Pope Francis: Address to Pontifical Council for Healthcare Workers
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis praised members of the Pontifical Council for Healthcare
Workers for their support to the sick, the disabled and the elderly. His remarks
came in an address to participants attending the Council’s plenary meeting currently
underway in the Vatican.
Listen to this report by Susy Hodges: (Text below)
Pope Francis
told the participants that when we suffer we are never alone because God in his merciful
love for us embraces even the most inhuman situations in which the image of the Creator
present in every person appears blackened or disfigured. That was what it was like,
he said, for Jesus during his Passion who took on every human suffering, every anguish,
out of his love for us. The Pope said Jesus’s Passion is the greatest school
for whoever would like to dedicate their lives to caring for their sick and suffering
brothers and sisters. Experiencing the sharing of this fraternal love for the suffering
opens us to the true beauty of human life including its fragility.
The Pope
reiterated that when caring for life, we must recognize the dignity and value of every
single human being, from conception until death. Mary, he continued, welcomed life
on behalf of us all and for the advantage of all and has very close personal links
with the Gospel of Life.
Pope Francis concluded his address by urging the
participants to see the figure of Christ present in the poor, the suffering, the unwanted
children, in people with physical and psychic disabilities and in the elderly.