Earthquake in Yogyakarta,Indonesia

Dear friends,

I am sure that you have already heard a lot about the earthquake in Yogyakarta and do try to find out ways to help the victims of the disaster.
As you know well, Dr. John Lee of Singapore, Chair of the Medical Mission Committee of our Asian Federation of Catholic Medical Associations is working very hard to coordinate all the activities supporting the victims on behalf of the AFCMA as he did during theTsunami disaster in Aceh last year.
Using this opportunity, I would like to thank you all once again for having joined our medical mission project for the Tsunami victims.

I know that you have already started out your efforts to help the victims in Yogyakarta including prayers, and I thank you in advance for all those good works.

For your information, the Korean Federation of Catholic Medical Associations is now organizing a project to help the Yogyakarta victims together with the International Coorperation Division of the Archdiocese of Seoul. This will include sending charity funds and a medical team.

I hope that you will also aid in the effort to help the victims of the Indonesian earthquake.
Above all, let us pray that our Lord will help our Indonesian brothers and sisters to recover quickly from the tragic disaster.

Regards in Christ,


Kwang-ho Meng
President, AFCMA

Regulated Market of Organ Sales

Pope John Paul II has stated that acts of selfless love "are most solemn celebrations of the Gospel of life" and that a particularly praiseworthy example of such love "is the donation of organs, performed in an ethically acceptable manner, with a view to offering a chance of health and even of life itself to the sick who sometimes have no other hope." Evangelium Vitae [1995] ¶86

The National Catholic Bioethics Center strongly opposes any regulated market of organ sales. Such a scheme would harm the charitable nature of organ donation and substitute in its place a market for the buying and selling of human body parts. The human body is not a commodity, but a gift over which God has given us a limited stewardship. Furthermore, to turn the body and its organs into commodities places at great risk those who are poor and vulnerable by making them susceptible to the allure of monetary gain from a surgical procedure which in no way benefits them medically.