| Dear friends, It is for me a great pleasure and honour to open the XXI World Congress of FIAMC in Seoul.
In times of consumerism and practical materialism, we are here to witness the breath of the Spirit.
In times of individualism, we are here to reaffirm that the individual is part of the community in which he roots his beliefs and with which he shares solidarity and strength.
In times of temptations of power and profit, we are here to propose again to our friends and colleagues an idea of profession made of compassion and of mutual trust with our patients.
In times of wild technology and scientific megalomania, we are here to reaffirm that a science unrespectful of human life and dignity is a science diverting and turning against man.
I would like, first of all, to welcome the delegates of our Associations of Catholic Doctors coming from Asia, Europe, North and South America, Africa, Oceania.
In times of globalization, we are an example reflecting the best aspects of globalization, identifiable in the universal values proposed by the Catholic Church.
Secondly, I would like to greet the Korean Association of Catholic Doctors which is hosting this Congress. I wish to thank all of them, and especially those who served in the Scientific and Organizing Committees, for their intelligent, efficient, and committed activity over the last years. On behalf of all participants, I congratulate them. I am sure that, despite the reduced number of participants, due to costs and distances, the warmth of your hospitality, the interest of the themes that have been selected, the quality of the lectures and communications, the charm of your country will make this Congress a remarkable one.
The Korean Church that today is hosting us is a Church of great history and even greater future.
I would like to recall here the early beginnings of this Korean Christian community, based on wisdom and open mindedness and grown thanks to witness and martyrdom.
A few wise Korean men, who had come into contact with the book "The True Doctrine of God" by Matteo Ricci, an Italian Missionary who made himself Chinese to be understood by the Chinese, offering a wonderful example of how the Gospel can be inserted in different cultures, decided that for the sake of their love of truth they had to know Jesus Christ better. They sent envoys to Peking, received instructions and books and became an example of lay Christian community founded on the strength of baptism and on their faithfulness to the Gospel. Convinced believers, they asked for a priest, in order to be in communion with the universal Church and to have the possibility of receiving the other sacraments.
Their open mindedness in an isolationist country gave rise to the hate of their country citizens and caused several waves of persecution. From 1791 to 1886 several thousands Korean Christians received their martyrdom, refusing to worship the ancestral Gods and to give up the new life they had encountered in Jesus Christ.
Their loyalty towards their country, their independence of thought and their readiness to forgive those who persecuted them moved, little by little, the sympathy of their neighbours. Relying only on Jesus Christ, the Korean Christians had the joy of seeing their flock growing to the immense crowds shown all over the world during the celebrations of the bicentennial of the Christian faith in Korea.
Once again, in the words of Tertullianus, it became evident that "the blood of Christians is a seed".
We are here today to pay homage to the Church of Korea, represented by our colleagues and friends of the Korean Association of Catholic Doctors. From this Community, we would like to learn their faithfulness to the teachings of the Church, their commitment to witness Christian values and way of living, without any cultural subordination, convinced that we Christians are the light of the world: "Don't leave your light under a bushel; let it shine!". We are the salt of the world. Both light and salt require to be shared with others, offering them light in the darkness and salt in a life too often meaningless.
Our Congress will be an important occasion for discussing themes that stimulate the Church's reflection in the context of medical ethics and of the health pastoral.
We will have the opportunity to reflect on the identity of Catholic doctors, on the inspiration and ethics of their presence in health institutions, on their specific mission in the different countries where they practice, on how the new and changed circumstances challenge Catholic health insitutions and, more in general, the health pastoral of the Church.
The Congress will debate some of the most actual issues and topics with reference to bioethics, such as stem cell therapy, AIDS, dementias, the ethical training of future doctors, natural birth control methods.
We are here to find, in the Congress debates, new stimuli for a more effective presence in the discussions which run through the medical profession, in the light of the Evangelium Vitae, the Magna Charta of those who really love man and life. As a sign of this love, although simple and humble, some of the projects of international health cooperation that we have developed over the years will be presented.
Finally, I would like to tribute a heartfelt homage to our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, here represented by Msgr. Javier Lozano.
Following the example of the Pope, we would like to become agents of the New Evangelization in the medical field.
We feel the urgency of evangelization, responsibility and commitment of Christian communities and groups.
That which we proclaim is not a thing, it is not a program, it is not a philosophy nor an ethical vision, albeit very noble. It is not an ideology nor a power, be it even that of the Church. When we evangelize the world, we proclaim a person, Jesus Christ himself. We proclaim the absolute novelty of a God who became man, took up human flesh and, for mankind, suffered, died, and resurrected. This is the event which shook history, which inspires our hearts and renders our actions meaningful. This is also what the world awaits.
The world, however, expects us to show Christ, rather than to hear us speak about Christ; it wishes to be able to see Jesus, by looking at us.
"We wish to see Jesus" (Jn 12:21). This request, addressed to the Apostle Philip by some Greeks who had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover, echoes spiritually in our ears too during this Jubilee Year. Like those pilgrims of two thousand years ago, the men and women of our own day &emdash; often perhaps unconsciously &emdash; ask believers not only to "speak" of Christ, but in a certain sense to "show" him to them. And is it not the Church's task to reflect the light of Christ in every historical period, to make his face shine also before the generations of the new millennium? (NMI, 16)
Our witness, however, would be hopelessly inadequate if we ourselves had not first contemplated his face (NMI, 16).
In the paragraphs of His Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte that I just read, the Pope proposes the contemplation of the face of Christ to the devotion of all Christians as foundation of the new evangelization. Naturally, it is a matter of contemplating the face of Christ in order to be able to reflect its light.
There is, however, a face of Christ that particularly appeals to us medical doctors. Being accustomed in our profession to be near those who suffer, we are particularly drawn to the suffering of God made Man, to the suffering face of the Man of Gethsemane and of the Way of the Cross, to the face covered by ecchymoses, wounds and blood during the Passion and delivered to us by the linen of the Holy Shroud.
As we medical doctors contemplate this suffering face, we find strength and inspiration to contemplate the face of every suffering man, to look upon him with new eyes, as a face saved by the bleeding face of Christ, as a precious face, for it was redeemed at a very high price, as a face endowed with divine dignity even when disfigured and almost unrecognizable, insofar as it is the face assumed by God who became man.
As we contemplate the face of the Passion, we will practice our profession with new heart and eyes and we will make the world see Christ, and his radical novelty.
These concepts, that are apparently old, are in fact radically new as far as today's medicine is concerned. Medicine, in fact, is encountering some difficulties in recognizing the dignity of every human being and can therefore be available for manipulating the human being at embryonic stage; it can take part in the suppression of human beings at foetal stage through abortion; with euthanasia, it can take part in the elimination of human beings for whom a sufficient quality of life is not recognized, because terminally ill, or of those for whom the spark of the human mind was turned off because in a persistent vegetative state or because seriously retarded or affected by dementia.
Moreover, once we lose the concept according to which all men, in all phases of their lives, have the same dignity as persons, medicine can preferably turn its attention to those who have the means to get treatment. Or, it can contribute to divert public resources towards problems concerning small groups of patients, forgetting more serious social realities, though they may be of a lesser scientific-technological interest. Or it can approve a distribution of resources on a planetary scale that seems to passively accept the fact that there are groups of people who are doomed to malnutrition, epidemics, and infant mortality. For this medicine, the Christian announcement, Christianity, are concepts of an absolute novelty, the foundation of a practice of medicine that is completely different from the dominant practice.
Following the example of the Martyrs of the Korean Church, from whose witness a fertile presence of the Church in Asia was born, we hope to become reliable witnesses of Christ, the Divine Physician, able to see his suffering but glorious face, in the face of every suffering human being, especially those whose human dignity is not recognized by current medical practice.
May this XXI FIAMC World Congress, which I declare now open, help us live in this light, finding joy in the contemplation of the face of Jesus. |
