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INTENTION : |
We pray for Christians facing new bioethical challenges; may they continue to defend the dignity of all human life with prayer and action.
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Catholic Physicians and the Ministry of Healing
Caring for the sick is a privilege and an expression of faith and love and respect for Jesus himself. Caregivers can experience the presence of God in new ways that are transforming, encouraging, and powerfully supportive. But care and compassion can also be exhausting, challenging, and risky.
For Catholics, medicine and the health professions continue the healing ministry of Jesus, the Great Physician Jesus's cures involved physical care, healing of the whole person-body, mind, and spirit-and restoration to the community for the sick, suffering, chronically ill and disabled, the dying, and the bereaved.
So, the Church has accompanied the sick and dying in pandemic from the Black Death, through the Middle Ages, to pandemics in this century. In a simpler time, with limited medical options, death came quickly to most persons.
The Christian imagination shared a vision of a good death in the death of Saint Joseph. In medieval times, Christians addressed the challenges of living in preparation for dying through the art of dying, which depended upon two features of the culture: shared faith in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the importance of families and community in care for the seriously ill and the dying.
The modern context is secular, professionalised, institutionalised, and dominated by technology. Hospice and palliative care developed in this new context to support those who could not be.
Moral Teaching
There is a long and strong Catholic moral tradition of decision-making in illness and dying that can support patients and physicians in assessing the benefits and risks of proposed medical interventions. Some key teachings include the following:
- "Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2288). Generally speaking, "reasonable care" would include readily available, effective, and not excessively burdensome interventions.
- "If morality requires respect for the life of the body, it doesn't make it an absolute value" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2289). Right interventions are those valued by the person; they allow them to pursue spiritual goods and life goals (e.g., relationship with others and union with God). The Church has never required individuals or doctors to "do everything" to prolong biological life or for patients to accept interventions that they experience as overwhelming or too burdensome even if such therapies would be effective.
- "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" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2279). When used appropriately and therapeutically, opioids do not hasten death.
- Church teaches that "Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of disabled, sick or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable. Thus, an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person..." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2277). There is grave concern about pressure on patients in countries like Canada that have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Speaking directly to pandemic scarcity, the Pontifical Academy for Life in 2020 has said,
It should always be borne in mind that decisions cannot be based on differences in the value of human life and the dignity of every person, which are always equal and priceless. The decision concerns the use of treatments in the best possible way based on the needs of the patient instead, that is, the severity of his or her disease and the condition for care, and the evaluation of the clinical benefits that treatment can produce, based on his or her prognosis. Age cannot be considered the only and automatic criterion governing choice...particular attention should be paid to those who are most fragile, and we are thinking especially of the elderly and people with special needs.
Social Teaching
While the spiritual and moral tradition highlights duties to individual patients, with brief attention to the public responsibility of doctors, the Church's social teaching is a source of wisdom for balancing these duties with the common good. Dignity is an inherent quality of the children of God, not an attribute lost in illness and dependence because, "The dignity of man (sic) rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 27).
The Church's social teaching balances the dignity of each person and fair access to necessities of life, including health care. These are elements of the common good, which is "...the total of all those conditions of social life which enable individuals, families and organizations to achieve complete and effective fulfilment". Moreover, the "preferential option for the poor" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2444, 2448) requires that the protocol minimize structural discrimination in accessing resources, especially for persons with chronic medical and psychiatric conditions, disabilities, refugees, prisoners, and poor communities. The principles of solidarity, stewardship of resources, and subsidiarity can also assist in difficult decisions.
Linacre Quarterly
2021 May
(an extract)
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