Vatican Says the Obvious to Time Magazine About Euthanasia
The Time article said that Catholics were obligated to extend life using all possible means.
Wrong!
The Vatican statement provides the obvious retort to the stupidity and disrespect of the Time article:
The Vatican recently repeated its position on euthanasia and feeding tubes. A document issued Sept. 14 from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reaffirmed that it considers the removal of feeding tubes from people in vegetative states to be an immoral act.
The Vatican distinguishes between feeding tubes, which it considers proportionate care, and "aggressive medical treatment" which can be disproportionate to any expected results or pose an excessive burden on the patient.
"In such situations, when death is clearly imminent and inevitable, one can in conscience refuse forms of treatment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life, so long as the normal care due to the sick person in similar cases is not interrupted," according to John Paul's 1995 encyclical "Evangelium Vitae."
The stupidity of Time is the fact that it published such an obvious error of fact about Catholic teaching.
The disrespect of Time, which is worse than its stupidity, is to publish an article that deliberately seeks to undermine the witness of John Paul II's death.
It is precisely that he did not seek to avoid the suffering of his illness, or avoid having its ravages on his body seen by the entire world, that was the heroic witness of his death.
Now the beauty of his death, his "good death" in the classical sense, is being demeaned by Time and an Italian doctor in league with an euthanasia society.
First, Mother Teresa, now Pope John Paul II...who is next on Time's hit list? Some may say they are just trying to sell magazines.
To that, I would ask where are the articles that seek to shatter the reputations of the icons of the Left.
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