Pope Francis: “All this is human life”

“Think of human life at its conception, human life growing in the womb, life newly born, life as a child, a teenager, an adult… Think of life that has grown old and is ready to pass away—and eternal life! Life that is family and community, life that prays and hopes. Life that is frail and sick, wounded, insulted, humiliated, marginalized and cast aside. All this is human life.” Pope Francis said this a few days ago to the participants of the General Assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Life, whose theme was “Equal Beginnings: But Then? A Global Responsibility.”

The global vision of bioethics, “that you—said Francis in his address – have drawn from the Christian vision and are preparing to re-propose in the field of social ethics and worldwide humanism, will strive with greater commitment and rigour to break free from complicity with the dirty work of death that draws its strength from sin. It will be able to bring us back to the covenant with the grace that God has destined to be part of our lives”. “This bioethics—the Holy Father added—will not begin with a consideration of sickness and death in order to reach an understanding of the meaning of life and the worth of the individual. Rather, it will begin with a profound belief in the irrevocable dignity of the human person, as loved by God—the dignity of each person, in every phase and condition of existence—as it seeks out those forms of love and care that are concerned for the vulnerability and frailty of each individual.”

During the presentation of the program of the General Assembly to the journalists, PAV President Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia explained that it would focus on the “close and inescapable connection between the questions of the ethics of human life and the social and economic context designed by a promising and apparently ungovernable globalization.” He concluded saying, “We are at service of the lives of the men and women of our time and none of these lives, starting from those of the poorest and most defenseless, can be lost, discarded, wasted.”