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The Rev. John J. Paris
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NEWSWEEK: The church has said that providing food and water does not constitute an extraordinary way of sustaining life.
John J. Paris:
What you’re quoting is a statement that was issued by the pope at a
meeting of [an] international association of doctors last year in Rome.
This was really a meeting of very right-to-life-oriented physicians. It
was an occasion speech. The pope meets 150 groups a week—a group comes
in and the pope gives a speech. If the pope tells the Italian Bicycle
Riders Association that bicycle riding is the greatest sport that we
have, that doesn’t mean that’s the church’s teaching, that the skiers
and tennis players and golfers are out. It wasn’t a doctrinal speech.
So it’s been taken out of context?
It
has to be seen in the context. This has to be seen in the context of
the pope’s 1980 Declaration on Euthanasia, which says that one need not
use disproportionately burdensome measures to sustain life. Even if the
treatment is in place, if it proves burdensome it can be removed. The
terms you’ll hear them talk about all the time are “ordinary” and
“extraordinary.” Well, those words are so confused in the minds of the
public that they no longer serve any useful purpose. People think of
extraordinary as respirators or heart transplants. Extraordinary never
referred to technique or to hardware—it referred to moral obligation.
What are we obliged to do?
What is the church doctrine?
The
church doctrine, and it’s been consistent for 400 years, is that one is
not morally obliged to undergo any intervention. And, of course, 400
years ago they weren’t talking about high technology. Here’s the
example one of the moralists of the 16th century gave: if you could
sustain your life with partridge eggs, which were very expensive and
exotic, would you be obliged to do so? The answer is no, they’re too
expensive. They’re too rare. You can’t get them. They would be too
heavy an obligation to put on people." (
msnbc)