Head of the UGCC brought attention to the dignity and responsibility of doctors

“Medicine in the wide sense of its use is an extraordinarily important part of human life because it is related with the greatest earthly good – the health of a human. Workers in this area have a special dignity, they are the instruments of God’s grace,” His Beatitude Lubomyr wrote in a congratulatory letter addressed to the presidents of the European Federation of the Catholic Medical Associations (FEAMC). The head of the UGCC at the same time underlined that in the matters of beatification or canonizations of the saints the most miracles are in the field of health. “The people, however, forget how many of God’s graces may be not in such a spectacular form, but appear through the minds, hands, and hearts of the doctors,” reads the letter. Thus the head of the UGCC emphasized that the great dignity of doctors is very deserving. “You all know with what great strides medical knowledge advances. This development of medicine is so rapid that the moral theology, which has to indicate God’s welcome of the use of new discoveries, does not have time to evaluate them in accordance with the Divine law. Here the first judge has to be the medical researcher,” wrote His Beatitude Lubomyr. Then the head of the UGCC asserted that “with prayer in the heart and on the lips” he asks that the work of doctors be a large achievement for science and for the Christian service to a person. As we reported before, on October 16-18, 2009, the plenary conference of presidents of the European Federation of the Catholic Medical Associations will be conducted in Lviv. Similar conferences are conducted once every six months, during which the participants discuss ethical problems encountered in modern medicine and the ways to resolve them in accordance to the moral doctrine of the Catholic Church. Also, the participants of the conference resolve questions related to the organization of the plenary European congress of the Federation of Catholic Medical Associations and participating in the similar world congress. Next year the congress of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations will take place in Lourdes, France, and questions related to the participation of the European Federation in it will also be discussed at the conference.

Information Department of the UGCC