Catholic Culture reports:

Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s basilica on February 11 as the Church observed the World Day of the Sick, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. In his homily the Holy Father said: “The measure of humanity is essentially determined in its relationship to suffering and the sufferer.” The Pope’s point was illustrated by the congregation in the Vatican basilica, which included hundreds of sick people, many in wheelchairs, accompanied by their care-givers.

Christian faith gives meaning and dignity to human suffering, the Pontiff said. He praised and thanked those who care for the sick, but added that the sick themselves are “not just the recipients of care and concern, but first and foremost protagonists in the pilgrimage of faith and hope.”

So if how we treat sufferers is our measure of humanity, let’s see how we’re doing.

The sick are encouraged to…well…die at our earliest possible convenience.
Poor people are encouraged not to reproduce so we don’t have to support them.
Abnormal children are snuffed out in the womb like it’s our job because they may be difficult to raise and they’re just not…normal like us.
Our President has referred to his own unborn grandchildren as “punishments” because they might be inconvenient to his plans.
We insist on shipping condoms to AIDS-ridden Africa even though we know it may actually be increasing the AIDS epidemic all because it makes us feel better.
We pretend that abortion has no side effects so we conveniently can ignore millions of women in pain.

So how are we doing? It seems clear our culture has embraced the culture of death.

Pope John Paul II said

“…It cannot be denied that such a culture of death, taken as a whole, betrays a completely individualistic concept of freedom, which ends up by becoming the freedom of “the strong” against the weak who have no choice but to submit”.

Yeah. Looks like we’re pretty much there.

The culture of “me” is the culture of death. And Catholicism is the antidote to the culture of death.