Mariella Enoc, President of the Vatican-owned Bambino Jesus (‘Infant Jesus’) pediatric hospital,said the hospital is ready to receive Charlie Gard in Rome, if his parents so wish and if his State, allows it.
In a press release in Italian this Monday, July 3, 2017, she quotes Pope Francis’ tweet, posted on his account @Pontifex_it on June 30: “Defend human life, especially when it is wounded by sickness, is a commitment of love that God entrusts to every man.”
“The Holy Father’s words, regarding little Charlie, summarize well the mission of the Bambino Gesu hospital. That is why I asked the Health Director to verify with London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, where the newborn is hospitalized, if the health conditions exist for Charlie’s eventual transfer to our hospital. We know that the case is desperate and that, apparently, effective therapies do not exist.”
Enoc expressed her closeness to Charlie’s parents saying: “We are close to the parents through prayer and, if they so desire, we are ready to receive their child in our hospital for the time that remains to him to live.”
Pope Francis addressed a message to Charlie Gard’s parents on Sunday evening, July 2, expressing his closeness, through his spokesman Greg Burke: “The Holy Father follows with affection and emotion the affair of little Charlie Gard and expresses his closeness to his parents.” Pope Francis, Burke said, “Prays for them hoping that their desire to accompany and care for their child to the end is not disregarded.”
Charlie Gard was born on August 4, 2016; he is suffering from a rare mitochondrial diseases damaging his brain.
On June 27, the European Court of Human Rights rejected the parents’ appeal to take their child to the United States for experimental treatment and the British Supreme Court ruled in favor of the cessation of respiratory assistance, hydration and nutrition, which according to the experts, like Cardinal Elio Sgreccia, president emeritus of the Pontifical Academy for life, amounts to euthanasia.
