Treat patients with closeness, compassion, and tenderness, Pope tells physicians
November 20, 2023
» Continue to this story on Vatican Press Office
CWN Editor's Note: On November 18, Pope Francis received members of the Association of Italian Hospital Otolaryngologists and the Italian Federation of Pediatric Physicians in Paul VI Audience Hall.
After expressing sorrow for Italy’s demographic decline and various challenges affecting the Italian health system, the Pope rued “two other opposite and equally dangerous phenomena that are spreading: on the one hand, the pursuit of health at all costs, the utopia of eliminating illness, removing the daily experience of vulnerability and limitation; on the other hand, the abandonment of those who are weaker and more fragile, in some cases with the proposal of death as the only way.”
“Instead, the sick person must be approached with the attitude of the Good Samaritan,” the Pope added. “There are three features of God that always help us to go forward: closeness, compassion and tenderness.“
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