Catholic health care professionals reflect on Evangelization

November 15, 2012: The Hospital, Setting for Evangelisation: a Human and Spiritual Mission – that’s the theme of the 27th international conference organized in the Vatican’s Synod hall by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers November 15-17th. The conference is drawing hundreds of Catholic health care professionals from around the globe.

While welcoming the participants on Thursday, Archbishop Sygmunt Zimowski, the President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of health Care Workers, said that the 27^th international conference will concentrate on the theological and anthropological aspects of the world of health and illness which converge in and characterize the life of a hospital and life inside a hospital, a temple of humanity and a crossroads of peoples, a setting for human mission and a profound expression of the theandric.

Prior to the opening session, during the inaugural mass on the occasion, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, said ‘The whole work of God seems to have no other purpose than to give humankind salvation, and a life of dignity, especially those who are burdened by many infirmities.’

Reflecting on the day’s reading, he said ‘it is not necessary to seek the kingdom of God elsewhere, or waiting for an event as dramatic and overwhelming. It is here now. You do not need spectacular events to reveal it, it is there, in the middle of the human community. Thus it is necessary to change our look, broaden our horizons in order to recognize the presence and action of the Lord, and actively cooperate with Him. God works in the hearts, minds, acts in the universe and we do find him often where we least expect.

Hospitals and health care in general, where we welcome and care for those who are suffering from physical, mental and spiritual pain, become a place of proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Citing Pope Benedict XVI, he said that ‘Suffering, in fact, as a dimension of human existence, is an essential "place for learning and practicing hope,".

Cardinal Bertone also spoke about the need for research in improving health care, but cautioned about using man as a means of research as if he were an undignified object. The medicine is concerned with the man and not the things, and this requires a more pressing ethical criterion, a responsibility more binding.

Quoting the first encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, the Cardinal said that "Love - will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help is indispensable in the form of concrete love of neighbor", added Cardinal Bertone.