The pope received at the Vatican on Saturday (04/05/22) about 100 delegates from the Italian Federsanità coalition.
Joey Cariveli, Vatican City
Pope Benedict XVI says intimacy, integrity and the common good are the three essential antidotes to health care.
Pope Francis was in the Vatican on Saturday (04/05/22) to receive about 100 representatives of the Federsanità (Federsanità) coalition of local hospitals, other medical and health centers, health systems and panchayats in Italy.
Explaining that proximity is an antidote to the tendency to focus on oneself, the pope said that when one sees oneself in a patient, it breaks the chains of selfishness and sometimes causes the pedestal on which we are tempted to climb, to persuade us to accept that we are brothers regardless of the language, geographical origin or social or health status of others.
Referring to the second antidote to universality, Pope Benedict reminded that it resists fragmentation and prejudice, and that the concept of health must be reconsidered from the perspective of integrity, which embraces all dimensions of the individual, if all are interrelated.
Pope Benedict XVI said that treating a patient without deviating from the value of expertise takes into account not only the patient’s illness but also his mental, social, cultural and spiritual conditions.
Explaining the third antidote to the common good, Pope Benedict reminded that it is a remedy for the tendency to pursue vested interests. Pope Benedict XVI said the temptation to exploit the majority of the population for economic or political gain was common in the health sector.
Papa added that this is also true at the level of international relations.