The Roman Catholic church has historically been a strong defender of the sanctity of human life. Given that all are created in the image of God, an offense against human life is an offense against God. This has been reflected in church policy forbidding abortion and euthanasia.
Now the Vatican is being called to defend that position in the face of some Belgian Catholic hospitals embracing the practice of euthanasia for the mentally ill.
The Vatican has launched an investigation into Catholic psychiatric care centers in Belgium run by a Catholic order after it quietly approved euthanasia for patients earlier this year.
The Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin is running the investigation of the Brothers of Charity after the board of the Brothers’ institutions made a decision to allow a doctor to kill their patients who “suffer.”
This matter was brought to the Vatican’s attention by one the officials within this order.
The head of the Brothers of Charity, Brother Rene Stockman, had strongly opposed the decision to begin euthanizing patients. It was he who brought the matter to the attention of the Vatican as well as Belgium’s Catholic bishops.
Stockman said that he hopes for a “clear answer” from his country’s bishops as well as from the Vatican.
“I wait for the clear answer of the church and that answer will be presented to our organization, in the hope that it will adapt its vision,” he told Catholic News Service May 4.
The Christian church has a long history of caring for the ill, not only by providing direct care, but also by funding the construction of hospitals. In Belgium, care specifically to the mentally ill goes back 200 years.
The Brothers of Charity was founded in the early 1800s in Belgium by Servant of God Fr. Peter Joseph Triest. The order dedicated itself to working with the elderly and the mentally ill. It remains one of the most important providers of mental health care services in Belgium, serving 5,000 patients a year. The order is active in other parts of the world as well.
Note the wording of the statement from the hospital official supporting the practice of euthanasia.
Raf De Rycke, chairman of the hospitals’ board where the order works, told De Morgen last month that allowing euthanasia isn’t a radical change for the institutions.
“It is not that we used to be against euthanasia and now suddenly are for it,” he said. “This is consistent with our existing criteria. We are making both possible routes for our patients: both a pro-life perspective and euthanasia.”
Previously, the hospitals would transfer patients requesting euthanasia to a non-Catholic hospital.
“We start from the same basic values: the inviolability of life is an important foundation, but for us, it is not absolute. This is where we are on a different wavelength from Rome,” said De Rycke.
They are not only on a different wavelength from Rome, but on a very dangerous one. And four words illustrate this danger: “it is not absolute.”
For one thing, it’s absurd to talk about the non-absolute inviolability of life. The concept doesn’t even make any sense. Either something cannot be violated or it can. So either Mr. De Rycke and his colleagues believe life is inviolable, or they do not. In their case, it’s the latter.
The Catholic church has historically held to a different view.
The Catholic Church teaches that 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,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Once this belief in the sanctity and inviolability of human life is jettisoned, the decline is predictable and sure.
Since legalizing euthanasia in 2003, Belgium has continually expanded the categories of who is eligible for death. The country approved euthanasia for children in 2014.
Stockman sees the controversy currently surrounding the order he heads as part of the Belgium government’s push to force institutions to accept the practice of administering death.
“I see it as a real crisis and I call it a door that is opened and cannot be closed anymore. More groups will be touched by it: It started with somatic suffering, now psychiatric suffering, afterward people with a severe handicap, elderly people and so on,” he added.
Stockman is correct. This is the culture of death at work and growing. It is man determining who has a right to live and who does not. That’s playing God. And it’s something no human is up to.
Source: LifeSite News
Yes we are lucky guys!! We can choose not to suffe endlessly! And yes we appreciate this ! And no ,it is only when we give a written approval that we can have it ! So don’t dramatize it!
While euthanasia can certainly be a slippery slope, requiring terminally ill patients to remain living against their will is I believe, equally if not more inhuman. Within strict parameters, I believe people should have the right to die with dignity.