An institution requires that persons be faithful to their undertakings as members of an institution. If nurses, doctors, pharmacists and many other professionals are not faithful to their commitment to gaining knowledge and using it to help patients, the institution of medicine will not exist. Fidelity, accordingly, is not a peripheral or optional quality of human persons but lies at the center of the human project.
2, agape and fidelity For the Christian, at the core of all moral obligation is the call to love God and neighbor. Other commandments or rules may spell out more precise obligations, but our obedience to all these obligations should be so many ways of embodying our love of God and neighbor. We are called to love all people: but is that really possible, in view of the fact that I cannot possibly be aware of all people individually? Although I cannot be aware of each person who exists, I can be aware of what it means to be a person. I can know that they are not merely objects; they are subjects who experience the range of things that I experience. I can wish happiness for every person and wish that no person would suffer. I can desire good and the avoidance of evil for all people in somewhat the same way as I desire good and avoidance of evil for myself. For each new person whom I meet as an individual I can bring this desire for her or his welfare because I have already desired this for all people. To love another is to treat them with respect, to recognize their dignity and worth as images of God, loved by God. They are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I am to treat them as such. In doing so I am faithful to God’s covenant with us in Jesus Christ, a covenant by which I am myself blessed with God’s love and favor. I respond to that love
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