The Church has always been concerned with health. She follows the example of Christ himself who proclaimed the word and healed the sick, and then gave his disciples the same authority “to heal every disease and every infirmity” (Mt 10:1; cf. 14:35; Mk 1:32, 34; 6:13, 55). Through her health care institutions, the Church continues to show this same concern for the sick and for all who suffer. As the Synod Fathers stressed, the Church is resolutely engaged in the fight against infirmities, disease and the great pandemics. The Church’s health care institutions and all their personnel should strive to see in each sick person a suffering member of Christ’s Body. Difficulties of every kind rise up along the way: the growing numbers of the sick, inadequate material and

financial resources, the withdrawal of support by organizations which had helped you for years and are now abandoning you; at times all this can give you the impression that your work produces no tangible results. Dear healthcare workers, bring Jesus’ compassionate love to those who suffer! Be patient, stand fi rm and do not lose heart! As far as pandemics are concerned, while financial and material resources remain indispensable, seek also constantly to form and inform people, especially the young. Health care institutions need to be managed in compliance with the Church’s ethical norms, providing services which conform to her teaching and are exclusively pro-life. They must not become a source of enrichment for a few. The management of grant monies must aim at transparency and primarily serve the good of the sick. Finally, each health care institution ought to have a chapel, the presence of which will remind all who work there (management, staff, physicians and nurses), as well as the sick themselves, that God alone is the Lord of life and death. It would also be fitting to increase, to the extent possible, the number of smaller dispensaries which provide local care and emergency aid.