Pope to Health Care Workers: humanity, stewardship, mission
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a Message to the participants in the thirty-first international conference of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers. The theme of this year’s iteration of the annual conference is: Towards a Culture of Health that is Welcoming and Supportive: at the Service of People with Rare and Neglected Pathologies.
In his Message to participants, Pope Francis highlights three “cornerstones” of good care in a Catholic context: the primacy of the human person along with an integrated, integral awareness of the place of human being within the economy of creation and the duty to stewardship of the created order; the missionary and “outward-moving” character of the Church’s commitment to caring for the sick; the question of justice involved in assuring the necessary care to people suffering disease – especially rare disease – and without means to care for themselves or get the care they need.
“On these three cornerstones, which I believe can be shared by anybody who holds dear the eminent value of the human being,” writes Pope Francis, “one can identify realistic, courageous, generous and supportive solutions to addressing even more effectively, and to solving, the health-care emergency of ‘rare’ and ‘neglected’ diseases.”
The Holy Father goes on to write, “In the name of this love for man, for every man, above all for suffering man, I express to all of you, participants in the thirty-first international conference of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, the wish that you will have a renewed impetus and generous dedication towards sick people, as well as a tireless drive towards the greatest common good in the health-care field.”