[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis credited with helping euthanasia law pass in Italy

LifeSite News ^ | December 19, 2017 | Dorothy Cummings McLean

[ebb tide]

Euthanasia has come to Italy, and both jubilant right-to-die activists and heartbroken Catholics are giving Pope Francis part of the credit. Moreover, the law does not provide doctors the right to refuse participation via conscientious objection.

Last Thursday the Italian government passed a law allowing adults to determine their end-of-life care, including the circumstances in which they can refuse treatment. Italians will now be able to write “living wills” in which they can refuse not only medical treatment, but also hydration and nutrition. 

According to Catholic doctrine, the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration is passive euthanasia. 

The Italian end-of-life bill was first introduced thirty years ago, but was vigorously opposed at that time by pro-life politicians who blocked its passage by suggesting over three thousand amendments. However, on Wednesday the amendments were voted down, 180 to 71, with 6 abstentions. 

The new legislation will be entered in the official record on the 40th anniversary of the passing of the Italian law allowing abortion.

Critics say the resistance of Catholic politicians to the bill was weakened after Pope Francis’ November speech to the Pontifical Academy for Life, in which he indicated that people may refuse life-prolonging medical treatment but failed to note that administration of nutrition and hydration are basic humanitarian care rather than medical treatment. According to Italy’s La Repubblica, and The New York Times, many of the bill’s supporters, and many Catholics, saw Francis’s speech as a “green light” to the new law. 

“The words of Pope Francis on the end of life, on November 16 at the Pontifical Academy for Life, were interpreted by all as an ‘open door’ to the form of euthanasia that is the living will,” wrote Roberto di Mattei, Catholic historian and head of Italy’s Lepanto Foundation.

The Pope's words on the topic were necessary, wrote Corrado Augias in La Repubblica, “to overthrow the last resistance of some Catholics and--probably--to convince at least a group of them to give their consent to [the pro-euthanasia law].”

Right-to-die advocate Marco Cappato, a member of Italy’s far-left “Radical Party” praised Francis immediately after his Academy for Life address for placing the wishes of the sick person at the center of the controversy about medical care for the terminally ill. Francis, he thought, was on the side of the bill.

“That we lack a law giving the least respect to the rights of the sick person has been questioned now by the Pope, too,” he wrote at that time. “Who knows if the ‘more Catholic than the Pope’ clericalists in Parliament will ever take a moment to rethink their obstructionism ...regarding the living will.” 

Evidently, they did. 

In his speech to the Academy for Life, Pope Francis said: “(I)t is morally licit to decide not to adopt therapeutic measures, or to discontinue them, when their use does not meet that ethical and humanistic standard that would later be called ‘due proportion in the use of remedies’… It thus makes possible a decision that is morally qualified as withdrawal of “overzealous treatment.” 

Pope Francis called for "discernment" when it came to prolonging life but without mentioning the crux of the issue, namely withdrawal of nutrition and hydration. His words seemed on all sides to indicate support for the Italian law.

“To determine whether a clinically appropriate medical intervention is actually proportionate, the mechanical application of a general rule is not sufficient," the Pope said.

"There needs to be a careful discernment of the moral object, the attending circumstances, and the intentions of those involved,” he continued.

“The patient, first and foremost, has the right, obviously in dialogue with medical professionals, to evaluate a proposed treatment and to judge its actual proportionality in his or her concrete case, and necessarily refusing it if such proportionality is judged lacking,” he added.

De Mattei told LifeSiteNews that the Italian Bishops conference did not speak out against the legislation.  

In an interview with La Repubblica, 86-year-old retired Cardinal Ruini, a former president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, mourned the passing of the bill. “This law,” he said, “opens the door to euthanasia, without naming it.” 

“It’s a rather hypocritical method of proceeding, similar to that used to legitimate marriage between people of the same sex, without calling it marriage and talking of civil unions when in the end it had all the substance of a marriage,” he said.

Ruini came under fire eleven years ago for refusing a Catholic funeral to right-to-die activist and Radical Party member Piergiorgio Welby. 

Cardinal Ruini said that a lack of provision for conscientious objection on the part of doctors and other medical professionals is “one of [the law’s] most serious defects.”

Among the Italian right-to-die activists photographed celebrating the “living will” bill’s passing was the Radical Party’s abortion pioneer Emma Bonino. She was sitting in the Senate chamber with Piergiorgio Welby’s widow Mina Welby when the voting results were displayed. Bonino is famously considered one of Italy’s “forgotten greats” by Pope Francis.

[ebb tide]

Critics say the resistance of Catholic politicians to the bill was weakened after Pope Francis’ November speech to the Pontifical Academy for Life, in which he indicated that people may refuse life-prolonging medical treatment but failed to note that administration of nutrition and hydration are basic humanitarian care rather than medical treatment. According to Italy’s La Repubblica, and The New York Times, many of the bill’s supporters, and many Catholics, saw Francis’s speech as a “green light” to the new law.

De Mattei told LifeSiteNews that the Italian Bishops conference did not speak out against the legislation.

[LIConFem]

To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, ...

"Great Pope... really seems to care. (About what, I have no idea!)"

[seawolf101]

What happened to “Thou shalt not kill”.

So the pope is OK with murder.

Shocking...

[Revel]

“Italians will now be able to write “living wills” in which they can refuse not only medical treatment, but also hydration and nutrition. “

That is not Euthanasia. That is a basic human right. No one should have the right to force those things on anyone.

[Vaquero]

Antichrist Pope. What the heck?

[Salvation]

[BykrBayb]

Where are we going, and why is there a pope steering the handbasket?

[1scrappymom]

Not with this “pope”.

The old comment, “Is the pope Catholic?” Can’t be said anymore. I doubt this commie is even Christian.

[ebb tide]

From Vox Cantoris:

Oh look, Bergoglio's "great Italian" friend rejoices at the beginning of Italy's march towards euthanasia

No need to write a blog post.

The photos of Bergoglio's "great Italian" says it all.

Can the Argentian boil on the Seat of Peter really be this stupid? 

Or is he just evil?

UPDATE:

The Pope's words on the topic were necessary, wrote Corrado Augias in La Repubblica, “to overthrow the last resistance of some Catholics and--probably--to convince at least a group of them to give their consent to [the pro-euthanasia law].”

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-credited-with-helping-euthanasia-law-pass-in-italy

Oh look, Bergoglio's "great Italian" friend rejoices at the beginning of Italy's march towards euthanasia

[Az Joe]

“Will no one rid us of this meddlesome priest?!”

[Aliska]

Pope John Paul II had some words about it. As I recall, it covered extraordinary means, think a feeding tube was not considered extraordinary but being on a ventilator indefinitely was (as examples). The Catechism covers it too:

Euthanasia

2276 Those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect. Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible.

2277 Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.

Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.

2278 Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "over-zealous" treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.

2279 Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm

Right to life, when taking a life is permitted, abortion precede what I quoted, and suicide follows (see link above)

[piytar]

Anti-pope...

[DuncanWaring]

From Ann Barnhardt, “False-prophet forerunner of the anti-Christ”.

[piytar]

Yup.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Nutrition and hydration are not medicine. Still less are they instances of aggressive over-intervention. They are basics of palliative care: needed comfort care even for the terminal.

It's a different case if the person's body is not capable of absorbing them, e.g. a dying person in danger of choking on food administered orally, and too frail for NG or surgical interventions.

Even in this case, IV hydration can often keep the patient comfortable. Good palliative care workers know the basics of comfort care. To remove them to deliberately bring on or hasten death, when the patient's body is still capable of processing and using them, comes under the category of murder.

[JerryBlackwell]

Have we been so sinful we do not even have a pope to help us?

[SunkenCiv]

Cardinal: Mexico Earthquakes May be Punishments for Abortion and Attacks on Family
LifeSite News | 12/18/17 | Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
Posted on 12/20/2017 5:59:52 PM PST by marshmallow
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3615529/posts

[CdMGuy]

For those who really want to learn the truth about Jorge Bergoglio, I suggest you spend $9.50 and purchase The Despicable Pope. It is only available in Kindle form from amazon.com. There is no print version of this book first published in Italian in Italy a month ago.

[Revel]

So Before IV’s and Feeding Tubes existed then what? You think you have the right to force someone to eat or drink even if they choose not to do so. YOU DON’T.

[piusv]

Meanwhile the so-called “real pope” (Benedict) does nothing.