Pope: Leukemia patients, cared for by science and by volunteers

In the Paul VI Hall, Pope Francis meets the members of the Italian Association against Leukemia-Lymphomas and Myeloma (AIL) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its foundation. The volunteers bring "the consolation of Jesus and his mother". "It is not just treating  the disease, an organ or cells, but the person".

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - There is a need for "scientific research", but also for the "extraordinary testimony of generous voluntary service", to treat patients suffering from leukemia, lymphomas and myelomas. 

Pope Francis underlined this today by meeting the members of the Italian Association against Leukemia-Lymphomas and Myeloma (AIL) in the Paul VI Hall on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its foundation. Many patients were also present in the hall.

Francis expressed his appreciation of the Association's "lines of action", "scientific research, health assistance and staff training", but also wanted to express satisfaction for the work of the group's volunteers, "many men and women who give their time to be close to the sick ".

"This attitude of close proximity - he added - is all the more necessary in relation to the haematological patient, whose situation is complex due to the very perception of the disease, in its specificity. Sometimes the prolonged stay in isolation departments turns out to be really heavy to bear; the person feels on his own flesh the impression of feeling separated from the world, from relationships, from everyday life. The same trend of the disease and the therapies forces them to question their own future. I want to assure to all the sick people who are experiencing this that they are not alone: ​​the Lord, who has experienced the hard experience of pain and the cross, is there beside them. The presence of many people who share these difficult moments with them is a tangible sign of the presence and consolation of Jesus and his mother, the Virgin Mary, Mother of all the sick ".

Even the work of doctors and nurses has a spiritual value, being "called to care for people in their totality of body and spirit". "The cure - he explained - is not of the disease, of an organ or of cells, but of the person. The person in his spirituality does not exhaust himself in the corporeity; but the fact that the spirit transcends the body causes it to be included in a greater vitality and dignity, which is not proper to biology, but that proper to the person and the spirit".