I’ve been distracted this week.
Wednesday morning I got and started reading documents involved in setting up family property/estate/whatever arrangements for at least the next generation. I was part-way through the last document when a video conference with the lawyer started.
Good news, we caught a misspelling of my name and clarified a few points.
Surprising news, one of the documents was a health care directive. It includes a dozen or so places where I’m writing in details for what I want for situations in which I am terminally ill and/or unable to communicate.
I’ll be working on that at least into the weekend.
Deciding who I pick to speak for me if I can’t is easy, since I’m blessed with family who share my beliefs.
Killing Sick People Isn’t Nice
What’s not easy, from an emotional viewpoint at least, is getting specific about what I see as acceptable medical care.
That’s partly because I’m a Catholic, one who takes what the Church says seriously. I’ve also had opportunities for learning just how flexible medical ethics can be. It’s not that I’d insist on having a crucifix on the wall, or fish on Friday. Although the latter would be nice during Lent, and that’s another topic.
My native culture’s values and assumptions do not line up with mine in some literally vital ways.
Take, for example, being given food and water; even if I’m terminally ill. Or, in medical jargon, nutrition and hydration.
The good news is that the Church has noticed this SNAFU, and gotten specific about that particular aspect of palliative care:
“…It should be recognized, however, that the definition of palliative care has in recent years taken on a sometimes equivocal connotation. In some countries, national laws regulating palliative care (Palliative Care Act) as well as the laws on the “end of life” (End-of-Life Law) provide, along with palliative treatments, something called Medical Assistance to the Dying (MAiD) that can include the possibility of requesting euthanasia and assisted suicide. Such legal provisions are a cause of grave cultural confusion: by including under palliative care the provision of integrated medical assistance for a voluntary death, they imply that it would be morally lawful to request euthanasia or assisted suicide.
“In addition, palliative interventions to reduce the suffering of gravely or terminally ill patients in these regulatory contexts can involve the administration of medications that intend to hasten death, as well as the suspension or interruption of hydration and nutrition even when death is not imminent. In fact, such practices are equivalent to a direct action or omission to bring about death and are therefore unlawful. The growing diffusion of such legislation and of scientific guidelines of national and international professional societies, constitutes a socially irresponsible threat to many people, including a growing number of vulnerable persons who needed only to be better cared for and comforted but are instead being led to choose euthanasia and suicide.…”
(“Letter Samaritanus bonus on the Care of Persons in the Critical
and Terminal Phases of Life” , 4. Palliative care; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (July 14, 2020)) [emphasis mine]
I’d like to think “it can’t happen here”, but — I’ve been paying attention and know my history. Humanity’s track record doesn’t inspire blind optimism. Or despondency. And that’s yet another topic.
Life, Death, and Making Sense
More good news: the Maryland Department of Health and Human Services asked bishops in my country what they thought about some aspects of Medicare and hospice care. That, I think was a very nice gesture.
- To: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services:
Re: Medicare Program; FY 2027 Hospice Wage Index and Payment Rate Update and Hospice Quality Reporting Program Requirements; RIN 0938–AV78 (June 1, 2026)
From: Office of the General Council, USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops)
Among other things, the bishops quoted part of “Letter Samaritanus…”, pointing out that starving a patient isn’t nice, even if it’s legal. Talking a patient into seeing suicide as a good idea isn’t nice either, and we shouldn’t do it. Ever.
I realize that may sound “judgemental”, but I’m a Catholic.
If I take my faith seriously, I must see life as precious. Even if that goes against my culture’s preferences.
One more thing before I wrap this up. Since I’m a Catholic, getting all ‘spiritual’ about pain and suffering — let’s put it this way. Using my brain is a good idea.
“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.”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2279) [emphasis mine]
I’ve talked about some of this before:
- “Potpourri Post: Family Business and an Exoplanet With Air” (July 18, 2026)
- “Early Diagnosis, Tardy Treatment, and a Gimpy Hip” (January 25, 2025)
- “Saints, Depression, Assumptions, and Me” (March 23, 2024)
- “I’m Not as Crazy as You Think I Moose!” (April 9, 2022)
- “Health Care Directive” (November 24, 2019)
- “Misusing Opioids” (July 7, 2017)
Discover more from A Catholic Citizen in America
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
It’s easy to clash with Church teachings against euthanasia and such with the struggle of raising funds for medical stuff, but that ease has been gradually seeming like an illusion to me after learning more and more about the charismatic Catholic community my family is a part of. So many rich and influential people, and they give so much to these strangers they welcome to their fold. They’re not the only such community, of course, but witnessing them more up close got me feeling a lot of how God can make reality way better than fantasy. We struggle, but not only do we struggle together, we cheerfully struggle together. Makes me wish for a Catholic community especially tuned into those in art, media, and entertainment, though considering how much folks in my field get worshipped whenever we get worshipped and get demonized whenever we get demonized, perhaps subtler approaches to spreading His Word are more fitting. At the very least, if He can and will work on and through even line readers, people whose occupation even led to the creation of the word “hypocrite”, then I know He always got us.
Uff da. I’ve lived through more than a half-century of such clashes.
In my school days, over here, one of the phrases was “quality lifestyle”: the idea being that the unfit were better off dead, since they couldn’t enjoy a “quality lifestyle”.
Then there was the “every child a wanted child” slogan: which felt compassionate, but again assumed that folks whose lives were not up to standards were better off dead.
More recently, emphasis has been on the rights of women to kill their inconvenient children. And, I think, the off-the-books right of men to dispose of unwanted and/or embarrassing obligations.
I haven’t seen the “quality lifestyle” phrase in decades, but the idea remains as a motive for culling the unfit. I’ll grant that I have a bias: if that approach was systematically executed, I might not survive the second or third wave.
On the ‘up’ side, as you point out, some – many – folks with resources – Catholic and otherwise – are actually helping those who need it.
I very strongly suspect there are many more such than we notice — which reminds of the story about someone who made a big deal out of his temple offering, contrasted with the widow who quietly gave everything she had. And that’s another topic. 😉