Last month Pope John Paul II stated unequivocally that a person who is ill always has the right to food and water, even if it must be administered to him through a feeding tube. The pope made it clear that removal of nutrition and hydration from patients in a vegetative state who are not otherwise dying is “gravely immoral.” In Catholic language that means it is unambiguously forbidden.
The reaction of some prominent Catholic ethicists has been a reflection of the divide in medical ethics between the teaching of the Church and modern bioethics. Father John Paris, bioethics professor at Boston College, in an incredibly blunt statement of defiance, said the pope's remarks will have little impact. “I think the best thing to do is ignore it, and it will go away,” Paris said. “It's not an authoritative teaching statement.”
Father John Strynkowski, executive director of the secretariat for doctrine and pastoral practices, said that the USCCB office will “study” the pope's statement, but until they have finished, no changes in practice will likely be made in Catholic hospitals. His comments would seem to indicate that if the pope's instruction were to be taken at face value, changes to policy would need to be made. “What's involved is a process of study and reflection, looking at the pope's statement in the light of previous statements,” Strynkowski said. “Theologians will have to study that whole chain of documents.” The process, he said, may take as much as a year.
The refusal to obey clear instructions from high authority in the Catholic hierarchy on key issues is not new to the Church in North America. Strynkowski's comments follow closely on the heels of the latest denial of official Vatican directives from Theodore Cardinal McCarrick. In response to high-level directives on refusing pro-abortion politicians communion, McCarrick gave an almost identical comment to Fr. Paris' in an interview, “I don't think it was his eminence's (Arinze's) official opinion. This was not something that he reported as an official or even a personal statement.”
See also:
At Pope's Word, New Schiavo Cases?
(This update courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
