This situation lays bare the corruption and bankruptcy of euthanasia.
Facts:
1. X was terminally ill.
2. X was advised by all appropriate professionals about euthanasia.
3. X willingly signed papers asking for euthanasia.
4. X was never subjected to any undue pressure.
5. X faced no pressing financial burden.
6. X did not choose euthanisia out of fear.
7. X had other real options for dealing with his illness and everntual death and he understood those options.
8. X was at all times mentally and psychologically.
9. X was euthanised.
10. X’s family wants a Catholic funeral Mass and burial.
Catholic Teaching:
11. He who makes the rational and informed choice to reject God’s gift of life by asking to be deliberately killed is guilty of self-murder and rejectionof God.
12. He can also share in the responsibility for the sin of the person who carries out the euthanasia (the medical professional or loved one).
13. He also gives witness to others that he rejects God’s gift of life.
14. Such grave and defiant rejection of God is a choice that the Church must repect and does respect by refusing to offer a funeral Mass for him who is well-informed, has real options, is pyshologically stable and free of undue pressures and fears, yet who freely and rationally chooses death over life.
Dilemma:
15. Should X have a funeral Mass and Catholic burial?
Argument:
16. The Church should have compassion on anyone who faces such a difficult situation. After all, the Church teaches that “grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship and suffering” can diminish one’s responsibility for choosing suicide. Of course X faced all of those, so X is not morally culpable for his suicide and therefore a funeral is appropriate.
Response:
17. There is no evidence that X experienced “grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship and suffering” - in fact, the law and medical ethics rules prohibit euthanasia of a person who faces any such conditions.
18. If the family is now saying that X faced these conditions, then why did the family allow the euthanasia to proceed?
19. If the family is now saying that X faced these conditions, then they are also saying that X did not freely and rationally choose euthanasia.
If a society wants to affirm that suicide is a sound and rational option for those facing great fear, pain, and pyschological pressure, then that society should state that plainly. Meanwhile, most of us will stick with counseling, friendship, charity, and palliative care as the only options that are not barbaric.
Btw: my view is that he should have a funeral because the whole charade that props up euthanasia as a rational and sound option is a grand lie propagated by the state and the medical doctors. When your (Dutch) government and your doctor (who works for that government, by the way) are telling you that suicide is a good thing, this can be persuasive especially to a person facing a serious illness that is painful or debilitating. Such a person is de facto vulnerable and afraid and facing serious pressures - and thus very susceptible to persuasion.
However, I do agree that if we take the euthanasia crowd at their word, the choice to ask for assisted-suicide is always made a person who is well-informed and under no undue pressure or coercion. Therefore, such a person rationally chose to reject God - and act of the free will. Why would the Church not respect that free and rational choice to reject God? A funeral is a statement that the deceased embraced and accepted God - and as such it would be wholly inappropriate under such circumstances.