We publish the speech addressed yesterday by Benedict XVI to participants in the 25th International Congress of Catholic Pharmacists. The translation, from the French original is editorial. Mr. President, dear friends, I am pleased to welcome you, the members of the International Congress of Catholic Pharmacists, on the occasion of your twenty-fifth Congress, whose theme is: "The new frontiers of pharmaceutical intervention". The current development of the medicinal arsenal and of the therapeutic possibilities deriving from it makes it necessary for pharmacists to reflect on the increasingly broader functions they are called upon to perform, in particular as intermediaries between doctor and patient; they have an educational role towards patients for the correct use of medicines and above all to make known the ethical implications of the use of some of them. In this context it is not possible to anesthetize consciences, for example on the effects of molecules whose purpose is to prevent an embryo from implanting itself or to shorten a person's life. The pharmacist must invite everyone to a burst of humanity, so that every being is protected from conception until natural death and medicines truly carry out their therapeutic role. On the other hand, no person can be thoughtlessly used as an object to carry out therapeutic experiments; these must take place according to protocols that respect fundamental ethical norms. Every act of treatment or experimentation must look at a possible improvement in the person's condition, and not just at the search for scientific progress. The pursuit of a good for humanity cannot take place at the expense of the good of the people being treated. In the moral sphere, your Federation is invited to address the issue of conscientious objection, which is a right that must be recognized in your profession, allowing you not to collaborate, directly or indirectly, in the supply of products whose purpose is clearly immoral choices, such as for example abortion and euthanasia. it is also appropriate for the various pharmaceutical structures, from laboratories to hospital centers to pharmacies, as well as all of our contemporaries, to be concerned with solidarity in the therapeutic field, to allow access to basic necessity treatments and medicines for all segments of the population and in all countries, especially the poorest people. As Catholic pharmacists you can, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, draw from the life of faith and from the Church's teaching the elements that will guide you in your professional conduct alongside sick people who need human and moral support to live in hope and to find additional resources to help them every day. It is also up to you to help young people working in the various pharmaceutical professions to reflect on the increasingly delicate ethical implications of their activities and decisions. To this end, it is important that all Catholic health professionals and people of good will mobilize and unite, to deepen their formation not only on a technical level, but also on bioethical issues, as well as to offer this formation to the profession as a whole. The human being, since he is the image of God, must always be at the center of research and choices in biomedical matters. Equally fundamental is the natural principle of the duty to provide care to the sick. The biomedical sciences are at the service of man; otherwise, they would only have a cold and inhuman character. Every scientific knowledge in the field of health care and every therapeutic act are at the service of the sick man, considered in his being
