect is a mandate: bear witness to and disseminate the “culture of life.” Your being Catholic entails a great responsibility: first of all to yourself, through the effort to be consistent with the Christian vocation, and then to the contemporary culture, by helping people to recognize the transcendent dimension in human life, the imprint of God’s work of creation, from the very first moment of conception on. This is a commitment of the new evangelization that often requires going against the current, paying personally. The Lord is counting on you to spread the “Gospel of life.”
In this perspective, the units of gynecology in hospitals are privileged places for bearing witness and evangelization, because wherever the Church is “the vehicle of the presence of the living God,” it becomes at the same time an “instrument for true humanization of man and the world” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on some Aspects of Evangelization, n. 9). As people gradually become more aware that the focus of medical care and assistance is the human person who is in a position of weakness, the health facility becomes a “place in which the relationship of treatment is not a profession—your relationship of care is not a job—but a mission; where the charity of the Good Samaritan is the first seat of learning and the face of suffering man is Christ’s own Face” (Benedict XVI, Address at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, May 3rd, 2012).
Dear Friends, dear Doctors, you who are called to take care of human life in its initial phase, remind everyone, with facts and words, that it is sacred and always of quality, in all its phases and at any age. And do this not with a discourse on faith—no, no—but by means of reason, with a scientific discourse! There is no human life more sacred than another, as there is no human life more significant than another. The credibility of a health care system is measured not only on this basis of its efficiency, but also with regard to attention and love for people, whose life is always sacred and inviolable.
Do not ever neglect to ask the Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary for the strength to do your work well and to bear witness with courage—with courage! Today, it takes courage—to witness with courage to the “Gospel of life”!
Thank you very much.
