“If I proclaim the Gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel!”

This obligation of proclaiming the Gospel, evangelizing wherever we find ourselves in our daily lives, comes from our baptismal anointing to be priest, prophet and servant king.  As we all opened our newspapers this morning and read about the recent Supreme Court decision regarding assisted suicide and euthanasia, we are challenged as followers of Jesus to examine where we stand when confronted with suffering.  We are challenged to shed the light of the Jesus’ teaching on the questions of suffering and dying. What does our faith teach us about the important issues at the end of life? We will also celebrate the World Day of the Sick on Wednesday the Feast of our Lady of Lourdes so it is  important for us to reflect on the suffering of illness and dying especially in view of what is happening here in Quebec with its Law 52 and Canada with this  decision of the highest court in the land. I do not look to the Supreme Court judges for wisdom but rather to the eternal wisdom of God. Our Gospel will teach us Jesus’ approach to suffering.

To begin it is important to understand what it is we are talking about. There is a lot of confusion around terms like ‘euthanasia’ ‘assisted suicide ‘. Euthanasia is directly, with intent, killing someone.  Assisted suicide is enabling someone to kill themselves. The Supreme Court decision allows for euthanasia and assisted suicide in cases not only of physical suffering, but also psychological suffering.  This opens a Pandora’s box since no one can know another person’s ‘psychological’ suffering precisely because it is subjective.  For example, this category of ‘psychological suffering’ was used to allow a man who was lonely after retiring to be euthanized; a healthy woman suffering from tinnitus=ringing in the ears was euthanized on the grounds of intolerable psychological suffering. A healthy woman who was deaf was euthanized –all of these cases occurred in the Netherlands which legalized euthanasia in 2002. Here is what our Supreme Court said regarding assisted suicide and euthanasia:

“a competent adult person who (1) clearly consents to the termination of life and (2) has a grievous medical condition (including an illness , disease or disability) that causes enduring suffering that it intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of his or her condition.”

This is indeed a slippery slope. Is a depressed individual “competent’? In the Netherlands, Dr. Tom Morton’s mother was euthanized after she broke up with her boyfriend and became depressed.  The issue of “clear consent” is also difficult.  Recent statistics from the Netherlands reported 300 deaths by euthanasia without consent. “Intolerable” to the individual is also a slippery concept. Once a depressed person has been treated, their suffering is no longer ‘intolerable’.  In Belgium, a 16 year old child can ask for euthanasia because of “intolerable suffering”? We know that a 16 year old’s brain is not yet fully developed. Is an adolescent able to consent to being euthanized?  As a pediatrician I worry about children with terminal illnesses who cannot give consent being euthanized as is already happening in Belgium and the Netherlands. In fact the protocol for euthanizing infants in the Netherlands was based on the euthanization of 22 infants with a birth deformity that we routinely treat. Canadian disability groups are very concerned and rightly about this judgment’s effect on the disabled community.  Here is what The Council of Canadians with Disabilities commenting on the judgment said :

“The judgment creates the potential for the most permissive and least restrictive criteria for assisted suicide in the world, putting persons with disabilities at serious risk.

(we) are disappointed that the views of people with disabilities in Canada, as shared by the leading disability advocacy groups around the world , were disregarded by the Court.

The court did not impose a requirement of terminal illness. The judgment permits assisted suicide on the basis of psychological suffering. This places people with serious mental and emotional disabilities at risk, as well as people who have not yet come to grips with their disability.”

The majority of physicians who deal with end-of-life issues and palliative care are strongly against legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide.  These are the physicians who deal with suffering on a daily basis and use their skills to successfully alleviate such mental and physical suffering.

Interesting too that the rush to legalize euthanasia comes at a time when our health care system is burdened with many elderly persons—how many of them will be pressured into accepting assisted suicide so that they will not be a burden to those around them.

What does our faith teach us about suffering and death?

First, suffering is not something good and we should do all we can to alleviate suffering.  Suffering is not a punishment for something we have done.  When we look at the excruciating suffering of Jesus, the son of God Himself, on the cross we witness suffering as a great mystery. What is God’s response to suffering?  Jesus in today’s Gospel shows us. “They brought to Jesus all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gatherer around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases.”  There are many references in the Gospels to Jesus’ concerns for the sick: “..power came forth from him and healed them all.” “I was sick and you visited me.” Curing the sick points us to the presence of the Kingdom of God breaking into our world of darkness. Curing the sick is the promise that one day all tears will be wiped away. The CC puts it this way:

“Moved by so much suffering Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the sick, but he makes their miseries his own: ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases”((Mtt8:17) But he did not heal all the sick. His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through his Passover. On the cross Christ himself took upon himself the whole weight of evil and ‘took away the sin of the world’, of which illness is a consequence.  By his passion and death on the cross Christ gives a new meaning to suffering; it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion.” (CC #1505)

What does our faith teach us about euthanasia and assisted suicide?

“Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of the handicapped, sick or dying person. It is morally unacceptable.”(CC2277)

However, this does not mean that we do nothing in the face of suffering and dying.  We should do all in our power to alleviate suffering with medication even if the use of certain medications such as morphine might lead to a patient dying. The important distinction here is that we are not attempting to kill the person but rather trying to alleviate pain.  Refusal of treatments that can only prolong an illness and not cure it is legitimate and in no way to be confused with euthanasia.

 The Catholic Catechism again states it clearly:

“Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate….Here one does not will to cause death; one’s inability it impede it is merely accepted.”(CC#2278) and “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 means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable.”(CC#2279).

We should advocate for more palliative care units to assist the dying as a response to the suffering of those with incurable illnesses.  I am struck by a story told by one of my medical colleagues who works in palliative care. He told the story of a young 20 year old man who was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. He was admitted to palliative care and asked his doctor to euthanize him.  The doctor refused and spent time with his patient every day, accompanying him on this journey. The young man lived for several months and as he was dying he thanked his physician for not euthanizing him because those last few months had enabled him to resolve close relationships with members of his family from whom he had been estranged and he died peacefully. Who can ever forget the image of St. John Paul II holding his bishop’s staff with the crucifix in his last dying days-he did not will this suffering at the end of his papacy but accepted it as a profound mystery of identification with the Passion of Jesus.

What should we do in the face of family members or friends suffering or dying?

Our own pastoral visitors here in the parish exemplify our Christian responses. They accompany people who are isolated because of old age or illness, bringing them friendship and concern as well as the Eucharist each week. Let us thank them on our behalf and pray that their ministry to the sick will continue to enrich the lives of those they visit and their own lives. WE should all try not to abandon the elderly or disabled who are often isolated and lonely. Most suffering is not physical but psychological arising from isolation and abandonment. We all know someone who is alone or ill—we could try to be in contact with them and bring them companionship and love. WE need to pray for physicians, nurses, and other health caregivers that they will use all their skills to alleviate the suffering and pain of their patients without resorting to euthanasia or assisted suicide. Let us pray especially for all our young trainees in medicine that they not be coerced by society to participate in euthanasia against their consciences. We are tasked with evangelizing those around us and it is important that we bring the wisdom of the Gospel to questions of life and death. It is important that we reflect and pray about these issues as well. WE must not demonize those who do not agree with us but pray that the light of Jesus’ presence in our lives will change them and enable them to see the questions around dying in the light of our dignity as human persons destined for something beyond this life.  

Finally, we are given the example of Jesus in today’s gospel; after healing hundreds of people, “In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” In order to be healers, we need to take time every day to place ourselves in the presence of Jesus and pray.

In 1983, while in Rome, Mother Teresa was hospitalized with a serious heart condition. While in hospital, she wrote her answer to the question Jesus asks of all of us, “Who do you say that I am?” Here is part of what she wrote:

Jesus is the word made flesh.

Jesus is the bread of life.

Jesus is the Victim offered for our sins on the Cross.

Jesus is the sacrifice offered at the holy Mass for the sins of the world and mine.

Jesus is the sick—to be healed.

Jesus is the Leper-to wash his wounds.

Jesus is the beggar-to give him a smile.

Jesus is the drunkard-to listen to him

Jesus is the retarded to protect him

Jesus is the little one-to embrace him.

Jesus is the blind-to lead him.

Jesus is the drug addict-to befriend him.

Jesus is the prostitute-to remove from danger and befriend.

Jesus is the old-to be served.

 

I doubt that anyone in Mother Teresa’s care, no matter how much they were suffering in their dying, asked for euthanasia.