Posted on 04/18/2018 6:33:17 PM PDT by ebb tide
The Catholic bishops of England and Wales have weighed in on the case of baby Alfie Evans, saying that the courts and hospital are acting “with integrity and for Alfie's good” in deciding that removing life-support is in the baby’s “best interest.”
“We affirm our conviction that all those who are and have been taking the agonising decisions regarding the care of Alfie Evans act with integrity and for Alfie's good as they see it,” the bishops stated.
The statement follows today’s surprise meeting between Pope Francis and Alfie Evan’s father this morning at the Casa Santa Marta in Rome. (Full text below.)
They say that the “professionalism” and “care for severely ill children” at Alder Hey should be “recognized and affirmed.” They also state, citing chaplaincy staff who work at the hospital, that “reported public criticism of their work is unfounded.”
Noting that the Vatican’s Bambino Gesù hospital has offered to treat Alfie, they assert that it is up to “that Hospital” to make a case to the British courts.
Alfie Evans is a neurologically damaged infant at the centre of a dispute between his parents and the Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. Alder Hey wishes to remove Alfie’s breathing apparatus and commence palliative care. Alfie’s parents, Thomas Evans and Kate James, want Alfie to be transferred to the Bambino Gesù hospital in Italy. On Monday, they lost their bid at the UK Court of Appeal to have Alfie released from Alder Hey hospital
Alfie Evans and his father Thomas are baptized Catholics. Thomas wrote of his sorrow to the Archbishop of Liverpool after an Archdiocesan memo was leaked to the press, denying that Alfie’s parents were Catholics. (Kate James was baptized in the Reformed tradition.)
Yesterday morning, Francesco Cavina, the Bishop of Carfi, received a request from Liverpool that Pope Francis would meet with Thomas Evans. Evans arrived in Rome this morning and had an “emotional” meeting with the Holy Father. Pope Francis praised the young father for his courage and said it resembled the love of God in His reluctance to lose any of His children.
Italian newspaper La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana has reported that Pope Francis has opened diplomatic channels “so that all initiatives be taken to transfer the child to the Bambino Gesù in Rome.”
Alder Hey children’s hospital has been praised again and again by judges in the UK’s court system. However, it does not have an unblemished reputation. In 1999, it was at the center of scandal in which it was discovered that the children’s hospital, like other NHS facilities, had been retaining the organs and other tissues of deceased children without seeking their parents’ permission.
***
Statement on case of Alfie Evans from Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales
Our hearts go out to the parents of Alfie Evans and our prayers are for him and with them as they try to do all they can to care for their son.
We affirm our conviction that all those who are and have been taking the agonising decisions regarding the care of Alfie Evans act with integrity and for Alfie's good as they see it.
The professionalism and care for severely ill children shown at Alder Hey Hospital is to be recognised and affirmed. We know that recently reported public criticism of their work is unfounded as our chaplaincy care for the staff, and indeed offered to the family, has been consistently provided.
We note the offer of the Bambino Gesu Hospital in Rome to care for Alfie Evans. It is for that Hospital to present to the British Courts, where crucial decisions in conflicts of opinion have to be taken, the medical reasons for an exception to be made in this tragic case.
With the Holy Father, we pray that, with love and realism, everything will be done to accompany Alfie and his parents in their deep suffering.
I haven’t studied the case in detail nor have I really delved into the Catholic church’s recent teachings but it sure sounds like the Church is run by Satan.
Can’t be a Satan . . . the pope has already declared that there is no HELL. How about that? Christ did all that suffering for nothing.
Remember when the clergy used to talk about "holiness" and "sin" rather than "integrity"?
Organized religion is done. They let the liberals in, and true to forum, the liberals destroyed it. Individual faith is all that is left. I wonder if that’s what God intended all along.
Unfortunately, the U.K. bishops have no integrity.
Nutrition and hydration are considered 'ordinary' and not 'extraordinary' means and so are part of normal care; withholding them is therefore considered passive euthanasia, leaving the person to die of starvation.
This is forbidden in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as the Ethical Guidelines issued by national Bishops' Conferences.
These are just flicked aside by people like Card. Paglia, Pope Francis' hand-picked appointee to head the Papal Academy for Life!
As for Francis himself: I have found that if you wait long enough, he will say anything. Just anything. Literally, a stupefying pinwheel of "yes, no, I don’t know, you figure it out.”
And he does this consistently, over and over again, on all suddenly-disputable topics. This is not a glitch, people: this is a feature.
“good as they see it”
Wow, the ultimate ecumenical cop out.
“Pol Pot was just trying to be good as he saw it.”
So, would it be acceptable to burn heretical Catholic clergy at the stake, as long as you see it as a good thing?
I'll bring the matches and lighter fluid.
Quite deliberately. Not by inadvertence.
He was speaking of an atheist saying those words. Fake news that the Pope believes there is no hell.
Alfie is the child of all of us. As were the two other babies the NHS killed in recent months (one tortured to death for 8 hours). These cases are all complex, and this happens all the time, and yes, also in USA.
So anyone pro-life needs to be aware and follow these stories, when available, at least enough to understand what is really happening.
The word that popped into my head was “righteousness”. I am not nor ever have been a Catholic but this “church” feels very different to me.
A lifetime of loyalty to their “church” and they are repaid by treachery, betrayal and sacrificed to the gods of political correctness and socialist expediency.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.