At 11.30 today, a press conference was held at the Holy See Press Office, Via della Conciliazione 54, to present the General Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, on the theme “The End of the World? Crises, Responsibilities, Hopes”, to take place from 3 to 5 March at the Conference Centre of the Augustinianum.

The speakers will be: Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life; Professor Katalin Karikó, Nobel Prize winner for Medicine 2023; Professor Guido Tonelli, University of Pisa, Italy; Professor Henk ten Have, Anáhuac University, Mexico City, Mexico; and Sr. Giustina Holha Holubets, SSMI, NGO Perinatal Hospice, Lviv, Ukraine.

The following are their interventions:

Intervention of Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia

The theme of this assembly comes from the convergence of several aspects of the particular moment we are experiencing. On the one hand, there is the growing awareness that the crisis we are experiencing simultaneously affects several dimensions of our personal and social life. The Holy Father also noted this awareness, using a term coined by Edgar Morin: polycrisis. On the other hand, there is the importance of listening more deeply to what factors have led us into this bottleneck. But our interest does not lie in making analyses for their own sake, but rather in identifying currents of transformation and change that require our responsibility but can also open windows of hope for the future of our societies.

Reflecting on this theme, a biblical icon came to mind that seemed pertinent to the present circumstances and that seems to me to be able to help us interpret the present moment: that of the Flood (Gen 6-9). First of all, we note how the situation that in the book of Genesis triggers the crisis that submerges the Earth, is a quantitative increase in the evil present on the planet: it seems that a threshold is crossed whereby the excess of evil is such that it can no longer be contained in the world.

There is an overflow that spreads and involves everything. Let us think today of the new threshold of the (self-)destructive potential which humanity has at its disposal.

It is therefore up to us to work on the construction of a common ark for everyone: a nucleus ordered according to the word of God, which Noah listened to carefully in order to build the ark, so as to guard the logic of creation by which it might follow its own path, staying afloat in the sea that submerges all other objects. In this way, the ark symbolizes a space in which God's creation can sail through death and (violent) destruction towards a new beginning.

Of course coexistence is not to be taken for granted and the effort of harmonising differences is very demanding. To stay with our image: life in the ark is not easy. Even the new beginning marked by a second emergence onto the dry land, which is told to us in the biblical episode as a kind of new creation, is much longer than that described in the first chapter of Genesis. Forty days and several weeks of exploration show Noah as a man of patience and hope.

A hope that is not synonymous with resignation or renunciation, but with industrious and explorative waiting, making use of all available means (crows and doves, there were no drones back then), enduring, relying on the promise of a word deemed worthy of faith and that requires a decision in order to reach what has been promised.

It is in this spirit that we hope to make our journey.

Intervention of Professor Katalin Karikó

I am participating in this appointment, as you know, as an Ordinary Academician of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Tomorrow afternoon, in the dialogue we have on the theme “What/Who will save the world?”, I will say something about the role of science.

Science is knowledge of the world around us. The knowledge is collected by observation, measurements and experimentation. Science is fun, to be a scientist is a fun job. What is exciting is that there is a complexity, and then it is you who can solve it by reading articles or doing experiments and put together things which maybe nobody did. Then you realise what’s going on. The joy that you were the first one to know that this is how things happens. That’s one. It is very similar to be like a detective or an investigator on a crime, but the end of it, you don’t find a perpetrator, you find a solution, and maybe that solution would help somebody. That’s what is the beauty about it, maybe somebody who’s sick and then your discovery can contribute to their healing.

People have different views, different thinking, like somebody’s a physician or there is a basic scientist and they are thinking differently. If they work together and respect each other, then a new invention can be done. That’s what I think is important, so I try to emphasize that women are important for science, and the science need more women because at the beginning there are many women graduating schools and they have their dream, but the difficulties might come when they have a childbearing age and they want family. I can see in many countries that if you are not having enough financial support, then you have to give up your job because that little baby is crying there and you have to take care of it. Your dream is just a potential, giving up seems a solution to take care of your child. But if a government is listening, then we have to talk to them to support affordable high-quality childcare. It would be very important because more women could do more discoveries.

I relied on the work on many other people, I was doing research for 20, 30 years. I learned from reading articles from people who are not with us anymore, and I learned from it. I had colleagues and so many, many people who contributed. I feel that we did it. We scientists, with all of my colleagues at Pfizer, BioNTech as well as University Pennsylvania, and those scientists who worked on the field. That’s how I feel, and I have to say, I was lucky. I never craved recognition. For me, it was enough that I know that what I did and what is important and not that other people would know.   For me, I feel that a lot of scientists, hundreds and thousands of scientists, contributed to the knowledge, because the RNA was discovered 64 years ago, and during those years, many things happened. I will tell you that how many things was discovered and was contributed by scientists. As a scientist, I didn’t expect to see that what I am doing will be that important. I know that it is important. I know that one day maybe other scientists will take on and reaching in one day a level that somebody will be helped. Thank you.

Intervention of Professor Guido Tonelli

Science is still, in some way, the basis of our worldview. We still need it, and not only to produce the technologies and tools necessary for the survival of the human race.

The profound change that a paradigm shift produces on a scientific level produces an even more radical change on a cultural level. Human beings organize themselves in a different way, humanity builds different relationships to those it had previously. This is a fundamental point because even today science continues to produce changes. The mechanism by which science changes our worldview is a phenomenon that is still in progress, and it is necessary to be aware of these changes, because the future will take its shape from them.

For thousands of years, humanity has seen itself as the most fragile element of an unchangeable natural environment. We saw ourselves as fragile mortals who live our precarious existence in an eternal and immortal natural environment. It is no coincidence that the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, the stars and the planets were once deified. From this sense of fragility, the most beautiful things that humanity has produced were born: art and philosophy, science and religion. From this came the drive to create immortal works: the exploits of Achilles, who preferred to be sung about by bards for millennia rather than live a humble life; or the great pyramids, tombs of the pharaohs that rival the mountains. And so on.

Today we discover that this fragility, of which we have been so ashamed, to the point of constituting a permanent source of anguish for us, is a common trait of the entire material world. Modern science tells us that all material forms that have any consistency whatsoever suffer from this intrinsic fragility; there is nothing, not even among the most imposing structures, that can escape this law, this sort of original sin.

What will be the consequences of this new worldview? Will there be distressing or reassuring implications? Will humans build closer bonds of solidarity and awareness between themselves or will the elements of aggression and selfishness prevail even more? These are the key questions that men of the Church are called to reflect upon.

Intervention of Professor Henk ten Have

The end of the world? The educational perspective

Confronted with climate change, political polarization, democratic failures, impotent policies, economic regression, war and violence apocalyptic views tend to obliterate perspectives on the future of humankind. This will affect first and foremost younger generations, and thus emphasizes the role of education. But fatalistic and pessimistic views about the possible end of the world cannot be remedied by education as such. It will be important what will be taught and how teaching proceeds. First, education should not only focus on the future but reflect on the past (showing that in the history of all civilizations ideas of decline and collapse have circulated), and analyse the present (showing that apocalyptic ideas are not uniform, and depending on socio-economic conditions, culture and religion). Second, focusing on the future, it should outline at least three responses to apocalyptic views: resignation (giving up the idea that collapse and decline can be averted), resistance (efforts to eliminate degeneration and produce renewal through science or social and genetic engineering), and re-evaluation (reappraise fundamental values and upwardly adjust rather than devaluate them). This last response aims at persistent and piecemeal transformation, inspired by the hope that change for the better is possible. It was in fact the basic motivation to launch the new discipline of bioethics in the 1970s. To avoid the possible extinction of humankind, all types of wisdom should be harnessed to counter global threats and to ensure survival. But in order to be inspirational, bioethical discourse should be more critical and prophetic. It should inspire hope that things can improve and we can do better.

Intervention of Sr. Giustina Holha Holubets, SSMI

‘I cannot add days to your life but I can add life to your days.’.

Sr. Giustina Olha Holubets, Clinical Psychologist at the Lviv Medical Genetic Center at the Institute of Hereditary Pathology of National Academy of Medical Science of Ukraine, President of the Non‒Governmental Organization «Perinatal Hospice ‒ Imprint of Life»

«Human life is especially fragile and fragile when it comes into this world and when it leaves mortality to pass into eternity”. EV, 44.

Among medics there a strain of prenatal diagnosis with the prevention of congenital and hereditary defects that often lead to abortion.  In spite this there are couples who decided not to do abortion even when they face congenital and hereditary defects and continue pregnancy to take care for their baby till her last minute of life. Very often such couples have no support and understanding from society even from their families and medical stuff.

Over the past decade on the experience of many countries, you can see that the alternative is perinatal hospice as a place of true Love, in which a group of professionals provide support, help in order to prepare parents, relatives until the child is born with fatal defects and death of pre-, intra - or postnatal. Accordingly, at each stage, there is appropriate assistance at different levels: medical, psychological, social and spiritual.

The non-profit organization "Perinatal Hospice - Imprint of Life" is the first proposition of perinatal palliative care in Ukraine, which began its history in 2013, and since 2017 has been operating in Lviv, expanding its activities to other cities of Ukraine is helping parents and their terminally offspring to highly qualified and multidisciplinary care.

The main objectives of ‘Perinatal hospice - Imprint of Life’ are:

-          to raise awareness of perinatal loss

-          to raise awareness of the human right to receive high-quality palliative care, with a specific focus on perinatal palliative care as well as care for the parents and their families

-          to provide support for mothers and couples, who during their pregnancy discover their unborn child has severe congenital disorders or disabilities

-          to provide support for unborn babies with life threatening disorders

-          to provide grief counseling for parents who lose their child during pregnancy or after delivery, even if the child was only a few weeks old in utero

In recent years, the Organization has supported many families, giving many children the victims of a fatal diagnosis, to come to this world, some of them feel fine and are in the arms of their mothers, but could not be born. For parents who adopted their children, these small and short life as a meteor, left the richness of Life and the strength that supported them in severe loss and pain, and later, in a short time and in an effort to open up and make a new life. Perinatal palliative care does not stop by the death of a child. Organization provides assistance in the baby’s funeral offering the necessary support for their parents, and meetings for families who lost their child.

            Organization aims to help parents spend the short and priceless time with their baby in love; to support them both at the moment of saying good-bye to their newborn.

            Even in cases when «there is nothing that can be done», something can always be done. To love. Till the end.