DISCORSO DI SUA SANTITÀ PIO PP. XII
AD ALCUNI CHIRURGHI AMERICANI APPARTENENTI ALL'«INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS»*

 Sala del Tronetto - Martedì, 4 giugno 1957

Some years ago, when addressing a large group of doctors, We took occasion to emphasize the special need and duty incumbent on your profession to strive continuously for greater perfection in mastering every phase of medical and surgical procedures. We cannot help recalling those words of exhortation this morning in receiving you, gentlemen, and your gracious consorts.

You come as representatives of the American Section of the International College of Surgeons, a College founded precisely to advance the science of surgery, and to ensure that surgeons throughout the world may share the results of the progress attained in various countries. Is not your presence here in Rome due just to your resolute purpose to approach greater and greater perfection in your profession? Surgical skill and surgical judgment will not be acquired from books alone or lectures. Clinical experience and observation of those most experienced are essential supplements to one's study.

Hence We cannot praise too highly the nobly human scope of your College, and its international character. What more international, or rather supranational than human ills? You are dedicated men, who in a spirit of admirable self-sacrifice have devoted your energies of mind and heart and body to that essential good of the individual and the community, which is life; and as that dedication carries with it the grave obligation, of which you are so conscious, to profit by and to contribute to the constant development of the forces that may relieve man of the ills that beset him, and to enlarge the frontiers of life, so too it raises you to a level of activity unencumbered by barriers of race or nationality. Our interest in your work and your success is measured by Our unbounded affection for all men. That affection, be assured, is expressed by Our daily prayer to the Creator and Lord of all, that He in His infinite goodness give courage and solace to the suffering, enlighten and guide the members of the medical profession and in the end grant to all eternal life.

*Discorsi e Radiomessaggi di Sua Santità Pio XII, XIX,
 Diciannovesimo anno di Pontificato, 2 marzo 1957-1° marzo 1958, p. 249
 Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana