Friday, April 01, 2005

The Pope's Wishes

This excerpt from an AP article discussing JPII's illness. One doctor stated that he has a 10-20% chance of recovering from sepsis. There are also reports that he has slipped into a coma:


It is not clear who would be empowered to make medical decisions for an unconscious pope. The Vatican has officially declined to comment whether John Paul has left written instructions.
Am I missing something? I thought that the conservatives who champion the Pope's earlier statements on death and dying (see section 3 of my previous post) would say that it is always necessary to keep a ventilator and nutrition for a comatose patient. Isn't that what the Terry Schiavo debate has been about amongst Catholic theologians?

So, sorry John Paul, you don't get to leave written instructions. I guess unless you leave them as a papal decree. That is, only the pope gets to make end of life decisions for himself. Everyone else is SOL.

1 Comments:

Blogger great sandwich! said...

Thanks for the comment, Terry. I have to admit, that my feelings about JPII are very complicated, as is the case with many Catholics. Although I admire the man for his work towards peace and outreach to the poor, I am also saddened by his treatment of women and homosexuals like myself. Most days I don't know what to think.

12:55 PM  

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