(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis met with the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors on Saturday. He urged them to resist “false compassion” and “witness by word and by example that human life is always sacred, valuable, and inviolable.”
Listen to Andrew Summerson’s report:
Read the full statement below:
I welcome you on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors. In particular, I address a cordial greeting to the chaplain, Msgr. Edward Menichelli, to Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini, who for decades has followed the life of the Association, and to the President, whom I thank for the words with which he introduced this meeting. With gratitude, I greet the Minister of Health, Mrs. Beatrice Lorenzin. And with great affection, I welcome these sick children and their families.
There is no doubt that, in our time, due to scientific and technical advancements, the possibilities for physical healing have significantly increased; and yet, in some respects it seems the ability to “take care” of the person has decreased, especially when he is sick, frail and helpless. In fact, the achievements of science and of medicine can contribute to the improvement of human life to the extent that they are not distanced from the ethical root of these disciplines. For this reason, you Catholic doctors are committed to live your profession as a human and spiritual mission, as a real lay apostolate.
Attention to human life, especially that in greatest difficulty, that is, to the sick, the elderly, children, deeply involves the mission of the Church. The Church also feels called to participate in the debate that relates to human life, presenting its proposal based on the Gospel. In many places, the quality of life is related primarily to economic means, to “well-being”, to the beauty and enjoyment of the physical, forgetting other more profound dimensions of existence — interpersonal, spiritual and religious. In fact, in the light of faith and right reason, human life is always sacred and always “of quality”. There is no human life that is more sacred than another – every human life is sacred – just as there is no human life qualitatively more significant than another, only by virtue of resources, rights, great social and economic opportunities.
This is what you, Catholic doctors, try to say, first of all with your professionalism. Your work wants to witness by word and by example that human life is always sacred, valuable and inviolable. And as such, it must be loved, defended and cared for. Your professionalism, enriched with the spirit of faith, is one more reason to work with those— even from different religious perspectives or thought—who recognize the dignity of the human person as a criterion for their activities. In fact, if the Hippocratic Oath commits you to always be servants of life, the Gospel pushes you further: to love it no matter what, especially when it is in need of special care and attention. This is what the members of your Association have done over seventy years of fine work. I urge you to continue with humility and trust on this road, striving to pursue your statutory goals of implementing the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church in the field of medical ethics.
The dominant thinking sometimes suggests a “false compassion”, that which believes that it is: helpful to women to promote abortion; an act of dignity to obtain euthanasia; a scientific breakthrough to “produce” a child and to consider it to be a right rather than a gift to welcome; or to use human lives as guinea pigs presumably to save others. Instead, the compassion of the Gospel is that which accompanies in times of need, that is, the compassion of the Good Samaritan, who “sees”, “has compassion”, approaches and provides concrete help (cf. Lk 10:33). Your mission as doctors puts you in daily contact with many forms of suffering. I encourage you to take them on as “Good Samaritans”, caring in a special way for the elderly, the infirm and the disabled. Fidelity to the Gospel of life and respect for life as a gift from God sometimes require choices that are courageous and go against the current, which in particular circumstances, may become points of conscientious objection. And this fidelity entails many social consequences. We are living in a time of experimentation with life. But a bad experiment. Making children rather than accepting them as a gift, as I said. Playing with life. Be careful, because this is a sin against the Creator: against God the Creator, who created things this way. When so many times in my life as a priest I have heard objections: “But tell me, why the Church is opposed to abortion, for example? Is it a religious problem?” No, no. It is not a religious problem. “Is it a philosophical problem?” No, it is not a philosophical problem. It’s a scientific problem, because there is a human life there, and it is not lawful to take out a human life to solve a problem. “But no, modern thought…” But, listen, in ancient thought and modern thought, the word “kill” means the same thing. The same evaluation applies to euthanasia: we all know that with so many old people, in this culture of waste, there is this hidden euthanasia. But there is also the other. And this is to say to God, “No, I will accomplish the end of life, as I will.” A sin against God the Creator! Think hard about this.
I hope the seventy years of your association will stimulate a further process of growth and maturation. May you work constructively with all the people and institutions who share your love of life and seek to serve it in its dignity, sanctity and inviolability. St. Camillus de Lellis, in suggesting the most effective method in caring for the sick, would simply say: “Put more heart into those hands.” Put more heart in these hands! This is also my hope. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Salus infirmorum , support the intentions with which you intend to continue your action. I ask you to please pray for me and I give you my heartfelt blessing.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Young men and women from around the world who are engaged in the fight to end the traffic in human persons are the protagonists this weekend at a symposium here at the Vatican that is examining the best ways of preventing human trafficking and supporting victims of the phenomenon. The two day meeting has been jointly organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the interfaith Global Freedom Network and the Argentinian anti-trafficking association ‘Vinculos En Red’.
Click below to hear Amedeo Lomonaco’s interview with the Chancellor of the Pontifical Academies for Sciences and for Social Sciences, Archbishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo
Below, please find the announcement of the symposium from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences .
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Joint Workshop of the PAS and the Global Freedom Network, 15-16 November 2014 – The estimates of prostitution and human trafficking are staggering. Precise statistics are impossible, given the hidden and criminal nature of these abuses but it is estimated that globally, despite the Palermo Protocol, there are about 21 million men, women, children tricked, sold, coerced or subjected to conditions of slavery in various forms and in various sectors: construction, maquilas,[1] agriculture, domestic service, prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, forced marriage, child soldiers, organ trafficking, sale of children, etc. An annual increase of around three million people must be added to this figure.[2]
It is obvious that women, girls and children are the most affected by violence and discrimination in education and – through occupational segregation – in the workplace and are disproportionately represented in the informal sectors of employment. This makes them especially vulnerable and subjected to huge economic uncertainty and, therefore, more likely to migrate, usually irregularly, despite the risks and implications entailed. The sectors where “female demand” is traditionally available are largely informal, unregulated and poorly protected, making them more dependent on networks of intermediaries, be it pimps, traffickers or smugglers. These factors, among others, are more likely to cause women to fall prey to prostitution, trafficking and exploitation worldwide.
Those who suffer repeated acts of physical or psychological aggression generally fall into a state of depression, loss of self-esteem or situations of extreme vulnerability that put them at greater risk of becoming victims of abuse, mistreatment, cruel or degrading behaviour, prostitution or human trafficking, particularly in the case of children or adolescents. Technological progress has enabled us to comprehend the extent of these problems and the many forms they take globally. The following topics are often addressed by the media and available on the Internet:
· Women exploited in specific sectors such as domestic work or the sex industry.
· Women attracted by alleged profitable work contracts who end up in brothels or nightclubs all over the world, selling their bodies for petty cash and forced into a living hell from which it is very difficult to escape.
· Women and girls from rural areas sold and coerced to meet the demand for sex tourism.
· Girls deceived by alleged boyfriends promising marriage and a family who turn out to be accomplices of the traffickers and force them into prostitution.
· Tourist listings and special offers describing exotic women and girls that are easily accessible via all-inclusive charter flights.
Prostitution and trafficking of women and girls all over the world, although seemingly sizeable at the domestic level, also respond to a vast international demand. Traditionally, the most active recruitment centres used to be located in poor countries, but recruitment is becoming widespread even in neighbourhoods and schools in big cities like London, Madrid, Paris, etc., often through social networking websites.
We must also take into account the significant portion of people who are victims of these new forms of slavery despite having some kind of paperwork and legitimate jobs. The sponsorship system in place in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, and Oman means that workers have to rely on their employers’ endorsement to obtain their work visas. There are locals who have turned this sponsorship into a business for which they charge foreigners a percentage of their wages. Even without resorting to that, employers are entitled to keep the passports of their employees, leaving them unable to travel or quit their jobs without their permission. In the hands of the less scrupulous, it is a tool for blackmail. It is not unusual for employees to have to sign settlements far below what they deserve in order to get their passports and their freedom back. The situation of domestic workers, mostly women, is especially appalling. These brave women and girls who leave their home countries and their families often end up in situations of violence, exploitation and abuse. Sexual abuse is an even trickier topic. A recent report by Human Rights Watch shows that these people are often victims of “physical and verbal abuse, sexual harassment and rape”.[3]
In addressing this complex problem, empowerment, awareness-raising, and the training and development and/or strengthening of young people’s networks are crucial to:
– Condemn prostitution as a human rights violation and trafficking in persons as a crime against humanity around the world, beyond the particularities that each country adopts.
– Strengthen the visibility and/or promote actions aiming at prevention adopted as an instrument of rights recognition and defence.
– Strengthen family structures as an anchor and support of a world of possibilities and opportunities for all, to build a more just, equitable and inclusive society.
– Empowering young people to play a leading role within the State and civil society to change the paradigm and imagine a world without violence and prostitution, free of human trafficking.
As Pope Francis told the young people gathered in Rio de Janeiro’s Cathedral last year, “I hope there will be noise. Here there will be noise, I’m quite sure. Here in Rio there will be plenty of noise, no doubt about that. But I want you to make yourselves heard in your dioceses, I want the noise to go out, I want the Church to go out onto the streets, I want us to resist everything worldly, everything static, everything comfortable, everything to do with clericalism, everything that might make us closed in on ourselves”. And when they asked him, “So what must we do, Father?”, Francis replied “Look, read the Beatitudes: that will do you good. If you want to know what you actually have to do, read Matthew Chapter 25, which is the standard by which we will be judged. With these two things you have the action plan: the Beatitudes and Matthew 25. You do not need to read anything else. I ask you this with all my heart”.[4]
Footnotes:
[1] A manufacturing operation in a Free Trade Zone (FTZ), where factories import material and equipment on a duty-free and tariff-free basis for assembly, processing, or manufacturing and then export the assembled, processed and/or manufactured products, sometimes back to the raw materials’ country of origin. Source: Wikipedia.
[2] International Labor Organization, Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour, Geneva, 2014. However, the latest edition of the Global Slavery Index, released in October by the Walk Free Foundation, put the figure at almost 30 million for a broader category including forced labor, trafficking, and other forms of servitude such as child marriage.
[3] Human Rights Watch, the International Domestic Workers Network, and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Claiming Rights. Domestic Workers’ Movements and Global Advances for Labor Reform, 28 October 2013, 33 pages.
[4] Apostolic Journey to Rio de Janeiro on the Occasion of the XXVIII World Youth Day, Meeting With Young People From Argentina, Address Of Holy Father Francis, 25 July 2013.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The Catholic Church will open the Year for Consecrated Life on the first Sunday of Advent, with a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica.
Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, will preside in the name of Pope Francis, who will be still on his apostolic trip to Turkey that day.
The first Sunday of Advent, which this year falls on 30 November, marks the start of the Church’s liturgical year. The Mass to inaugurate the Year for Consecrated Life will begin at 10 a.m.
(from Vatican Radio)…
Manila – “The papal visit will surely bring much blessing to the Filipinos, especially to the poor, the survivors of recent natural and human-caused calamities, and the victims of injustices. The concern and solidarity of Jesus the Good Shepherd will be palpable in the person and in the presence of Pope Francis”: says the Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, in a note sent to Agenzia Fides after the publication of the program of the papal visit, who will be in Sri Lanka from January 13 to 15 and then in the Philippines until 19 January 2015. Cardinal Tagle remarks: “The Pope’s visit draws all Christians to personal and social responsibility. As disciples of Jesus Christ driven by the Holy Spirit, we will be challenged to reach out with love to the neglected and abandoned, to help heal the wounds inflicted on children, women and families, to respect who differ from us, to form the youth in responsible freedom, to value life and creation, and to imbue our culture and society with mercy and compassion. With the Pope let us spread the Gospel of hope with joy”. Since the visit to the Philippines will be on the theme “mercy and compassion”, the Archbishop calls the faithful to live these values which need to be “purified and strengthened by constantly listening to the Word of God, by frequently participating in the Eucharist”, reconciling with God and with others, doing acts of justice and love….
Vatican City, 14 November 2014 (VIS) – This morning, in the Holy See Press Office, a conference was held to present the Third World Congress of Ecclesial Movements and new communities. Promoted and organised by the Pontifical Council for the Laity on the theme “The Joy of the Gospel: a missionary joy”, the Congress will be held from 20 to 22 November in the Maria Mater Ecclesiae Pontifical College, Rome. The speakers in the conference were Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity; Bishop Josef Clemens, secretary of the same dicastery; Maria Voce, president of the Focolare Movement; and Jean-Luc Moens, president of Fidesco, young volunteers in evangelisation and development projects, and member of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”. Cardinal Rylko remarked that the Pontifical Magisterium has perceived in the phenomenon of movements “a current of grace, a gift and a timely response from the Holy Spirit to the serious challenges that today’s world poses to the mission of the Church”. He recalled that, for St. John Paul II, movements constituted a “reason for hope for the Church and for mankind”, and were seen by Pope Benedict XVI as “new incursions of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church, powerful ways of living faith, a healthy provocation, of which the Church is always in need, and ‘creative minorities’, decisive for the future of humanity”. He added that Pope Francis, in this respect, is in perfect harmony with his predecessors. The Congress will be attended by approximately three hundred laypersons – founders, moderators and general delegates – representing around a hundred movements and new communities, with a broad international dimension. They will be joined by a large number of pastors, bishops and priests. The prelate explained that the novelty of this Congress derives from the fact that it originated from the great meeting with the Pope that took place at Pentecost in 2013 in the context of the Year of Faith, and added that the theme of the congress clearly expresses that “our work is guided by the Apostolic Exhortation ‘Evangelii gaudium’. This is the great challenge that Pope Francis presents to us. … He wants an ‘outbound’ Church, that reaches out to the geographical and existential peripheries of our world, a Church that is particularly attentive and close to all the poor, suffering and excluded, the bitter product of the ‘throwaway culture’ that dominates nowadays. … And it is precisely this that is the great and fundamental challenge that the movements wish to accept during this third world Congress’”….