Pope Leo XIV offers condolences to victims of ferry accident in Zimbabwe

The interior of St. Bernard Church in Madison, Wisconsin, the diocese’s future cathedral. / Credit: Diocese of Madison

CNA Staff, Jan 18, 2024 / 11:15 am (CNA).
After nearly 20 years without a cathedral, the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, annou… […]

Vatican City, Dec 9, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Christmas at the Vatican will be a little different this year — and in keeping with the times, Pope Francis has eschewed a traditional gift for something a bit more practical.

Rather than a bottle of sparkling wine and the traditional Italian holiday cake panettone, the pope’s Christmas present to Vatican employees is over-the-counter flu medicine, according to Italian media.

Pope Francis is giving each of his nearly 4,000 employees five boxes of Vicks day and nighttime flu medicine with acetaminophen, Il Messaggero reported.

It is thought that the idea for the useful winter gift was suggested by the man responsible for distributing the pope’s alms, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, who is known for his hands-on approach to helping Rome’s poor and homeless.

The custom Christmas gift is being distributed as the Vatican faces more financial losses with a new closure of the Vatican Museums, the city state’s largest income stream.

Since Nov. 3, the Italian government has decreed that all museums in the country will be closed to the public at least through Jan. 15, 2021, as one of the measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. 

To date, the Vatican has had a number of COVID-19 cases among employees and residents. Since March, at least 13 people connected to the city state had tested positive for the coronavirus, mostly in the spring.

Eleven members of the Swiss Guards contracted the virus in October. The Vatican press office has not said if there are currently any active cases.

Last week, Pope Francis’ charity brought free flu vaccines and coronavirus tests to homeless people living in a town outside Rome.

The Vatican ambulance carried the medical supplies to the small seaside town of Torvaianica, and health staff from the papal charity office administered the flu shots and COVID-19 tests to 35 people in a courtyard outside the local parish.

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Vatican City, May 29, 2018 / 01:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A month after the death of UK toddler Alfie Evans, the Vatican’s Bambino Gesu children’s hospital issued a new charter on the “rights of the incurable child,” outlining basic rights for both parents and children.

Among other things, the charter says children with terminal diseases have the right to second opinions and better diagnostic and palliative care, as well as the right to better experimental treatments and to be moved across international borders.

The charter was presented May 29 as part of a seminar course titled “Are there incurable children?” It took place a month after the April 28 death of Alfie Evans, a gravely ill toddler who passed away just before his second birthday after being removed from life support during an intense legal battle over his treatment.

Consisting of 10 articles, the hospital’s new charter draws on previous national and international charters for the rights of hospitalized children, and affirms that proper medical care does not involve just looking for a cure, but also includes palliative care, as well as spiritual and psychological support for the family.

A summary of the charter posted to Bambino Gesu’s website refers to the case of Alfie Evans, as well as that of British infant Charlie Gard, who died at 11 months old in 2017 after a similar legal battle over his treatment and transfer.

Both children suffered from either unidentified or rare degenerative diseases and were denied the right both to further experimental treatment and international transfer, despite the fact that doctors outside of the UK were willing to provide experimental treatments.

In both cases, Bambino Gesu offered to take the children and provide for their palliative care, and in both cases the request to transfer was denied by British courts and hospitals, despite the fact that in Evans’ case, the child was granted Italian citizenship.

Article 5 of the new charter says children “have the right to use experimental diagnostic-therapeutic protocols approved by ethics committees that avail themselves of specific pediatric skills,” and that risk factors must naturally be reduced as much as possible.

The charter notes that in the cases of Evans and Gard, the most controversial point was the decision of hospitals and judges not to authorize the transfer of the children abroad, despite their parents’ wishes.

To this end, it notes in the charter that European citizens have the right to receive care in every country that is part of the European Union, choosing whichever healthcare facility they wish for either planned or unplanned care.

Also highlighted is the child’s right to take advantage of cross-border healthcare. In article 6, the charter stresses that the right of the family to “the choice of a doctor, medical team and healthcare facility of their trust, even if they move to a country other than their own” must be respected by the facility where the child is hospitalized.

In article 7, which touches on palliative care, the charter also emphasizes that whenever possible, the child has the right “to stay in their own home for their health needs, even complex ones.”

Likewise, the child also has a right “to receive adequate pain treatment, both physical and psychological.” Symptoms and suffering, the document says, “must be possibly prevented and always alleviated.”

Palliative care, the charter emphasizes, “must be integrated early in treatment planning as a complement to curative and rehabilitative measures.”

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