Not everything Pope Benedict XVI says is acceptable.

Pope Benedict XVI, who used to serve as the leader for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is known as a strong enforcer and defender for Catholic orthodox values.

On February 4th 2007, Pope Benedict XVI said to a gathering in St. Peter’s Square, “Reject euthanasia and all attempts to dispose of life under the guise of human mercy.” In making that statement, he tied part of his message on life from womb to tomb to the role of the family as “the cradle of life and of every vocation.”

In Vatican teachings, the phrase in defense of life "from conception to natural death" refers to the church's bans on abortion and euthanasia. In this piece, I will deal with the subject of euthanasia and church dogma.

In response to those who are claiming that euthanasia is simply portions of human rights, the Pope said, "Freedom to kill is not a true freedom, but a tyranny that reduces the human being into slavery." Why he felt that euthanasia reduces humans to slavery is beyond my understanding.

On February 25th 2008, Pope Benedict XVI addressed members of a conference on the care of the dying, reiterating that the Church has always taught that direct euthanasia is a moral evil.

On the subject of euthanasia, the pope said that euthanasia displays a utilitarian vision of the human person. He reiterated the church’s firm and constant condemnation of every form of direct euthanasia.

Pope Benedict XVI called for doctors and medical personnel to respect the dignity of the ill and dying when he addressed the participants of the Pontifical Academy for Life as they began a two-day international conference today at the Vatican’s Synod Hall. Under the title, “Close by the Incurable Sick Person and the Dying: Scientific and Ethical Aspects,” the 73 members of the academy along with professors and theologians met to discuss human fragility and define what is and is not licit in the therapeutic sphere.

The pope said, “I urge you not to fall into the deception of thinking that one can dispose of life to the point of legitimizing its interruption with euthanasia, masking it perhaps with a veil of human mercy.” He even said, and I quote; “People must accept death at the hour chosen by God.”

If God is merciful, as church teachings claim he is, would this mean that a person suffering from terrible, never ending pain of a horrible disease, must wait for fifty or so years for God to decide that he has suffered enough? Is it not conceivable that when the sufferer dies at the hand of Man, God has chosen that moment of his death?

He made that statement only days after Italian doctor Mario Riccio who disconnected life support of a paralyzed man, Piergiorgio Welby, was cleared of any wrongdoing by a medical panel.

To some degree, I understand why the pope was upset when he learned that a man who was completely paralyzed chose euthanasia as a way out of his dilemma.

It is not my intention to downplay the mental suffering that persons who are completely paralyzed and the justifications in their minds that they would prefer death to life. However, many such unfortunates with similar paralysis have chosen to continue living their lives.

I can however, appreciate why a person who is blind and deaf, along with being permanently paralyzed would have no reason to live and death would be merciful in such a case. Further, a person who is completely paralyzed and is suffering from never ending pain would also be justified in not wanting to live any longer.

Joseph Capizzi is the Associate Professor of Moral Theology at The Catholic University in Washington, DC, presented a paper on secularization in the face of pain, suffering and death. He discussed how conceptions of life and death changes between cultures. In his paper, he said in part;

“Catholics have a conception of death where they see death as something to be suffered – as a kind of penalty for sin – it is a consequence of human transgression. It is something to be avoided, typically. In our secularized culture, death can be presented almost as a good, in part because it becomes a kind of freedom of the misery of life. So you have a very stark contrast, potentially, between these two conceptions.”

Archbishop of Utrecht Williem Eijk is a member of the directive council of the Pontifical Academy for Life and was the moderator for the conference’s first session. He said; “So the value of our body, the value of we as a human person, remains always, and cannot be sacrificed in order to end suffering.”

He also spoke about the Christian duty to assist in the relief of suffering. He said in part;

”We as Christians, have the duty to relieve suffering as much as possible, to be like the Good Samaritan. For instance, palliative care is a means of relieving suffering. In this way we can prevent people from coming into such a bad situation that they will ask for euthanasia, they will ask a doctor to terminate their lives.”

That is fine, providing that the patient’s physical pain can be reduced considerably by drugs. Some patients are given heroin as a means of reducing the suffering from the pain they are enduring. I am wondering if heroin has a similar effect as nitrous oxide, (laughing gas) that dental patients are given when their teeth are extracted. It helps them put the pain out of their minds.

When the pope spoke of euthanasia, he said that it displayed a utilitarian vision of the human person, and he reiterated the church’s firm and constant condemnation of every form of direct euthanasia.

An increasingly liberal movement on the euthanasia issue is spreading across Europe and other continents as well. While Britain has passed legislation that allows mentally incapable patients to appoint a friend or relative to make a "life or death" decision, the French Senate adopted the law allowing terminally ill patients or those with no hope of recovery the right to refuse treatment in favour of death. Other nations have permitted it for many years.

There are two forms of euthanasia---passive and active. The first is brought about by doctors and nurses taking no steps to prevent death from natural causes such as the withdrawal or withholding of life-prolonging treatment. The second is active euthanasia of a patient at the patient's request and/or signed consent where the doctor or nurse, either disconnects the life-prolonging apparatus or by injecting a fatal drug into the patient that brings about instant death. The latter method is done very rarely and generally as an alternative method, the doctor simply leaves sufficient morphine pills on the night table for the patient to ingest and when taken all at the same time, will stop the patient’s heart.

Many people have been unfortunate witnesses where people have been trapped in fires and having to listen to them begging to be shot in order to save them from the horrible agony they will suffer from when being burned alive. I remember reading about a horrendous car accident in Ontario in which many of the cars caught on fire. A fourteen-year-old girl was trapped in her parent’s car and there was no way to free her from the burning car. Her parents had to listen to their daughter’s screams as she slowly burned to death in front of them. If her father had a tire iron in his hand and struck his daughter on the head with it and as a result, killed his daughter, thereby ending her suffering, would the words of Archbishop Williem Eijk, ‘So the value of our body, the value of we as a human person, remains always, and cannot be sacrificed in order to end suffering.’ have any significant meaning to the child’s parents? I think not.

I believe that many soldiers in battle who shot their buddies to death, buddies who had half of their bodies blown apart by a bomb or a hand grenade, regretfully did this to save their buddies from suffering in unspeakable agony before death would invariably end their lives. The memory of their acts of mercy would remain with them for the rest of their lives but it wouldn't haunt them as much if they had to have listened to the screaming of their buddies while they were slowly dying in such agony while at the same time, they did nothing to end their suffering.

If someone out of mercy; shoots such an unfortunate victim, would Pope Benedict say to that person as he said before, “I urge you not to fall into the deception of thinking that one can dispose of life to the point of legitimizing its interruption with euthanasia, masking it perhaps with a veil of human mercy.” I think that a soldier who ended his buddy’s suffering would spit right in the pope’s face if the pope had the temerity to spout off that nonsense in front of him.

In November 1973, medical journals around the world published an article I wrote called, Euthanasia: the issue and implications. In the article, I said in part;

“It is very difficult for those of us who are healthy in mind and body to imagine ourselves begging for death, but it is also unlikely that any adult living has not at least on one occasion known personally or known of a person, who would be better off dead. There are illnesses which are so horrible that death would come to them as a blessing.”

Perhaps Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop Williem Eijk personally know of people who are better off dead because of their suffering and if not, they certainly heard of such people suffering terrible agony because of their illnesses. What makes them spout of such nonsense when it comes to bringing mercy to those who are better off dead? I can answer that question with two words. Church dogma.

How is it that people of faith go from years of obeying their church’s teachings to suddenly ignoring its teachings? It is because of foolish dogma. Let me give you some examples of really foolish Catholic Church dogma.

Women cannot be priests.

Three devoted women, who had taken a lifelong vow to become Catholic priests, were immediately excommunicated by the church. But if a male priest molests a child, no problem. His status in the church is solemnly and sacredly secure. He will still be a priest and not be excommunicated.

Gays and lesbians should not be recognized as parents.

The Boston Archdiocese’s Catholic Charities adoption agency decided to halt its services after its contract expired in 2006. The decision was triggered by the Church’s disagreement with the Massachusetts state law allowing gays and lesbians to adopt children.

Divorces are against the Church’s teachings

If the Catholic Church had its way, the millions of unhappy couples would have only two options open to them. Live together in a state of misery or live alone. The fact that one’s spouse is a brute, who beats up the other spouse, is immaterial. The fact that one spouse is serving natural life in prison for murder is immaterial.

I will admit that the Catholic Church does its best to some degree, keep pace with the modern world. They stopped burning women who were good at making herbal remedies. They called them witches, when in fact they were healers. However, many former Catholic church goers in the modern world believe that the concept of religion in this day and age as a whole is an outdated way of thinking and living because of its outdated dogma. They simply ignore the Church’s dogma, which may explain why so many Catholic churches have low attendances on Sundays other than on religious holidays. There is a difference between Christians and Christianity. Christians are intelligent enough to accept the fact that what the Church says is not wholly compatible with the status of the modern world.

The Catholic Church, for example, in the sense of including every believer trusting in the teachings of Jesus Christ, could never be dysfunctional in principle, but in practice the Church can be and is dysfunctional. Its dogma is simply being ignored by millions of its followers.

In an attempt to promote properly and constructively the sacredness and the inviolate character of dogma in the midst of the general instability and questioning of the world's values, we often speak of the authenticity and validity of dogma.

Archbishop Stylianos of Australia when speaking of dogma and the authority in the Church, said;

“In our evil age which "demythologizes" every institution and every notion of established authority under the pretext of course of democratic equality and "enlightenment" which from the outset claims that rational thought has absolute power over all that can be known — the notions of "dogma" and ''authority" are now considered by many to be not only inappropriate to our time and place, but also extremely provocative and even demeaning of the dignity of the human being emancipated long ago. Thus to speak today of dogma as a common and indeed regulatory point of reference for the entire people of God — especially in the strict sense of a certain supernatural authority — constitutes no doubt a great scandal, or at any rate a bold demand which continuously needs new justification before all who "ask for a reason for the hope that is in you."

Pope Benedict has said some pretty stupid things in his reign as pope. For example, when he was addressing the African bishops at the Vatican, he said in part;

“The spread of HIV and Aids in Africa should be tackled through fidelity and abstinence and not by condoms.” He also said, "The traditional teaching of the church has proven to be the only fail safe way to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids."

More than 60% of the world's 40 million people with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa. In South Africa alone, 600-1,000 people are thought to die every day because of Aids.

Obviously, the pope of today has no intention of changing his opinion about current church dogma but it is conceivable that much of the dogma that is outdated in this era will be things of the past, such as when it removed the dogma many years ago that had forbade eating only meat other than fish on Fridays.

I believe that after we in this present era are long gone, euthanasia will be recognized by the Catholic Church, just as gays and lesbians adopting children will. Female priests will serve the sacrament and divorces will be recognized and celibacy will be a thing of the past. When that all comes about, it will be because the popes in the future will be ‘with it’ so to speak. What I cannot forecast is whether or not there will be any parishioners in attendance in the churches on Sundays. The way Pope Benedict is applying his interpretation of church dogma, attendance may go the way of the passenger pigeon----and be non-existent.