Vatican City, Feb 20, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The Vatican publicized a letter from John Paul II to Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, and to participants in a study congress themed, "The Quality of Life and the Ethics of Health," being held in the Vatican from February 21 to 23.
In his letter, The Holy Father wrote that, "in the first place, it is necessary to recognize the essential quality that distinguishes each human being by the fact of being created in the image and likeness of the Creator Himself.”
“This level of dignity and quality”, he continued, “belongs to the ontological order and is constitutive of the human person, it endures in every moment of life, from the first instant of conception up to natural death, and it is fully realized in the dimension of eternal life. Consequently, man must be recognized and respected in any condition of health, illness or disability."
"Under pressure from affluent societies," the Pope said, "a notion of the quality of life is being favored which is at the same time both reductive and selective, and which consists in the capacity to enjoy and to experience pleasure, or even in the capacity for self-awareness and participation in social life.”