Cardinal George Pell was invited to deliver the opening address for MaterCare’s 10th International Conference in Rome on 17th September, 2013. In honour of his legacy and support, we offer the transcript and the recording of his presentation below.
Cardinal Pell’s address to MaterCare International Rome
- September 2013
Full Transcript below:
It's a great joy and privilege to address the members and supporters of
MaterCare as you gather in Rome for your tenth international conference. It's
fitting that you've come to the Eternal City where the church this year is
celebrating a number of significant anniversaries, anniversaries of special
relevance to the conference theme, “Catholicism and maternal health care”.
This year marks the conclusion of the Year of Faith, the 50th anniversary of
the Second Vatican Council, and the 25th anniversary of Mulieris Dignitatem, Blessed John Paul's groundbreaking encyclical on the dignity of woman. Each of these events for different reasons resonates with the distinctive work and mission of MaterCare International. The
Church gives thanks for the presence and witness of an organization of midwives
and obstetricians so dedicated to defending the lives and health of women
and children. We give thanks for its beautiful and powerful expression of
evangelization bringing The Gospel of Life to places where human dignity is
most threatened or violated and where mothers can sometimes risk their very
lives to give birth to their children. The value and significance of the mission of MaterCare International can't be overstated. Maternal healthcare is a kind of meeting point where the struggle takes place between the culture of life in the culture of death, it's where we're called to love and uphold the dignity of all to ensure that the poor are supported in having their babies, not just the well-off. Sadly there are many government agencies and NGOs
willing to provide a poor and illiterate woman with an abortion, contraception or
sterilization but few willing to give her the care and support which pregnant
mothers in the West rightly expect. Our Holy Father Pope Francis has called us
to be a church for the poor, his call should resonate powerfully in our hearts and challenges
us as we see around us daily evidence of the resources of the West deliberately
turned against human life love and dignity, causing great suffering and profound material and spiritual poverty. One of the great developments of the Second Vatican Council was its
recognition of the distinctive role of the laity in humanizing society and
bringing the light of Christ to the world through the exercise of their gifts and
professions. Gaudium et spes, the church's pastoral Constitution on the
church in the modern world recognized that changing technologies and
globalization would mean these gifts could be extended to peoples around the
world. With the needed help of divine grace, laymen and women faithful to
Christ and generous of heart could be artisans of a new humanity. Professor
Robert Wally is one of those artisans foreseen by the council, his vision was
of an international organization of obstetricians and midwives dedicated to
the assistance of pregnant mothers especially the poorest and most
vulnerable was a manifestation of that flowering of the Holy Spirit following
the council which inspired and brought forth new expressions of Christ's love
for Humanity and his special concern for the poor. Dr. Walley’s strength and
determination flow from his profound conviction that every mother however
poor has the right to the care and support necessary to give birth to her
child in dignity and safety and that every child has the right to be born and
welcomed with love. The achievements of MaterCare International in developing
countries have been recognized worldwide, the new maternity hospital established
in Isiolo, Kenya, the training of local midwives, the establishment of birth
centres, and the provision of surgery and other rehabilitation for women who've
suffered injuries due to lack of skilled care during childbirth. All of these
works continue to contribute significantly to the reduction of maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. The dedicated volunteers of MaterCare International demonstrate the
truth of Blessed John Paul II’s words, that despite the immense pressures
from within their professions many still recognize their responsibilities as
medical specialists to care for the tiniest and weakest of human beings and
to defend those who have no economic or social power or public voice of their
own. Women are given a profound task in motherhood, it's a task that can demand
their all, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It’s blessing and a burden
they must not be left to bear alone. The pregnant mother is a sign of fundamental
Realities we are all called to recognize; the dignity of the human person, the
privilege of procreating a life with God, the meaning and purpose of human
sexuality, the equal dignity of woman, the complementarity of man and woman, the
right to basic health care, the right to be protected from violence. Called by
Blessed John Paul “the servants and guardians of life”, Christian obstetricians and midwives see every mother as a tabernacle. You see the beauty and grandeur of the intimate relationship of a mother and her unborn child, in which she cooperates with the
Creator in the marvellous task of giving life to a new human being. The Blessed
Virgin Mary shared this most intimate relationship with her son by her willingness to allow the conception, and bearing within her body of God himself she infused human motherhood with a supernatural dignity. Her “yes” to motherhood allowed us to be saved by one like us, a man who shared our human experience our joys and our sufferings. As Pope Francis writes in his recent encyclical Lumen fidei (The Light of Faith), “Mary's true motherhood ensures for the Son of God an authentic human history, true flesh, in which He would die on the cross and rise from the dead.” Because Mary was chosen for this privilege, the motherhood of every pregnant woman shares in this sign of God's faithful love for humanity.
As Blessed John Paul explained in Mulieris dignitatem, “Motherhood has been
introduced into the order of the Covenant that God made with Humanity in
Jesus Christ. Each and every time that motherhood is repeated in human history, it is always related to the Covenant which God established with the human race
through the motherhood of the Mother of God.” As obstetricians and midwives you're
privileged to share in this sacred an intimate relationship between mother and
child, but you also share in the Church's great work of evangelization. There's a
greater and deeper dimension to your profession by which you witness to a
supernatural reality. The honour you give to a pregnant mother bears witness to
her own inherent dignity and that of her child, which sadly the world so often
denies, and it also witnesses to the truth that for every woman motherhood is
forever changed because God Himself took flesh and became a tiny helpless child
in Mary's womb, totally dependent on her love and on those who protected and
cared for her. In his great work The Sickness unto Death, the Danish
philosopher Soren Kierkegaard argues that the fundamental root of human
violence is human beings’ refusal to grow psychologically and spiritually. In
Christian terms our refusal to love. Abortion and other forms of violence and
injustice against women; sexual slavery, forced marriage, marriage repudiation and
other unjust laws are found in many parts of the world. Abortion in particular challenges us we are compelled to consider whether the proper response to poverty abuse or
exploitation is violence or if there is in fact a radical alternative to
violence and of solidarity and love personified in Jesus Christ. The only
response worthy of the human person is inclusiveness based on love. Like every
bad ideology throughout history the culture of death carries within it the
seeds of its own destruction. Blessed John Paul saw that the Soviet empire
although it appeared massive and invincible was rotten to the core, that
its foundations would collapse if they were challenged. Even though it may seem
at times that acceptance of abortion is firmly and deeply entrenched, it's
important that we combat the sense of inevitability that supporters of the
culture of death like to purvey. Annual polls conducted by Gallup in the United
States since 1995 reveal that since 2009 a majority of Americans now identify as
pro-life rather than pro-choice. Attitudes can and will change when
people see a credible incoherent alternative to the dominant worldview,
when the sterile and anti-human roots of that worldview are brought into the
light. The compassion perseverance and living witness of the pro-life movement
are testaments to the truth of the dignity of every human life and the
fundamental importance of standing in solidarity with the pregnant mother. In
his apostolic letter for the Year of Faith Benedict the 16th invited the
church to retrace the history of our faith. The growth of the early church, through adult baptisms and through Christians marrying and bearing children averaged an extraordinary forty percent per decade. Historian Rodney Stark estimates that from a small group of around 1,000 Christians in the year 40 AD, the church grew to about 30 million in 350 AD, forming a majority of the population of the Roman Empire. The Pagan Empires at this time brought significant resemblances to our world today. Infidelity, divorce, contraception, abortion, and infanticide, of baby girls especially, were widely practiced. The rights of women were unrecognized and their dignity was widely violated. The pagan world was converted by the lives of Christians and by the love to which they bore witness. The concern of the early Christians for the poor, the sick, and the unborn was particularly powerful. They showed the world that there is a God who loves us and that we can see His love made visible in those who love, profess, and follow His son. Through the honour and love you give to the pregnant mother and the care you give her and her child, you are evangelizers. As healers you are living manifestations of Christ the Healer, as Christ demonstrated his willingness to heal those at the margins of society; women, cripples, lepers. So do you imitate Him in the world today, bringing poor and pregnant mothers from
a position of outcast to a position of relationship and belonging. Above all our
response to those in need must be formed by an attitude of love and a desire for
justice. It's love founded in Christ which conquers fear, death, exploitation, selfishness and loss of hope. Our faith in Him gives us the strength to persevere at those times when it seems that our efforts are so small compared with the suffering and the evils we confront, or when we feel discouraged by our own sinfulness and inadequacies. The teaching of our Holy Father Pope Francis encourages us, that faith isn't a light which scatters all
our darkness but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and suffices for the
journey. The Second Vatican Council declared that the joys and the hopes the
griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor
or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes the griefs and anxieties
of the followers of Christ. MaterCare International makes the joys, hopes,
fears and anxieties of poor and pregnant mothers around the world its own. Just as
the Lord hears the cry of the poor, so he's moved your hearts to hear the cry
of the pregnant woman to give birth in dignity and safety, the cry of the unborn
child to be born. May Our Lady, Mother of the poor, intercede for you all as you
begin this tenth international conference of MaterCare International, and may the Lord bless you abundantly in your work that gives life and hope to so many women and children around the world.
May God bless you.
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