VATICAN CORNER
Each month of the Holy Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has spent one Friday afternoon outside the Vatican performing an act of mercy. He has made surprise visits to a group of migrants, to a recovery community for former drug addicts and alcoholics, to a shelter for women rescued from human trafficking and prostitution, to a home for the elderly, and to a facility for retired priests. On Friday Sept.16, 2016 he made a surprise visit to both a neonatal hospital unit and to a hospice for the terminally ill. The Vatican said Pope Francis wanted to send a message about respecting life at all stages, from its start to natural death. He first began by surprising Rome’s San Giovanni hospital. It is a vast catholic teaching hospital in northern Rome, and the place where doctors helped save the life of Pope John Paul II after being wounded during a 1981 assassination attempt. He was greeted with astonishment by the staff. He stopped by the emergency room before going on to the neonatal unit for premature babies. Like everyone visiting the unit, he put on a mask and gown and followed all the hygiene procedures required for an area where children’s immune systems are often weak. He spoke to each of the 12 little patients, in their incubators. Five were newborns suffering from severe complications, and were in intensive care, including one set of twins. Francis seemed enchanted by the 12 tiny babies squirming, sleeping and crying. He left a papal medal in all the cribs, greeted their worried parents, offering them words of comfort. Pope Francis also went upstairs to the maternity ward and nursery, greeting new parents and holding the little bundles of joy while staff took photos on their phones. Later in the afternoon, Pope Francis went to the Villa Speranza hospice located north of Rome which hosts 30 terminally ill patients. Pope Francis went into each of the rooms and greeted each patient, the Vatican said. “There was great surprise on the part of all patients and relatives, who experienced moments of intense emotion with tears and smiles of joy.” The Vatican said in a statement “The acceptance of life and the guarantee of human dignity at all stages of development are lessons repeatedly stressed by Pope Francis,” the Pope’s dual mercy visit is a “concrete and tangible sign” of how essential it is to give our attention “to those in the most vulnerable and precarious situations.”
Sources: news.va, news. bbc.co.uk, dailymail.co.uk, cruxnow.com, catholicphilly.com