Presented the book of Dr. Carlo Alfredo Clerici and Don Tullio Proserpio, chaplain at the Cancer Institute of Milan. In the preface signed by Pope Francis, the urgent need for adequate training in the field, at the bedside of those who suffer, “to move in profound synergy with the entire caring community”. For the president of the Academy for Life it is a question of buying a real “cultural revolution”
Antonella Palermo – Vatican City
Is there the possibility of an alliance between medicine and spirituality, in an increasingly technological and standardized healthcare reality on large numbers and efficiency of services? This is the central question on which yesterday afternoon, 21 October, the presentation of the book “Spirituality in care – Dialogues between clinical, psychology and pastoral care”, by Carlo Alfredo Clerici, associate of Clinical Psychology of the University of Studies in Milan and Tullio Proserpio, chaplain at the Institute of Tumors in Milan. To sign the preface, Pope Francis.
The Pope: the spiritual aspect of the cure has been neglected
Francis praises the choice of the theme chosen for this book, spirituality in the moment of illness, considering it “particularly delicate and important”. He also underlines how spiritual help – recognized by the scientific community as important for the good of patients, family members, personnel – “perhaps in recent years it has been a bit neglected”. The pontiff also points out, as highlighted in the volume, that “we need adequate preparation and training in the field, that is, concretely close to the bed of the sick, to be able to move in profound synergy with the entire caring community”.
Looking at the human condition from the ‘periphery’ of life is an opportunity
In his introductory words to the text, the Pope then goes back to reiterating that the pandemic has shown that it must necessarily place itself in a non-sectoral perspective in order to evaluate and respond to the profound needs of man. We must not let ourselves be carried away, Francis repeats, by economic logic alone. It is necessary to take “the gaze from the periphery of the human condition, marked by the precariousness of existence”: it is what in fact “favors the construction of those necessary bridges – he says – not to forget the human that characterizes us and to always identify new, often unexpected paths “. The hope is that there will be ever greater effectiveness in the dialogue between the theological-pastoral and the clinical-psychological spheres.
Paglia: to take care means to love
Opening the speeches for the presentation of the book, Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, emphasized that taking care means loving. “The other has the right to be loved. In every religion there is the indispensability of taking care of the other. Spirituality means not living only for oneself ”, he said. And he repeated it in our interview:
“I believe that we are experiencing a moment in which technology risks tarnishing that humanistic dimension of proximity which is indispensable when dealing with the sick”, he explains. And he insists that ‘spirituality’ “is not a generic sentiment, a nebulous name”. To reinforce what the Pope said today when he received the administrators and politicians of the French diocese of Cambrai, Paglia underlined the risk that a superficial culture made up of concepts such as ‘just war’, ‘assisted suicide’, ‘facilitation’… could cause us to lose sight of the drama of death. “We cannot become collaborators of the dirty work of death, it already does it by itself, it certainly does not need gravediggers,” she said. We must have the courage to speak of death as a passage towards the Beyond, recalls the prelate: “we will be transformed not annulled, transfigured not dehumanized”.
The most serious illness is loneliness
On the sidelines of his speech, we asked Monsignor Paglia to also comment on the bleak scenario of many adolescents who today show so much distrust of life that they lead to death. How then to strengthen the relationship between pastoral and clinical settings for the youngest? “It is the most bitter result of the most serious illness: loneliness. Suicides are a great unanswered question of love, a great alarm bell. I personally always do the funeral of the suicide mass. I want them to be embraced ”.
Training in palliative care in every clinical specialization
Pleased to recall how the collaboration with the Cancer Institute of Milan and the Academy for Life has led to the establishment of the first chair in the sector, marking a significant leap in quality also with regard to the youngest patients, Paglia spoke of the need need for a “cultural revolution”. An expression that has found the speakers and authors in agreement where the cultural revolution means above all training not only for palliative care practitioners but for doctors of all specialties. In essence, we need to aim for transversality: Dario Manfellotto also said it, of the Fatebenefratelli Isola Tiberina Gemelli Hospital, president of the Federation of Associations of Hospital Internists.
The “cultural revolution” of the spirituality of care
Palliative care must be a priority of the national health system. Maria Alessandra Sandulli scanned it, full professor of Administrative Law and Administrative Justice at the University of Roma Tre and director of the Center for Health Law. Her hope is that already at school there will be talk of the importance of spirituality “in caring for those who are worse off”. After all, it has been said, it is relationships between people that are worth living for: “health is a condition of good life, but not the only one”.
Spiritual accompaniment from the time of diagnosis
Another fixed point that emerged during the presentation was the updating of doctors and spiritual assistants so that they have the time, right from the diagnosis, to follow the patient. Professor Clerici mentioned the context in which he works every day: every ten days he sees a child die. Difficult for him to interact with those who “have ready-made answers”. Yet he has tried the path of dialogue, which he considers fundamental. Thus, he found a precious shoulder in Don Tullio Proserpio. The priest’s experience in the Institute was born at the urging of Cardinal Martini. “A world has opened up to me,” he confides.
Don Proserpio: alongside the sick, faith is imbued with humility
“What I had learned to be theoretical securities are continually questioned by being in contact with the sick,” he explains in our interview. “One cannot be arrogant, presumptuous. I don’t meet theories, I meet people. When faced with parents who feel the deadly evidence of their child, the certainty of faith is always walking a tightrope, a ridge. The reality sometimes seems to deny even the Word of God, it is not nice to say but it is so, for me. And so I say that the journey of faith is precisely a journey. Step by step. In one moment it seems to intuit something, the next moment it seems to be wavering ”.
What is faith for you in this harsh context? “Ask the Lord for help to continue to trust him. One becomes humble, in the true sense of the term ‘humus’, of the poor ”. Don Proserpio tells us that in recent years he has gathered a profound humanity, that pain in itself is bad, not good and that it is precisely this accent that has made it possible to associate with a “non-believer” like Clerici. “We helped each other. The much exalted contrast between faith and science does not exist when you are in contact with certain realities ”, he observes. And he gives us the story of Valeria Colombo, a girl who died in hospital at the age of 17. “I gave her the anointing of the sick. ‘Do I have my bags ready now, then?’ She said. She baffled me ”. In 2013 she met Pope Francis: “I die with a smile thinking of the Pope’s smile, she said. For me this underlying serenity is shocking. It is the confirmation that it is possible to approach death also in this way ”.
Paglia: spirituality in care is not a generic feeling but concrete proximity – Vatican News