Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Barcelona (Fides Service) - About 1,000 doctors from 78 different countries took part in the 22nd International Congress of the International Federation of Catholic Doctors FIAMC (see Fides 12/5/2006) held 11 - 14 May in Barcelona on the theme "Catholic doctors and poverty in the era of globalisation", Dr Joaquim Bosch Barrera, of the local organising committee reported. Although the central theme was poverty the participants also discussed other questions such as the family and globalisation, practice of medicine as a path to holiness (examples of doctors for whom a process of beatification has been started, sexual education for adolescents, natural family planning .... in a message to the participants Pope Benedict XVI reminded them that the dignity of every human person implicates a serious responsibility to protect health and to care especially for the weaker members of society, the unborn child, people unable to look after themselves such as the aged and the terminally ill. The Pope urged them "to promote initiatives in the field of healthcare to encourage men and women of good will to assist with fraternal generosity people suffering from poverty or marginalisation".
During the Congress there were reports on the activity of Catholic doctors working to help the poor and the excluded in many parts of the world, Dr Joaquim said, including: emergency aid following the Asian tsunami, opening new dispensaries, missions, schools, homes for orphans; in Berlin providing a hospital-rehabilitation centre to help reinsert vagabonds in society; MaterCare International presented a report on its mother/child services: antenatal classes in East Timor., maternity centres in Ghana and Nigeria, research on post-delivery haemorrhage (one of the causes of maternal mortality in Africa).
Among the fruits emerging from the Congress, says Dr. Joaquim Bosch Barrera: new impulse to the work of caring for the poor, the excluded and the sick; sharing ideas and experience in various countries; ecumenical pro-life statement, attention for the health and dignity of people of a different religion; new MaterCare project, Maternal Health Care Centre in Merti (Isiolo), Kenya, named after John Paul II and Bishop Luigi Locati, recently assassinated, who was a missionary for 40 years.
During the Congress the participants visited the first exhibition of the history of missionary medicine and the activity of over 50 different congregations, associations, Caritas.... At the end of the meeting it was announced that the 23 Congress will be held in Burkina Faso in 2010 “as a sign that we have not forgotten Africa”. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 19/5/2006; righe 38, parole 548)
