4. The passion for the accompaniment of and care for life, throughout its entire individual and social lifespan, requires the rehabilitation of an
ethos of compassion or tenderness for the generation and regeneration of the human being in its difference.
It means, first and foremost, rediscovering the sensibility for the
various ages of life, in particular those of
children and the elderly. All that is in them that is delicate and fragile, vulnerable and corruptible, is not a matter that ought to concern exclusively the fields of medicine and wellbeing. There are at stake parts of the soul and of human sensibility that demand to be listened to and recognised, conserved and appreciated, by individuals and community alike. A society in which all of this can only be bought and sold, bureaucratically regulated and technically predisposed, is a society that has already lost the meaning of life. It will not transmit it to young children, nor will it accord it to elderly parents. This is why, almost without realising, we now build cities that are increasingly hostile to children and communities that are ever less hospitable to the elderly, with walls with neither doors nor windows: they ought to protect but instead they suffocate.
The witness of faith in
God’s mercy, which refines and fulfils all justice, is the essential condition for the circulation of true compassion between different generations. Without it, the culture of the secular city has no chance of resisting the anaesthesia and debasement of humanism.
It is on this new horizon that I see the mission of the renewed Pontifical Academy for Life. I understand that it is difficult, but it is also exciting. I am sure that there is no lack of men and women of good will, as well as scholars of different orientations with regard to religion and with different anthropological and ethical visions of the world, who share the need to restore a more authentic wisdom of life to the attention of the people, with a view to the common good. An open and fruitful dialogue can and must be established with the many who care about the search for valid reasons for the life of man.
The Pope, and all the Church, are grateful to you for the commitment you undertake to honour. The responsible accompaniment of human life, from conception and throughout its entire course, up to its natural end, is a task of discernment and intelligence of love for free and impassioned men and women, for pastors and not for mercenaries. May God bless your aim of supporting them with science and awareness of which you are capable. Thank you, and do not forget to pray for me.
http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2017/10/05/171005d.html