"Helping the human being is a duty, both as a response to a fundamental right of the person, and because taking care of people redounds to the benefit of the community". It was stated this morning by Benedict XVI, as he received in audience the participants in the plenary session of the Papal Council for the Pastoral of Health. "The fundamental reference of your every initiative", said the Pope, must always be "the following of Christ, that the Gospel shows us as a divine healer. This is the biblical perspective that enhances the natural ethical principle of taking care of the sick, based on which every human life must be defended, depending on the specific needs in which it is and according to our actual possibilities to help". Then, the Pope added: "The medical science is making progress insofar as it accepts to question the diagnosis and the therapy over and over again, supposing the previously acquired information and the assumed limits may be overcome. After all, the esteem of and trust in the medical staff are proportional to the certainty that such official defenders of life will never despise any human life, no matter how maimed, and will always be able to encourage all healing attempts".
