The Splendor of the Human Person: Safeguarding Fertility, Healing Infertility

This weekend, October 16-18, an international congress titled “The Splendor of the Human Person: Safeguarding Fertility, Healing Infertility” will be held at the Rome campus of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. The congress celebrates the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the Pope Paul VI International Scientific Institute (ISI), which studies human fertility and infertility, as well as the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Center for Natural Fertility Regulation. 

This congress raises a rather complex and challenging issue of modernity - infertility. It is a challenge that one in 5 couples in the United States faces. The path of infertility is quite complex, painful, isolating, and invisible to others. Also, these couples often do not have sufficient spiritual support on this path, because not all Catholic circles understand them and know how to support them in this period of infertility. 

The Catholic infertility ministry Springs in the Desert is one of the few communities that supports couples who are experiencing infertility. They accompany women and couples who are struggling with infertility and loss, offering them a space of respite, solidarity, and support. You can learn more about this community on their website. 

This congress also coincided with the day of Saint Gerard Maiella, an Italian Redemptorist who is the patron saint of expecting mothers, and who is also addressed in prayer by those who want to receive the gift of children and become parents. We include here a prayer to St. Gerard for the gift of children:  

O good St. Gerard, powerful intercessor before the throne of God, wonder-worker of our day, I call upon you and seek your help. While on earth, you always fulfilled God's designs; help me, too, always do God's holy will. Beseech the master of life, from whom all parenthood proceeds, to bless me with offspring, that I may raise up children to God in this life and heirs to the kingdom of God's glory in the life to come. Amen.

Remember in prayer those who are currently carrying the cross of infertility and support them.