Vatican City, Feb 21, 2008 / 23:39 pm
A press conference at the Vatican on Thursday presented the details of an upcoming meeting that will discuss the care of the incurably sick and the dying.
The international congress, named “Close by the Incurably Sick and the Dying: Scientific and Ethical Aspects,” is sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Life. It is scheduled to take place next week from February 25-26.
Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, summarized the goal of the congress as an attempt to focus on the moment “in which human fragility is felt most deeply, a moment often intensified by solitude and suffering.” This moment, he said, is very important in the Christian vision because “the physical body crumbles and the subject’s history comes to an end but they draw near the entrance to full life, eternal life.”
The bishop said the congress would examine the ethics of various medical therapies in response to “various doubts and continuing debate” about medical assistance. “The main focus will be on treatments that respond to precise ethical questions,” he said.