(President of the Pontifical Council
for Pastoral Assistance for Healthcare Workers,
Vatican City)
The Instrumentum Laboris and the General Report recognise that "the Catholics in Africa are doing a marvellous job in the field of health", and that "the health and sickness have an important dimension in the life of African and Malagasy populations". However, this Synodal Assembly must reaffirm with energy, the close relationship between the health pastoral and new evangelisation.
The health
pastoral does not end with the assistance to the ailing, but is a redemptive
approach to man made in the name and in the example of Christ, the first
evangeliser, who in his preaching and action privileged the poor and the
weak in the spirit and in the body. The service of health — which is an
integral service of life — is the way to salvation, which is the full healing
of man. The young African Church may find in the full recuperation and
in the increase of a more organic health pastoral, a factor of exemplary
unity within and of efficient evangelising witness. The common involvement
in the field of medicine and health is a valid moment of encounter of the
highest values of the diverse cultures and favours, in a special way, the
ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, contributing to the promotion of
justice and peace.
The Ministry
for the Pastoral Assistance to Healthcare Workers proposes, therefore,
that the doctrinal and operational conclusions of the Special Assembly
for Africa of the Synod of Bishops, in correspondence with the five points
illustrated by the Instrumentum Laboris, be comprehensive of a concrete
directive as to the health pastoral
— to ask for converging involvement by the Bishops;
— to care for the initial and permanent formation of the priests, religious, Catechists, health workers in specialised Moral Theology and in Bioethics;
— to stress the co-operation between the many Catholic health institutes which, in the African continent, work in an even wider area in relation to the ecclesial communities;
— to be open to the contributions of persons, groups, involved movements and institutions, like the Catholic Church, in the service to the weak and the suffering.
In Africa, more than in any other continent, we are fighting a decisive "battle for life" today. The African Catholic Church must reinforce its own conscience of being a precious "reserve" of living and heroic faith, capable of sustaining spiritual and moral renewal of the universal Church.
Original
text: Italian
