Health care is not a business, but a service to life, pope says
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By Cindy WoodenVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A nation's health care system cannotbe run simply as a business because human lives are at stake, Pope Francis said."If there is a sector in which the 'throwaway culture'demonstrates its most painful consequences, it is the health care sector,"the pope told patients, medical professionals, pastors and volunteers attendinga meeting sponsored by the Italian bishops' national office for health care ministry.Anticipating the celebration Feb. 12 of the World Day of theSick and marking the 20th anniversary of the bishops' office, the pope saidCatholics obviously give thanks for the advances in medicine and technologythat have enabled doctors to cure or provide better care for the sick.He also praised medical personnel who carry out their workas "ministers of life and participants in the affectionate love of God thecreator. Each day their hands touch the suffering body of Christ, and this is agreat honor and a great responsibility," he said.But, the po...
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A nation's health care system cannot
be run simply as a business because human lives are at stake, Pope Francis said.
"If there is a sector in which the 'throwaway culture'
demonstrates its most painful consequences, it is the health care sector,"
the pope told patients, medical professionals, pastors and volunteers attending
a meeting sponsored by the Italian bishops' national office for health care ministry.
Anticipating the celebration Feb. 12 of the World Day of the
Sick and marking the 20th anniversary of the bishops' office, the pope said
Catholics obviously give thanks for the advances in medicine and technology
that have enabled doctors to cure or provide better care for the sick.
He also praised medical personnel who carry out their work
as "ministers of life and participants in the affectionate love of God the
creator. Each day their hands touch the suffering body of Christ, and this is a
great honor and a great responsibility," he said.
But, the pope said, any public policy or private initiative regarding
health care that does not make the dignity of the human person its central
concern "engenders attitudes that can even lead to exploitation of the
misfortune of others. And this is very serious."
"Indiscriminately adopting a business model in health
care, instead of optimizing resources," he said, risks treating some of
the sick as disposable. "Optimizing resources means using them in an ethical
way, with solidarity, and not penalizing the most fragile."
Protecting human life from the moment of conception to the
moment of natural death means that "money alone cannot guide political and
administrative choices" in health care, he said. And the increasing lack
of health care "among the poorest segments of the population, due to lack
of access to care, must leave no one indifferent."
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Pope Francis waves while traveling by boat in Venice, Italy, for a meeting with young people at the Basilica della Madonna della Salute on April 28, 2024. Earlier in the day he met with inmates at a women's prison. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNARome Newsroom, Apr 28, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).Pope Francis opened his one-day visit to Venice on Sunday morning with a meeting with female inmates where he reaffirmed the importance of fraternity and human dignity, noting that prison can be a place of new beginnings. "A stay in prison can mark the beginning of something new, through the rediscovery of the unsuspected beauty in us and in others, as symbolized by the artistic event you are hosting and the project to which you actively contribute," the pope said to the female inmates gathered in the intimate courtyard of the Women's Prison on the Island of Giudecca. Pope Francis left the Vatican by helicopter at approximately 6:30 in the mo...
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Pope Francis prays in front of the tomb of St. Mark the Evangelist inside St. Mark's Basilica in Venice on April 28, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNARome Newsroom, Apr 28, 2024 / 09:35 am (CNA).Pope Francis had a full slate of events Sunday during his day trip to Venice, a trip that tied together a message of unity and fraternity with the artistic patrimony of a city that has been a privileged place of encounter across the centuries. "Faith in Jesus, the bond with him, does not imprison our freedom. On the contrary, it opens us to receive the sap of God's love, which multiplies our joy, takes care of us like a skilled vintner, and brings forth shoots even when the soil of our life becomes arid," the pope said to over 10,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Mark's Square. Framing his homily during the Mass on the theme of unity, one of the central points articulated throughout several audiences spread across the morning, Pope Francis reminded Christians: "Remaining ...
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Prayer house at San Simeone, Italy, September 2012. / Credit: Courtesy of Ricostruttori nella preghieraRome, Italy, Apr 28, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).Across Italy there are houses of prayer run by the Ricostruttori (Reconstructors) community, a Catholic movement dedicated to people who are far from the Church but attracted to spirituality, particularly Eastern meditation and Buddhist practices. The Reconstructors was founded in 1978 by Jesuit Father Gian Vittorio Cappelletto. "During the postconciliar period, the Church was faced with the need for new forms of evangelization and apostolate, to reach out to people who were drifting away," Don Roberto Rondanina, priest and superior of the Ricostruttori, explained to CNA. "It was a time when Eastern meditation, Hinduism, Buddhism, the New Age ... were beginning to spread in Europe." "Father Cappelletto, who lived in Turin, sought to understand the meaning of this 'flight to the East' and felt the need to find new forms of sp...
