Vatican City, Jan 10 (EFE).- Pope Francis assured today that the coronavirus pandemic “showed the structural limits of the current welfare systems” and urged countries so that “all human beings are guaranteed the access to care and the fundamental right to health”.
In his message on the occasion of the 31st World Day of the Sick, which will be celebrated this Wednesday, the pontiff invited us to reflect on the fact that “it is precisely through the experience of frailty and illness that one can learn to walk together”.
“The years of the pandemic have increased our feeling of gratitude towards those who work every day for health and research. But, from such a great collective tragedy, it is not enough to honor heroes. Covid-19 put this situation to a severe test great network of capacities and solidarity, and showed the structural limits of the current welfare systems,” he said.
Therefore, “it is necessary that gratitude be accompanied by an active search, in each country, for strategies and resources, so that all human beings are guaranteed access to assistance and the fundamental right to health”, added.
Francisco began his message by stressing that although illness is part of the human experience, “if you live in the desert” and “it is not accompanied by care and compassion, it can become inhumane.”
“It is not easy to distinguish which attacks once morest life and its dignity come from natural causes and which, instead, come from injustice and violence. In reality, the level of inequalities and the prevalence of the interests of a few already affect to all human environments, to such an extent that it is difficult to consider any experience as ‘natural.’ All suffering takes place in a ‘culture’ and among its contradictions,” he added.
But Francis wanted to focus on “the condition of loneliness, of abandonment. It is an atrocity that can be overcome before any other injustice” because “all that is needed to eliminate it is a moment of attention, the inner movement of compassion” .
The World Day of the Sick “has the objective of making the people of God, health institutions and civil society aware of a new way of moving forward together”, he said following mentioning the parable of the good Samaritan, which “suggests how the exercise of fraternity , initiated by a one-on-one meeting, can be extended to organized care”. EFE
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