States have a moral obligation to develop universal health care systems, Pope Leo XIV said, stating that “health cannot be a luxury for the few.”
“On the contrary, it is an essential condition for social peace,” he said March 18 at a conference on health care inequality in Europe organized by the European bishops’ council, Italian bishops’ conference and the World Health Organization.
“Universal health coverage is not merely a technical goal to be achieved; it is primarily a moral imperative for societies that wish to call themselves just,” the pope said. “Healthcare must be accessible to the most vulnerable, then, not only because their dignity requires it but also to prevent injustice from becoming a cause of conflict.”
Leo pointed to widening inequalities in health care, noting that “fewer people are able to access the services available,” and stressed the urgency of adapting health systems to better address mental health, “particularly that of young people, because invisible psychological wounds are no less severe than those that are visible.”
Reflecting on his predecessor’s 2020 encyclical on human fraternity, Fratelli Tutti, the pope said that “distance, distraction and desensitization to the sight of violence and the suffering of others lead us toward indifference.”
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