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Catholic World News News Feature

Vatican conference to focus on clinical depression November 12, 2003

Announcing plans for a Vatican conference on clinical depression, the president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care said it is "one of the main killer diseases of our time."

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan briefed reporters on plans for a 3-day international conference on depression, taking place in Rome from November 13 to 15 under the aegis of the Pontifical Council for Health Care. This conference is one in series organized by the Council to deal with "emerging diseases" that threaten the world's societies; previous meetings discussed AIDS and drug abuse. About 620 people are expected to attend, including psychologists, psychiatrists, academics, and Church officials.

Cardinal Lozano Barragan said that depression may result from an intense fear of death, which finds no relief in a culture that has lost spiritual moorings. The Mexican prelate said that the Vatican seminar would focus particularly on the spiritual dimensions of the problem.

During the press conference at which the cardinal outlined plans for the seminar, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said that depression might be linked to "risk factors determined by life style." Navarro-Valls-- who was trained as a psychiatrist-- said that it would be productive to examine whether some factors, such as isolation from family life, make individuals vulnerable to depression.