Yes to life! Caring for the precious gift of life in its frailness

The Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life has organized #YestoLife: an international conference on the defence of nascent human life in extremely fragile conditions. The non-profit organization “Il Cuore in una Goccia” and the Knights of Columbus will collaborate in the event, which is intended to offer realistic and replicable models of medical and above all pastoral care, from conception onwards, and to show the Church’s closeness to families to whom with increasing frequency the only alternative suggested is abortion.

The conference, which will take place from 23 to 25 May in Rome, will be attended by four hundred people from seventy countries, representing the episcopal conferences, dioceses and many families, along with doctors and experts in the field of perinatal care. Its aim is to approach, in a realistic and practical way, the fundamental moment in the life of each couple that is the expectation of a child. Even when the lift that is about to be born is extremely fragile, perinatal medicine now offers extraordinary opportunities for assistance. In order not to abandon families who live such a delicate moment, it is necessary for pastoral workers to be close to them, offering at the same time the necessary spiritual consolation when faced with pain: science and faith can be allied to accompany with love and attention the couples and families that experience the birth of a child with serious pathologies or disability.

“Aquinas and the Market. Toward a Humane Economy” by Mary L. Hirschfeld , wins the Fourth Edition of the “Economy and Society” Award of the Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice Foundation

Mary L. Hirschfeld’s book “Aquinas and the Market. Toward a humane Economy” (Harvard University Press, 2018) won the 4th edition of the International “Economy and Society” Award, sponsored by the Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice Foundation, for the section “Social Doctrine Publications”. The €30,000 prize is awarded every other year to a work that stands out for its original contribution to in depth study and implementation of the Social Doctrine of the Church, is of proven doctrinal soundness and exceptional quality and accessible to the general public.

This year the Prize will be awarded on Wednesday, 29 May in the presence of the Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Cardinal Parolin and of the Chairman of the jury Reinhard Cardinal Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Frisinga.

Mary L. Hirschfeld teaches Economics and Theology at Villanova University (USA). Her book offers a fascinating dialogue between the world of economics and the world of faith. Without contesting the value of some intuitions of contemporary economists, she incorporates them into a larger vision of human life drawing in particular from the anthropology of Tomas Aquinas. Economics should not govern our society but pursue man’s happiness. Material wellbeing is in fact an instrumental good that acquires meaning through its potential of contributing to the flowering of human spirit.

Having awarded prizes in the past to a Spanish book (J.L. Martinez, Ciudadania, migraciones y religion), an Italian one (S. Zamagni, L’economia del bene commune) a French one (P. De Lauzun, Finance, un regard chrétien) and a German one (M. Vogt, Prinzip Nachhaltigkeit) this time the Foundation is pleased to award its prize to an English publication. Work is underway on Portuguese and Italian translations of Hirschfeld’s text.

This year the prize “Journalism and social media” will not be awarded.