Pope to Bambino Gesu Children’s
Hospital: ‘Blessed are the hands that heal’
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| Pope surrounded by young patients of the Bambino Gesu Hospital (Vatican Media) |
Pope Francis urges staff of the Bambino Gesu Hospital not to
spare themselves as they heal sick children and to redouble their efforts to
find cures for rare diseases.
By Devin Watkins
The Children’s Hospital is marking its 150th anniversary
this year, and Pope Francis expressed the Holy See’s unwavering support for this
“venerable Institution.”
Meeting with the administration, staff, doctors, nurses, and
paramedics on Saturday, the Pope described the founding of Italy’s first
children’s hospital in 1869 as “an intuition and a gift.”
He said Arabella Salviati had the intuition of a woman and a
mother, and the generosity to create an institution dedicated to children.
Moral authority of children
The Bambino Gesu Hospital was donated to the Vatican in
1924. The Pope said that made it the patrimony of the world’s children, since
the Catholic Church extends to the furthest corners of the earth.
“Thus was born a grand and precious institution, which is
avant-garde and focused on the future.”
Pope Francis said the hospital’s true identity is derived
from “the moral authority of sick and suffering children.”
“May the moral authority of children always urge you to be
faithful to the original vocation of this Hospital, and be the criteria upon
which you base your decisions for the future.”
Blessed hands that heal
In a written testimony distributed to those in the audience,
a Venezuelan mother told the story of how the Bambino Gesu Hospital found a
cure for her ailing son.
So Pope Francis reflected on how she spoke about “God’s
blessing and ‘the blessed and marvelous hands’ that welcomed and healed her
son.”
He said the capacity to heal others is a gift, and urged
medical staff to “never let your professionalism and zeal be lacking.”
And he set aside his prepared remarks for a moment to bless
the hands of all the doctors and nurses present in the Paul VI Hall.
No cure without research
The Pope went on to express appreciation for the
cutting-edge medical research going on at the Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital.
“The better the research, the better the care,” he said.
“There is no cure without research. There is no future in medicine without
research.”
Finally, Pope Francis praised efforts to diagnose rare
medical conditions and complex pathologies, as well as the passion staff put
into their work.
“I would like you never to lose the ability to see the
suffering face of a child even behind a simple sample to be analyzed, and to
hear the cry of parents from within your laboratories.”
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