3. In civil society the social-health care services sector has undergone an important and significant evolution in recent years. On the one hand, access to assistance and health care, recognized as a right of the citizen, has become generalized, consequently determining the broadening of the structures and of the various health care services. On the other hand, in order to meet these requirements, nations have established appropriate ministries, passed ad hoc legislation and adopted policies with specific health care aims. The United Nations, for its part, has initiated the World Health Organization

This vast and complex sector directly concerns the good of the human person and of society. Precisely for this reason it also poses delicate and inevitable questions which involve not only the social and organizational aspect, but also the exquisitely ethical and religious one, since basic "human" events, such as suffering, illness and death, are involved, with the related questions about the role of medicine and the mission of the doctor with regard to the sick person. Theca new frontiers, then, opened by the progress of science and its possible technical and therapeutic applications, touch the most delicate spheres of life at its very sources and in its most profound meaning.