President of the Pontifical Council
for
Health Care Workers
To their Excellencies the Presidents of Bishops’ Conferences
and Bishops Responsible for Pastoral Care in Health
The annual celebration of the ‘World
Leprosy Day’ is a great appointment of solidarity with our brothers
and sisters who are afflicted by Hansen’s disease, a disease that is
often ignored by the mass media but which still today strikes each
year over 250,000 people, most of whom live in conditions of
poverty.
According to the most recent calculations
of the World Health Organisation, which refer to the year 2007, in
that year there were 254,525 new leprosy cases, with 212,802 people
already been treated for it.
Unfortunately, children are not speared
this disease. According to the calculations of the AIFO (the Italian
Association of the Friends of Raoul Follereau), ‘each year in the
world there are 40,000 children with leprosy, and about 12% of all
new cases of leprosy are children under the age fifteen’.
In the year of the ‘Twentieth Anniversary
of the Convention on the Rights of the Child’, and mindful of the
predilection of Jesus Christ for them ‘for to such belongs the
kingdom of heaven’ (Mt 19:14), I appeal to those who lead government
organisations to pay special attention – in the implementation of
health programmes and plans in the various countries of the world –
to children who are sick with leprosy and run the risk of seeing
their futures mortgaged by the negative consequences of their
illness.ness.
From this flows the urgent need for public
institutions to give practical expression to ‘the right of the child
to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to
facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of
health’ that is attributed to them in article 24 of the Convention
on the Rights of the Child.
Unfortunately at a social level albeit
unfounded fears still persist that are generated by ignorance about
Hansen’s disease. These fears generate feelings of exclusion and
often burdensome stigma towards who are afflicted by leprosy,
making them especially vulnerable.
This ‘Fifty-Sixth World Day’ is thus a
suitable opportunity to offer the human community correct, broad and
capillary information about leprosy, about the devastating effects
that it can have on people’s bodies if they are not treated and on
families and on society, and to stimulate the individual and
collective duty to engage in active fraternal solidarity.
Basing itself on the example of Jesus
Christ, the physician of bodies and souls, the Church has always
dedicated special care to people afflicted by leprosy. Down the
centuries it has been present through the institutions of
Congregations of men and women religious, and through voluntary
health-care organisations made up of the lay faithful, thereby
contributing in a radical way to the full social and communal
integration of such people.
The Blessed Father Damian de Veuster, the
untiring and exemplary apostle of our brothers and sisters afflicted
by Hansen’s disease, a lighthouse of faith and love, is the symbol
of all those consecrated to Christ with religious vows who still
today dedicate their lives to such people, making available all
their resources for the overall wellbeing of those afflicted who are
by leprosy in every part of the world.
These, together with Blessed Damian, are
writing the most beautiful pages of the missionary history of the
Church. Inseparably linked to evangelisation in their care for the
sick, they proclaim that the redemption of Jesus Christ, and his
salvific grace, reach the whole of man in his human condition in
order to associate him to the glorious resurrection of Christ.
At their side very many volunteers and men
of good will are involved in the organisation of solidarity at a
practical level, making means and financial resources available to
research institutes so that they can create increasingly effective
forms of treatment by which to combat Hansen’s disease.
The world of the Catholic laity has its
champion in Raoul Follereau, the originator and promoter of this
‘World Day’, who continues his beneficial action through the
‘Association of Friends’, which is dedicated to him. To him, and to
those who follow him with the passing of time, goes an especial
applause and our gratitude for the very many initiatives that they
promote, which have the merit of always keeping alive care for those
afflicted by Hansen’s disease, of sensitising public opinion, and of
stimulating people’s involvement in supporting programmes and the
gathering of financial resources.
It is good and comforting to observe
that in this struggle against Hansen’s disease non-governmental
associations and organisations are present that go beyond religious,
ideological and cultural affiliations, all of which meet each other
in the common goal of bringing to those who are sick the opportunity
of regaining a state of social, health-care, and spiritual
wellbeing.
In particular, our gratitude should
go to the Sasakawa Foundation for the inestimable contribution that
it has made for decades to this cause by financially supporting the
institutions of the international community in research in the field
of treatment. I encourage the Sasakawa Foundation to continue with
determination so that to the positive results that have been
achieved hitherto others are added, and ones that are more advanced,
for the wellbeing of those afflicted by leprosy and their families.
To those who suffer from Hansen’s disease,
to men and women religious missionaries active in the field, and to
the social and health-care workers who help them, I express the
nearness of this Pontifical Council for Heath Care Workers, which
expresses the concern of the Church for the sick and those who
dedicate themselves to them, as well as its nearness to them.
May the Immaculate Mother of God, ‘Salus
Infirmorum’, intercede with her son Jesus, the ‘physician of
bodies and souls’, for the overall health of those with leprosy, and
imbue those who care for them with a maternal spirit!
Những tiếng vỗ tay vô thanh của những bàn tay không còn nguyên vẹn bởi sự
tàn phá kinh hoàng của bệnh phong hòa lẫn tiếng chào ơi ới của
nhiều em bé mồ côi , khiến cho đoàn người Niềm Thương hoà cảm với
nỗi niềm thương cảm của những người bất hạnh nghẹn ngào xúc động.
cho m
Suốt hằng chục năm
qua, 17 gia đình thuộc nhóm dân tộc ít người (Nùng) chẳng may mang
phải cơn bệnh phong (cùi) hiểm nghèo, họ sống trong cảnh nghèo nàn
thiếu thốn, nhất là những mùa nắng hạn, mưa bão; Biết vậy, Hội Armauer
Hansen for Viet Nam ở Nauy hằng năm về thăm viếng và tặng Quà Cứu
Trợ giúp đỡ phần nào để cải thiện cuộc sống hằng ngày.
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