Today human life is “increasingly evaluated in terms of efficiency and utility, to the point that the lives that do not meet such criteria are considered ‘unworthy’ or ‘to be discarded’”. Pope Francis denounced this as he received in audience the participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He noted that “in this situation characterised by the loss of authentic values, there is also a loss of the imperative duties of solidarity, and of human and Christian fraternity”. “A society deserves the qualification of ‘civil’ – Pope Francis argued – if it develops antibodies against the throwaway culture; if it recognises the intangible value of human life; if solidarity is actively practised and preserved as the foundation of coexistence”. “The Christian doctrine is neither a rigid and closed system, nor an ideology that changes with the passing of time”, the Pope began: “It is a dynamic reality that, remaining faithful to its foundation, is renewed from generation to generation, and is summed up in a face, in a body, and in a name: Jesus Christ, the Risen One”. The Pope went on to praise the Pontifical Dicastery’s commitment to “the care of people in their critical and terminal stages of life”, in a socio-cultural context that “is progressively eroding the understanding of that which makes human life precious”.