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| SFX for Life | The Catholic Community of St. Francis Xavier, Hunt Valley, Maryland |
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To Live Each Day with Dignity:
A Statement on Physician-Assisted Suicide
Statement approved at the The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at their recent Spring General Assembly.
To live in a manner worthy of our human dignity, and to spend our final days on this earth in
peace and comfort, surrounded by loved ones—that is the hope of each of us. In particular,
Christian hope sees these final days as a time to prepare for our eternal destiny.
Today, however, many people fear the dying process. They are afraid of being kept alive
past life’s natural limits by burdensome medical technology. They fear experiencing intolerable
pain and suffering, losing control... Read More
Nurse Remembers John Paul II's Last Day
Says He Took on the Cross of Everyone Who Suffers
By Mariaelena Finessi
ROME, MAY 1, 2011 (Zenit.org).- “They called me in the late morning. I hurried because I was afraid that I would not arrive in time. Instead he was waiting for me. ‘Good morning, Holiness, it’s sunny today,’ I said to him immediately because it was what he liked to hear when he was in the hospital.”
This is how Rita Megliorin, former head nurse of the recovery ward at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic, remembers the morning of April 2 when she was called to the papal apartment, to... Read More
Bishop Morlino: gauging ‘quality of life’ an excuse to ‘pull up the hearse’
FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, July 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Although framed as compassion, determining end-of-life procedures by evaluating “quality of life” merely discourages vulnerable persons, making them more likely to submit to a hastened death, according to the Catholic bishop of Madison.
“When we start evaluating the quality of somebody else’s life, that means we’re asking them to pull up the hearse. Get the hearse ready,” said Bishop Robert Morlino at a bioethics conference at Christendom College this month.
“So often people want to die because as they see what’s going on around them they see everybody as rather anxious for... Read More
Giving Granny the Bottle - A Duty to Die?
September 30, 2009
Regular BreakPoint listeners have heard me speak about the impact of declining birth rates around the world. One consequence is that older people comprise an increasing percentage of the population in places like Japan and Western Europe.
This increases economic pressures on these countries since an aging population requires more services while having fewer young workers to pay for them.
One doctor has come up with a way to address the imbalance between pensioners and workers—that is, fewer pensioners.
What Dr. Philip Nitschke has in mind isn’t raising the retirement age—his goal is fewer pensioners.
Nitschke is... Read More
Perinatal Hospice - The Value of a Life
September 1, 2009
Sometimes it seems that the smarter and more sophisticated we grow technologically, the less able we are to handle the most fundamental issues of life and death. All too often these days, parents whose unborn child is seriously ill, perhaps even fatally ill, are treated coldly and callously by doctors who think that they should just abort the child and get it over with.
The feelings of the parents—their love and grief for their child, their struggle to discern what’s best for that child and for their family—aren’t always taken into account.
But all of that, I’m... Read More
What if everyone thought you were in a ‘vegetative state’ but you were really conscious?
By Rob Stein, The Washington Post
Posted Nov. 10, 2011, at 10:19 p.m.
Last modified Nov. 11, 2011, at 7:03 a.m.
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All the patients had the same terrible diagnosis: brain damage that marooned them in a “vegetative state” — alive but without any sense of awareness of themselves or the world around them.
But then an international team of scientists tried an ambitious experiment: By measuring electrical activity in the patients’ brains with a relatively simple technique, the researchers attempted to discern whether, in fact, they were actually conscious and able to... Read More
Comfort and Consolation is a pastoral letter from the Maryland bishops that outlines Church teaching on end of life care and offers a Catholic advance directive.
Topics Include
- Our most basic God-given right is the right to life
- We do not have the right to take our own lives, nor directly to bring about the death of any innocent person
- Christian faith reveals the true meaning of human suffering
- Each of us is obliged to care for the gift of life and health that God has given us
- No patient is obliged to accept or demand useless medical interventions
- There is no moral obligation to employ useful but excessively burdensome medical interventions; however, the meaning of “excessively burdensome” must be properly understood
- The Virtue of Prudence
- Making Decisions for Ourselves
- Making Decisions for Another
- Impact of Burdensome Treatments on Loved Ones
- Imminent Death and Progressive Diseases
- Medically Assisted Nutrition and Hydration
- The Terminal Patient Who Is Not Near Death
- The Terminal Patient Near Death
- The Persistent Vegetative State Patient
Click here: http://www.mdcathcon.org/library/resources/documents/publications/comfconsinsidefinal.pdf
Sometimes we wonder about the value of a life. Perhaps it is enough that we have that person to love.
2299
The dying should be given attention and care to help them live their last moments in dignity and peace. They will be helped by the prayer of their relatives, who must see to it that the sick receive at the proper time the sacraments that prepare them to meet the living God.
2279
Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.
1021
Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ. The New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith. The parable of the poor man Lazarus and the words of Christ on the cross to the good thief, as well as other New Testament texts speak of a final destiny of the soul -- a destiny which can be different for some and for others.
2277
Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.
2324
Intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator.