“Responding successfully to the challenge of leprosy is well within our grasp as medicine and technology have provided helps and cures that were never before available,” said Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, Interim Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. “Early detection and multidrug therapy continue to bring hope and healing to thousands.”

“What remains for us now is to move forward united in dignity, in the hope that we will also see stigma and discrimination soon in decline,” he continued. “May Our Lady, Help of the Sick, continue to intercede for us, that we may recognize in all persons that unique dignity and value that God has entrusted to the human family.”