Dolentium Hominum N

DOLENTIUM HOMINUM N. 35 – Year XII – No. 2, 1997 JOURNAL OF THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PASTORAL ASSISTANCE TO HEALTH CARE WORKERS ARCHBISHOP JAVIER LOZANO, Editor-in-Chief CORRESPONDENTS REV.JOSÉ L. REDRADO, O.H., Executive Editor REV.FELICE RUFFINI, M.I., Associate Editor REV. MATEO BAUTISTA, Argentina MONSIGNOR JAMES CASSIDY, U.S.A. REV.RUDE DELGADO, Spain REV.RAMON FERRERO, Mozambique REV.BENOIT GOUDOTE, Ivory Coast EDITORIAL BOARD PROFESSOR SALVINO LEONE, Italy REV.JORGE PALENCIA, Mexico REV. GEORGE PEREIRA, India REV. CIRO BENEDETTINI MRS.ANVERLINDE, Belgium DR. LILIANA BOLIS PROFESSOR ROBERT WALLEY, Canada SR.AURELIA CUADRON REV. GIOVANNI D’ERCOLE, F.D.P. DR. MAYA EL-HACHEM DR.GIOVANNI FALLANI REV. GIANFRANCO GRIECO REV. BONIFACIO HONINGS EDITORIAL STAFF MONSIGNOR JESUS IRIGOYEN REV.JOSEPH JOBLIN DR. COLETTE CHALON REV.VITO MAGNO, R.C.I. DR. ANTONELLA FARINA DR. DINA NEROZZI-FRAJESE PROFESSOR MATTHEW FORD DR. FRANCO PLACIDI SR.MARIE-GABRIEL MULTIER REV.LUCIANO SANDRIN REV.DAVID G. MURRAY, M. ID MONSIGNOR ITALO TADDEI DR.SIMONA NOVELLI DR.GUILLERMO QWISTGAARD Editorial and Business Offices: VATICAN CITY; Tel. 6988-3138, 6988-4720, 6988-4799, Fax: 6988-3139. E-MAIL: [email protected] Published three times a year. Subscription rate: Lire 60.000 (or the equivalent in local currency), postage included Printed by Editrice VELAR S.p.A., Gorle (BG) Cover: Glass window Rev. Costantino Ruggeri Spedizione in a.p. - art. 2, comma 20/c, legge 662/96 - Roma Contents 3 A WORD OF GREETING TO OUR READERS 59 At This Sanctuary Many Have Found Liberation and Comfort 5 APPOINTMENT Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini 6 Access to Health Care 61 The Sick Need Our Human Warmth Archbishop Javier Lozano John Paul II 61 Our Lady Teaches Us That Illness MAGISTERIUM Is a Call to Conversion and Penance John Paul II 10 Addresses by the Holy Father 62 Cardinal Angelini’s Words to the President of the Republic TOPICS 2 In Health and Illness 18 Our Conflict with Pain and Death: Jesus Christ Gives Life Meaning In Search of Meaning Rev. José L. Redrado 63 The Meaning and Value of the World Day of the Sick 27 The Health Apostolate in Lebanon Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini on the Way to the Jubilee of the Year 2000 65 The Heathcare Ministry on the Sr. Celestine Abou Jaoudé Threshold of the Third Millennium Archbishop Javier Lozano 36 What Should Be Done About AIDS? Dr. Ntari Benoit 69 Innovating Experiences in the Health Ministry Most Rev. Javier Osés TESTIMONY 74 Challenges for the Portuguese 40 Religious Assistance Agreement Health Apostolate Between the Venezuelan Bishops’ Rev. Vitor Feytor Pinto Conference and Public Hospitals Fatima: A Moving Experience 42 The Course of the Healthcare Ministry in Peru, 1988-1996 77 As a Mother with the Mother Peruvian Bishops’ Conference Alessandra Ciattini 48 Bases for Creating a Bishops’ 79 My Experience of Fatima Commission for the Health Ministry Gloria Tarin Congolese Bishops’ Conference 80 Encounter and Prayer Antonino Bagnato ACTIVITY OF THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL 54 John Paul II’s Letter to Cardinal Angelini 55 Note by the Permanent Council of the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference for the World Day of the Sick 1997 The illustrations in this issue 56 At Fatima Mary Has Dried have been taken from So Many Tears Le porte dell’Europa Rev. Vitor Feytor Pinto (Milan/Rome: Cosmopoli, 1992). A Word of Greeting to Our Readers On August 20, 1996 I was named President of the Pontifical Council for Pas- toral Assistance to Health Care Workers by the Holy Father, John Paul II, and on Jan- uary 8, 1997 I took office. By way of these remarks I wish to introduce myself to our loyal readers and place myself at their disposal in this mission received from the Pope. I was already familiar with the Journal Dolentium Hominum—Church and Health in the World, which I had come to appreciate for both its content and its magnificent format. Our Journal is a tool for making known the Magisterium of the Pope and the 3 Bishops regarding health-related subjects; it is a forum for discussion of theological, pastoral, and ethical topics; it is an instrument for coordinating all the health organi- zations and institutions in the Catholic world on the basis of personal experiences and testimonies; it is a source of accurate information. It is intended for the Bishops’ Conferences, the Nuncios of His Holiness, physicians, nurses, pastoral workers at health facilities and sanatoriums, parishes, other centers where care is provided, hospital chaplains and priests active in any area of the health ministry, men and women religious at hospitals, and scholars and re- searchers at theological or pastoral institutes and medical schools. In this issue we touch upon topics, testimony, and activities. The subjects in- clude the conflict connected with pain and death, the health apostolate in our day, and AIDS. Testimonies reach us from Venezuela, Peru, and the Congo. We recapitu- late the events connected with the Fifth World Day of the Sick in Fatima, Portugal, as well as the significance and value of this Day, and also deal with the health apostolate on the threshold of the Third Millennium, the experiences aimed at renewing it, the challenges facing the health ministry in Portugal, and three moving experiences in Fatima. Our Journal thus provides a means for us to draw closer to the Word of God and enable it to be heard. May the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, make use of this publication to continue to offer the sure hope of resurrection everywhere, in the midst of our pain and our death. + Javier Lozano Access to Health Care ADDRESS BY ARCHBISHOP JAVIER LOZANO, PRESIDENT OF THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PASTORAL ASSISTANCE TO HEALTH CARE WORKERS, TO THE FIFTIETH WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY IN GENEVA, MAY 7, 1997 1. For me it is a great pleasure and an honor to speak on behalf of the Holy See Delegation to convey to the distinguished Delegates the gratitude of the Catholic Church for all the efforts which WHO unceasingly makes to improve the health of peoples, along with my Delegation’s and my own attention to and interest in the ses- sions of the Fiftieth World Health Assembly. 6 The significance of this WHO Assembly is clear to all; it is being held exactly one year after the celebrations commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of WHO’s foun- dation. A simultaneous look at the Organization’s past and future enables us to appreciate its generally positive balance sheet, forcing us to turn our attention for a mo- ment to a certain number of challenges and demands posed by the world of suffering and health. If the international community rejoices at the reduction and even eradication of some diseases, like poliomyelitis and Guinea worm, between now and the year 2000, as a result of systems of control and specific programs for a more effective fight and the use of new, perfected vaccines, its concern nevertheless persists over so many millions of disinherited human beings who go on suffering and dying because of in- fectious diseases like malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia, and others. 2. In the epidemiological plan, new, emerging diseases, like the hemorrhagic fever caused by the Ebola virus, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (the “mad cow” dis- ease), and the illnesses now reappearing, like cholera and tuberculosis, make up an- other chapter for concern and keep the Organization in a state of constant alert. As WHO recently brought out in its 1995 Health Report, there is a continual increase in the illnesses linked to modifications in lifestyle and diet, alcoholism, tobac- co and substance abuse, and so on, and this is the cause of the growing death rate due to transmissible diseases. With this epidemiological balance sheet, comprised of bright and dark spots, WHO is becoming the guarantor of a new pact among the nations based on equity and solidarity, on the way to a new policy and strategy of health for all in the course of the twenty-first century. The Holy See Delegation is happy about ongoing efforts within WHO to work out a health policy and strategy forming part of a perspective on human development which is socially, economically, politically, and culturally sustainable. This approach lends itself to better evaluation of the impact on health of human factors which are macropolitical, macroeconomic, social, demographic, and environmental. Among the factors determining health which weigh heavily against the success of the Health for All programs, there undoubtedly appear the scourge of poverty and the increase in the number of the poor, estimated to be 1.3 billion in 1995. The gap between rich and poor—which goes on growing, and not only between the northern and southern hemispheres, but within single countries—is at once a serious threat to the progress made and a severe curb on the Health for All policy in the twenty-first century. 7 3. The Holy See Delegation approves of a Health for All strategy based on the human person and integrated into a global, sustainable dynamic of development in which man can never be a means, because he is its crafter and end. In this respect, I would like to illustrate my viewpoint with three observations relating to the consulta- tions now being carried out concerning an updating of the world strategy of Health for All. The Catholic Church, with its 21,757 health institutions, wishes to take an active part in defining the new health policy. When consulted on the key statements of that policy, a large number of them feel that one of the leading problems is access to medical care, particularly to medicines.

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