“A Doctorate Honoris Causa in Medicine Goes to Pope Francis,” announced today Aurelio Tommasetti, Rector of the University of Salerno and Mario Capunzo, Director of the Department of Medicine, Surgery and Dentistry, of the Salerno School of Medicine,” in the course of the Congress “Humanization of Medicine – To Cure and to Look After,” held today at Baronissi and organized by the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors with the Department of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Salerno and the Omceo of Salerno.

“The Salerno Medical School, the oldest school of medicine in the world, which today relives in the Department of Medicine and Surgery of the Salerno Athenaeum, will confer a Doctorate Honoris Causa on the Holy Father – reads an official note sent to Pope Francis and to the Vatican Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin – for his skills and capacity, universally recognized, as doctor of souls and profound knower of the needs of the weakest, poorest, most needy persons of divine mercy and of human solidarity.”

Intervening among others in the works, moderated by Mario Ascolese, native of Campania and President of Catholic Doctors, were Francesco Paolo Adorno, docent of Moral Philosophy and bioethics of the University of Salerno, who spoke on the concept and function of care; Filippo Maria Boscia, National President of Catholic Doctors, who received the initiative with joy, stating that “human pain, be it of physical or spiritual origin, is always pain of the person. Suffering is always global. This fact leads us to insist that, on approaching pain and suffering, be it in the medical realm or in other situations, the inter-personal, spiritual and social dimension must never be lost sight of.”

For Father Domenico Marafioti, SJ, President of the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy “it is necessary to establish two types of relation with the patient, one professional, of care and help, and one of human solidarity, closeness and understanding. The Doctor must care with competence, and make himself close, as the Samaritan of the parable.”

(From Zenit)