Papal reflections for fishermen, health care workers

November 25, 2024

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CWN Editor's Note: A November 23 papal audience in Paul VI Audience Hall brought together two distinct groups: Italian fishermen, and participants in a conference on national health services in Europe.

“Your work is hard, requiring sacrifice and tenacity, faced with both the usual challenges and urgent new problems, such as the difficult generational change, the costs that continue to grow, stifling bureaucracy, and unfair competition from large multinationals,” the Pope told the fishermen. “To cast your nets, you have to work together, as a crew, or better still as a community in which, despite the diversity of roles, the success of each person’s work depends on the contribution of all.”

“In this way, fishing becomes a school of life, to the point that Jesus uses it as a symbol to indicate the vocation of the apostles,” the Pope added.

Addressing the participants in the health care conference, organized by the Italian Episcopal Conference, the Pope highlighted two “aspects of your experience”:

The first aspect is that of caring about those you care for ... I urge you not to neglect yourselves, but rather to be caretakers for one another ...

The second aspect I would like to highlight is compassion for the last. Indeed if, as we have said, no one is so self-sufficient as to have no need for care, it follows that no one can be marginalized to the extent of not being able to receive care.

The Pontiff concluded by “reminding you all of the importance of the family, the cell of society. It is fundamental for both your professions ... Cherish your family relationships, please: they are ‘medicine,’ both for the healthy and the sick.”

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