A reader writes:
Did you see Fr. McBride on O’Rielley tonight? Bill quoted to Fr. MrBride from the Pope’s speech on the dying (given March 20, 2004) and Fr. McBride compared it with the Pope’s “opinion” on the war in Iraq. He stated it didn’t carry any weight. I searched the internet and found the Pope’s speech about person’s in a "persistent vegetative state" (PVS). But I did not find any written document.
So is Fr. McBride correct? Does the Pope’s speech carry only the weight of his opinion or is it a clarification of long held Catholic teaching.
Okay, let’s take the questions in order:
1) I did not see Darth McBride on O’Reilly. UPDATE: Caught it on the repeat. What a %^#*&$*(@&!
2) The text of the pope’s adress on PVS is ONLINE HERE.
3) The level of authority that the text carries is somewhat difficult to assess, however, the teaching contained in the document on this point cannot simply be dismissed as the pope’s opinion.
Let’s deal with the authority of the document first and then the authority of the teaching.
The document in question is an address. Addresses are very low in the hierarchy of papal statements. They do not typically carry a high level of authority, and often are not even written by the pope, though he does retain editorial control of them, should he choose to exercise it. If the pope really wants to say something in an authoritative way, he says it in a document of a higher order, like a motu proprio, an encyclical, or an apostolic constitution (the last being the most authoritative). As a result, some matters may be found in an address that are best regarded as matters of papal opinion rather than authoritative teaching. (Indeed, such matters can even be found in weightier documents.)
The problem is further compounded by the time at which the address in question was written: Last year (2004). By this point in his pontificate, the reports indicate that John Paul II, after years of heroic service to the Church, has been forced by his ailments to turn over to aides virtually all of the day to day affairs of the Church. In recent times he has not only not written his addresses, he has not even read them in public, leaving the task of reading them orally to others. This creates a serious question about how much editorial oversight he has exercised regarding these documents, and that doubt creates further doubt about the level of authority such documents may have vis-a-vis the Church’s Magisterium. If the pope neither wrote, effectively edited, nor publicly read the document, it is a real question of the degree to which the papal Magisterium has been engaged.
From a certain perspective, these are thus dark days in the Church, just as happens at the end of almost every pontificate, when things are being issued under conditions in which it is unclear what level of engagement the papal Magisterium may have had in them. To a significant extent, people simply have to regard the documents with some reserve until there is papal clarification (either from the current pope or from the next one) how the matters contained in the documents are to be regarded.
Thus a number of the documents coming out recently, like the instruction on annulments Dignitas Conubii, are likely to be held in some reserve until there is a new pope to tell us how to regard them. This is an uncomfortable fact, but it is driven by the fact that the pope’s teaching authority is personal: He cannot delegate it to another. He can have another teach in his name (e.g., with the documents of the CDF), but the he must approve what that person said and invest it with authority–it having only the level of authority with which he invests it. In a day in which the pontiff is so incapacitated and suffering so greatly that it is difficult to ascertain the level of authority he is investing in documents, the authority those documents carry in themselves is similarly difficult to ascertain.
That being said, let’s look at the authority of the teaching contained in the PVS address:
The passage on removal of nutrition and hydration is remarkably well formulated and, quite apart from the authority that the text itself may carry, it is a tightly-reasoned passages that carries force by weight of its own logic. Here it is:
The sick person in a vegetative state, awaiting recovery or a natural end, still has the right to basic health care (nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc.), and to the prevention of complications related to his confinement to bed. He also has the right to appropriate rehabilitative care and to be monitored for clinical signs of eventual recovery.
I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, insofar as and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality, which in the present case consists in providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering.
Further, because this passage resonates so significantly with the pontiff’s own sitz im leben, it may well be that he invested himself in this particular passage to a greater degree than with the rest of the document, though the degree to which that was the case is difficult to determine.
However, it is not as if this is sprining out of nowhere. These issues have been under much discussion in recent years, and in fact the document goes on to cite and quote previous statements with more clearly established authority:
The obligation to provide the "normal care due to the sick in such cases" (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Iura et Bona, p. IV) includes, in fact, the use of nutrition and hydration (cf. Pontifical Council "Cor Unum", Dans le Cadre, 2, 4, 4; Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, Charter of Health Care Workers, n. 120). The evaluation of probabilities, founded on waning hopes for recovery when the vegetative state is prolonged beyond a year, cannot ethically justify the cessation or interruption of minimal care for the patient, including nutrition and hydration. Death by starvation or dehydration is, in fact, the only possible outcome as a result of their withdrawal. In this sense it ends up becoming, if done knowingly and willingly, true and proper euthanasia by omission.
The kicker comes, though, when the document cites Evangelium Vitae, which is (a) an encyclical and thus of much higher weight and (b) a document written ten years ago, when the pontiff was by no means incapacitated. The address notes:
In this regard, I recall what I wrote in the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, making it clear that "by euthanasia in the true and proper sense must be understood an action or omission which by its very nature and intention brings about death, with the purpose of eliminating all pain"; such an act is always "a serious violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person" (n. 65).
These quotations are, indeed, accurate. Evangelium Vitae 65 states:
For a correct moral judgment on euthanasia, in the first place a clear definition is required. Euthanasia in the strict sense is understood to be an action or omission which of itself and by intention causes death, with the purpose of eliminating all suffering.
If a person in a PVS is denied nutrition and hydration for purposes of bringing about their death and thus ending their presumed suffering then that clearly fits the definition of "an . . . omission which of itself and by intention causes death, with the purposes of eliminating all suffering" and thus counts as euthanasia.
Now, the definition that the pope supplies at the beginning of EV 65 is important because, having defined the term, he goes on to make a VERY CLEARLY AUTHORITATIVE STATEMENT ENGAGING HIS MAGISTERIUM regarding euthanasia, when he says later in the same section:
Taking into account these distinctions, in harmony with the Magisterium of my Predecessors and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.
This formulation of the doctrine is only one notch below infallible (the pope would have needed to say "I define" rather than "I confirm" to make it a new exercise of infallibility) and is thus clearly authentic (authoritative) teaching. Since the pope has, in the immediate context, defined the term "euthanasia" as it is being used in this statement, and since the definition of that term embraces the denial of food and water to a PVS person for purposes of killing them and ending their suffering, it must be held that this action constitutes "a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person."
That’s not the pope’s opinion. It is a simple logical implication of a papal statement known to be highly authoritative.
When Darth McBrien tries to dismiss this as merely the pope’s opinion he is thus blowing smoke in an effort to deceive the faithful . . . which he has made the central object of his career.
Dark days, indeed.
I saw this on OReilly too. Why does the media seemingly try to invite “priests” who are so blatantly liberal if not downright dissentful of Catholic doctrines and have them appear to speak for what the Church teaches? It is very misrepresentative of what faithful Catholics really know to be the truth and gives a false impression to the rest of the world. It makes me sick to my stomach. Meet the Press on Sunday also had a priest who used to be a congressman who was also touting the kill Terri position.
It doesn’t much knowledge on whether what the Pope said at such and such place was infallible or what authority it had to know that purposefully denying someone of the most basic of human needs – food and water – is a grave and evil sin. This would seem to be is knowable by Natural Law.
COMMENT SPAM DELETED!!!
Jimmy:
Where, in “Evangelium Vitae,” does the Pope say that withdrawing the feeding tube of a woman who’s been in PVS state for 15 years, and whom the vast majority of doctors say there is no hope for recovery, and who feels no pain whatsoever, constitutes Euthanasia?
Again, I’m playing devil’s advocate, trying to anticipate what the Modernist objection will be to this post.
From the Washington Post’s “Catholic Stance on Tube-Feeding Is Evolving”:
“Some prominent theologians argue that the pope is contradicting his recent predecessors by declaring that food and water are morally obligatory ‘basic care’ and, as the Rev. John Paris, a bioethicist at Boston College, put it, ‘wholly upending four centuries of consistent Catholic moral analysis.’ Other prominent Catholic thinkers believe the Vatican is merely updating the church’s position to reflect modern medical advances.
“Catholics have been wrestling with the ethics and obligations of technologically advanced life-sustaining treatment for decades, a debate that surged with the cases of Nancy Cruzan, Karen Ann Quinlan and others whose court fights established much of the legal precedent being applied to Schiavo. Conservative Catholics, such as Doerflinger, argued that patients should not be disconnected, except in rare instances. Others argued that centuries of Roman Catholic tradition allowed patients to be disconnected if they had no hope of recovery.
“That uncertainty left Catholics free to decide: disconnect or don’t disconnect. Either way, they would not have sinned, Doerflinger said, as long as they ‘prayerfully considered’ the dilemma and followed the moral argument they felt was most persuasive. Before the pope made his statement about feeding-tube cases at a conference last year, Doerflinger said there was enough uncertainty about the church’s position that Catholics could remove feeding tubes without fear of committing a sin.
. . .
“In the 1530s, the renowned Spanish theologian Francisco de Vitoria wrote that a sick man could refuse food without risk of committing a mortal sin if he had no hope of survival. Another prominent Catholic theologian, Domingo Banez, built on Vitoria’s premise in 1595 by establishing the guideline that “ordinary” means of medical treatment were obligatory, but “extraordinary” means — methods that would cause great pain or burdens — were not required. That position was further solidified in 1957 by Pope Pius XII, considered the modern architect of Catholic medical ethics, who told a group of anesthesiologists that they were not required to provide life-sustaining care unless there was a reasonable hope of recovery.”
{http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3798-2005Mar26.html?sub=AR}
I would not give much worry to the ability of THIS Pope to think and act clearly! And even if one has any doubt as to the authority-I think one would give benefit of the doubt and treat it with the ‘normal weight’ of such a document. I think one could apply the principle: “presumption stands with the superior” thus when there is any doubt –the presumption is the Superior is correct. (except in the case of ‘manifest certain sin’–in which case one would not accept it–thus the courts that allow the killing of Terri –get no benefit of doubt)–so if it is an Encyclical etc –we treat it as such until proven otherwise.
In frustration, one just can’t help but wonder why the Vatican does not speak with such clarity on all issues where there is such rampant dissent. Perhaps more appropriately, why more of our bishops do not speak out…
I’m wondering if Jimmy has seen Alan Keyes’ article today in World Net Daily Re: The Schiavo Case and Judicial Review, and if he has, what he thinks of it?
Could Jeb be called culpable here in some sense (remember, he is Catholic) for failing to do more, or has he done all that he can as a Catholic in good conscience in this instance?
Eric, with great humility I’ll do my best to answer your question for Jimmy.
Evangelium Vitae 65 defines Euthenasia. Notice that there are no exceptions regarding mental state of the patient (PVS), the length of that state (15 years) or the possiblity of recovery from that state.
Euthenasia, as defined in Evangelium Vitae 65, is the act of killing someone by “action or omission which of itself and by intention causes death, with the purpose of eliminating all suffering”.
The best argument one could make as to why killing Terri through starvation didn’t constitute Euthenasia was to say that “she isn’t in any pain” and as such killing her is not “with the purpose of eliminating all suffering”. However I belief this argument falls flat as suffering entails more than just physical suffering and the “she didn’t want to live like this” certainly suggests that living in that state is suffering in one form or another. Those who kill her are doing so to put an end to that suffering.
So, from the perspective of Evangelium Vitae, all of these things that the media focuses on (PVS, 15 years, no recovery, physical pain) are all irrelevant. It is Euthenasia because she isn’t going to die anytime soon if ordinary means of care (food and water) were used and those who are denying her food are ommitting that ordinary care for the purpose of killing her.
The other glaring problem with McBrien was that he said that the Pope had condemned the Iraq war as immoral. The Pope did not. I’m not trying to be cute and say the Pope was a big fan. Obviously, he wasn’t happy. But he was careful not to explicitly oppose the war.
Take this to the bank:
For the next 15-20 years liberal Catholics will justify just about all of their doctrinal dissent by telling us that conservative Catholics disagreed with John Paul II when he condemned the Iraq war.
[The obligation to provide the “normal care due to the sick in such cases” includes, in fact, the use of nutrition and hydration]
Unfortunately for the sick in the US, the Supreme Court has ruled that this constitutes “medical intervention.” Because of this, in order to be fed and hydrated, a doctor must order it. You’d be amazed how hard you may have to fight to get an extremely ill loved one this basic care.
In the 1530s, the renowned Spanish theologian Francisco de Vitoria wrote that a sick man could refuse food without risk of committing a mortal sin if he had no hope of survival.
Theologians are not infalliable.
Eating food is only extraordinary care if, owing to lack of appetite or what have you, it is extraordinarily difficult to eat enough.
The question most troubling me is whether the Pope’s statement also applies to terminally ill patient’s whose death is certain and imminent.
For example, someone who does not have a feeding tube and who has a terminal illness slips into a coma. My understanding of Church teaching is that use of a feeding tube is not mandated in this case.
Jimmy, I’d really appreciate your comment on this one as it’s causing some anguish around my house, thanks.
Will do.
(Though please e-mail me if you want me to be sure I see something as I don’t see or remember 100% all of the comments.)
Can this wait upto 24 hours so I can organize my thoughts or is it more urgent than that?
To use a poor analogy, as all analogies are, can I starve my teething infant, to ease their suffering (mine as well)? Or maybe stop providing nourishment because of sore nipples (undue burden)? Or stop nursing because we’ve learned that this child is developmentally delayed and will not develop (mentally) any further (no hope of recovery)? Or do I provide nutrition to this child because it is wrong not to, or also because by doing this I am pouring out love on this child, exercising charity and self-denial, and thereby helping to combat evil in this world. Why do we need to listen to such avowed dissenters as McBrien, et al, when it seems that natural law denies euthanasia as an option?