A gift for life. Considerations on organ donation

The event is organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV), the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC), and the Italian National Transplant Centre (CNT).

The Congress will be a meeting of people from all over the world, at which the organ donating activities of five continents will be represented. Papers will be presented pertaining to scientific and medical, as well as to organizational, legal and ethical, aspects of organ donation. The first day of the Congress will be dedicated to the current ‘state of the art’ of the transplant system on an international basis, with a focus upon the historical evolution of transplantation sciences and of organ donation. It will also analyse crucial matters, such as the need for organs world-wide, the problem of trafficking in organs, and the importance of spreading the culture of organ donation.

On the second day of the meeting, ethical and anthropological dimensions of organ donation will be the core of the discussion, which will extend to theoretical, ethical and legal aspects of ‘living wills’ in relation to the donation of organs. The third and last day will be devoted to the role of the mass media in respect of the culture of donating organs.

An audience with His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, has been requested for the last day of the Congress, in which the Church’s position and teachings on organ donation may be presented.

Scientists, researchers and experts on ethical issues from the scientific world and from Catholic associations will constitute the audience at the Congress. The presence of the Pontifical Academy for Life enhances the ethical and moral value of the event, which seeks to identify common and shared ways of increasing further the availability of organs.

first announcement