I respectfully disagree.
I caught this article on the Lede page on the NYTimes.com, and it further pushes me away from some fairly central dogmatic teachings of the Catholic Church, a situation that I find disturbing and a little uncomfortable. Here's part of the article:
The ethical and moral dilemmas surrounding the end of life can be some of the most difficult and heartrending that most people ever face, and Ms. Schiavo’s long coma and the struggle over who should decide what to do about it attracted huge attention and sent off political and social shock waves that still reverberate.
Even the Vatican, whose views on matters of life and death tend to be fairly absolute, had to deliberate for two years over how to answer a request for guidance on cases like Ms. Schiavo’s that was posed by American bishops after she died in 2005. It gave its response this morning.
Agence France Presse quotes the question posed by the bishops:
“When nutrition and hydration are being supplied by artificial means to a patient in a ‘permanent vegetative state,’ may they be discontinued when competent physicians judge with moral certainty that the patient will never recover consciousness?”
And the answer, from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office in charge of laying down the law:
“No. A patient in a ‘permanent vegetative state’ is a person with fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care which includes, in principle, the administration of water and food even by artificial means.”
That word “must” makes the answer a pretty stark one: there would seem to be no room left even for a patient’s own explicit wishes not to be kept alive in a coma past any hope of recovery, something that many people include in written ‘”living wills” that are meant to spare their loved ones any doubts about such a potentially agonizing decision. (Ms. Schiavo left no written indication of her wishes, and her husband and other relatives fought bitterly over what she would have wanted.) [source]
I think central to my understanding of the "seamless garment of life" is that life has a beginning and an end. From the start to the natural finish, human life is sacred and should be treated as such. This is the foundation for my opposition to the death penalty, part of my opposition to the Iraq War (and war, in general), my support of low-income housing, social welfare programs (not specifically "welfare" as it is known in the US), a "living wage," and yes, my opposition to abortion on demand.
For Catholics specifically, but for Christians and / or people of faith, the time that we spend on the earth is not the be all and end all of our existence. While I'm not trying to convince you of that right now, it is comforting to me to know that something else awaits me when I last close my eyes here on Earth. People of faith should not be afraid of death, and this ruling from the Vatican sortof smacks in the face of the salvation the Church professes that Jesus offers to each of us. "No! You have to keep them alive! Alive is what we want! Alive is the way to be! Even artificially!" It just seems like a desperate grasping at straws where there should be an affirmation that having your life come to an end is not The End.
Clearly, this was a focused, specific instance-type question that was posed by the Bishops, and wasn't the start of some "slippery slope" of people offing themselves or a sudden reversal on the long-held stances on the death penalty or abortion.
I wonder, then, too, about all of us who have living wills, specifying what we want our care to be or not to be in certain circumstances. Does this place me in a state of mortal sin? Do I have to confess that I have a living will every week before I can receive communion? What about my desire, as a human being, to retain some fundamental piece of my dignity when I am in a persistent vegetative state? And what if I don't consider it dignified (as a human being) to be kept alive indefinitely through the artificial administration of water and food?
I'm disappointed by the Vatican's response, not only because I disagree with how they answered this specific question, but because I think they missed an opportunity to affirm the faith that we hold, that each of us is invited to spend eternity with God our creator--but only after we discontinue the artificial administration of the sustenance keeping our physical bodies alive.
The ethical and moral dilemmas surrounding the end of life can be some of the most difficult and heartrending that most people ever face, and Ms. Schiavo’s long coma and the struggle over who should decide what to do about it attracted huge attention and sent off political and social shock waves that still reverberate.
Even the Vatican, whose views on matters of life and death tend to be fairly absolute, had to deliberate for two years over how to answer a request for guidance on cases like Ms. Schiavo’s that was posed by American bishops after she died in 2005. It gave its response this morning.
Agence France Presse quotes the question posed by the bishops:
“When nutrition and hydration are being supplied by artificial means to a patient in a ‘permanent vegetative state,’ may they be discontinued when competent physicians judge with moral certainty that the patient will never recover consciousness?”
And the answer, from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office in charge of laying down the law:
“No. A patient in a ‘permanent vegetative state’ is a person with fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care which includes, in principle, the administration of water and food even by artificial means.”
That word “must” makes the answer a pretty stark one: there would seem to be no room left even for a patient’s own explicit wishes not to be kept alive in a coma past any hope of recovery, something that many people include in written ‘”living wills” that are meant to spare their loved ones any doubts about such a potentially agonizing decision. (Ms. Schiavo left no written indication of her wishes, and her husband and other relatives fought bitterly over what she would have wanted.) [source]
I think central to my understanding of the "seamless garment of life" is that life has a beginning and an end. From the start to the natural finish, human life is sacred and should be treated as such. This is the foundation for my opposition to the death penalty, part of my opposition to the Iraq War (and war, in general), my support of low-income housing, social welfare programs (not specifically "welfare" as it is known in the US), a "living wage," and yes, my opposition to abortion on demand.
For Catholics specifically, but for Christians and / or people of faith, the time that we spend on the earth is not the be all and end all of our existence. While I'm not trying to convince you of that right now, it is comforting to me to know that something else awaits me when I last close my eyes here on Earth. People of faith should not be afraid of death, and this ruling from the Vatican sortof smacks in the face of the salvation the Church professes that Jesus offers to each of us. "No! You have to keep them alive! Alive is what we want! Alive is the way to be! Even artificially!" It just seems like a desperate grasping at straws where there should be an affirmation that having your life come to an end is not The End.
Clearly, this was a focused, specific instance-type question that was posed by the Bishops, and wasn't the start of some "slippery slope" of people offing themselves or a sudden reversal on the long-held stances on the death penalty or abortion.
I wonder, then, too, about all of us who have living wills, specifying what we want our care to be or not to be in certain circumstances. Does this place me in a state of mortal sin? Do I have to confess that I have a living will every week before I can receive communion? What about my desire, as a human being, to retain some fundamental piece of my dignity when I am in a persistent vegetative state? And what if I don't consider it dignified (as a human being) to be kept alive indefinitely through the artificial administration of water and food?
I'm disappointed by the Vatican's response, not only because I disagree with how they answered this specific question, but because I think they missed an opportunity to affirm the faith that we hold, that each of us is invited to spend eternity with God our creator--but only after we discontinue the artificial administration of the sustenance keeping our physical bodies alive.