DEFEND, PROMOTE AND LOVE THE LIFE OF EVERY HUMAN BEING

VATICAN CITY, JUL 7, 2000 (VIS) - At noon today in St. Peter's Basilica, John Paul II welcomed 6,000 Catholic doctors and members of their families, who are in Rome for the Jubilee of Doctors and who also have been participating in the 20th World Congress of Catholic Doctors, which began July 3 in Rome.

The participants in the medical congress, including scientists from around the world, are members of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors and the European Federation of Catholic Medical Associations.

The Holy Father underscored that "the theme of the congress, 'Medicine and Human Rights', is very important not only for the cultural effort which links the progress of medicine with the ethical and juridical needs of the human person, but also because it is a current topic because of the effective or potential violations of the basic right to life on which all other rights of the person rest."

"Your mission as doctors," he pointed out, "places you in daily contact with the mysterious and stupendous reality of human life, encouraging you to bear the sufferings and hopes of so many of our brothers and sisters." He added that they must offer the ill, "not only medical care and technical services, ... but also that special spiritual medicine which consists of the warmth of authentic human contact. ... The patient must be helped to rediscover not only physical well-being but also psychological and moral well-being."

"You know well, dear Catholic doctors, that your indispensable mission is to defend, promote and love the life of every human being, from its beginning to its natural end." The Pope remarked that society today "is often dominated by an abortion culture" which attacks human life at its inception and which leads to a mentality condoning euthanasia, an attack on life at its very end.

"You know," the Holy Father went on, "that a Catholic is never allowed to be an accomplice in a presumed right to abortion or to euthanasia. Legislation favoring such crimes, being intrinsically immoral, can never be a moral imperative for the doctor, who can make use of the right of conscientious objector."
Pope John Paul then turned to the "many worrisome forms of attacks on health and life, which should be courageously faced by every person truly respectful of life": the destruction, suffering and death caused by wars and conflicts, as well as epidemics and illnesses. "There is a vast field of action open to you," he told the doctors. There is also much to be done, he added, to assist those countries where poor people have insufficient health care and medicine, or are dying of diseases, "in the face of a general indifference." "Make your hearts sensitive to these silent appeals!"

The Pope then urged the researchers in biomedical sciences, present at today's audience, "to generously offer their contribution to assure mankind of the conditions for better health, always respecting the dignity and sacredness of human life."

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