Pope Francis addressed a group of Catholic medical professionals and implored them to reject the “culture of waste” that is eliminating so many human beings and to embrace the culture of life no matter what the personal cost. AsiaNews.it is reporting that the pope was addressing participants who were attending the 10th International Conference on Catholicism and Maternal Healthcare, telling them that “no human life is more sacred than another.”
The Pope highlighted the “paradoxical situation” of medical advances by scientists who are dedicated to the search for new cures. However, on the other hand, “cultural disorientation” leads “the health professions to disregard life itself sometimes even though they, by their very nature, are in the service of life,” he said.
“The acceptance of life strengthens people’s moral fiber and makes them capable of mutual help. The paradoxical situation can be seen in the fact that as people gain new rights, alleged ones sometimes, the right to life is not always protected as the primary and primordial of value every person. The final goal of medical action is always the defense and the promotion of life.”
In this contradictory context, “the Church appeals to the conscience of all health care professionals and volunteers,” particularly to gynecologists, to oppose the ‘culture of waste’ that “now enslaves hearts and minds of so many.”
He went on to address the high cost of that culture which “requires the elimination of human beings, especially those who are physically or socially weaker.”
The Catholic health care worker’s response to this mind-set must be “a decisive and unhesitant ‘yes’ to life,” he said.
“Things might have a price and might be sold, but people have dignity. They are worth more than things and no price can be put on them. For this reason, caring for human life in its totality has become in recent years a real priority for the Magisterium of the Church, particularly in the case of the most defenseless, that is, the disabled, the sick, the unborn child, children, and the elderly”.
He went on to say that the mandate of a Catholic doctor is “to be witnesses and promoters of the ‘culture of life’. 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, and 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 commitment to the new evangelization often requires going against the prevailing grain, at a cost to oneself.”
However, he added, “the Lord counts on you to spread the ‘Gospel of life’.”
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