Posted on 09/30/2007 7:33:49 PM PDT by monomaniac
By Peter J. Smith
ROME, September 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "Was John Paul II Euthanized?" The sensationalist story peddled by TIME magazine has grabbed the world's attention with the thought that the great champion of human life, the author of "Evangelium Vitae," and steadfast opponent of abortion and euthanasia, may have rejected his Church's teachings to end his life. However TIME's story warps Catholic teachings in order to make the flimsy accusations of an Italian medical professor (with an axe to grind against the Vatican) look credible at the same time the Vatican has stated food and fluids are morally obligatory medical care (see http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/sep/07091402.html).
TIME publicised the theory of Dr. Lina Pavanelli, a medical professor at the University of Ferrara, who wrote "The Sweet Death of Karol Wojtyla" in the current edition of the Italian bimonthly Micromega, which frequently opposes the Church's defense of life in bioethics, saying she was inspired to address the Pope's death after the Welby affair.
Italy's euthanasia movement has never forgiven the Vatican for denying a religious funeral to its "right-to-die" icon Piergiorgio Welby, who requested a doctor to end his life by removing his respirator in public defiance of the Catholic Church's teaching against euthanasia. Pavanelli admitted that the Church's condemnation of Piergiorgio Welby prompted her to assert that John Paul II's death was actually assisted suicide and a violation of the Catholic teachings he defended throughout his pontificate.
However Pavanelli based her assertions largely on media reports and her medical expertise, and not on any personal clinical experience with the Pope or his medical records.
Despite this glaring lack of hard evidence, TIME assisted Pavanelli in promoting her theory by falsely stating in its story: "Catholics are enjoined to pursue all means to prolong life." With complete lack of journalistic rigour and basis in fact, the TIME story continued, "Indeed her accusations are grave, questioning the Catholic Church's strictly traditional stances on medical ethics, including the dictum from John Paul's own 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae to use all modern means possible to avoid death."
Both statements, however, have been criticized by Catholics and bioethicists familiar with the Church's position as blatant distortions of its moral doctrine and a direct attack on the character of John Paul II.
"To say the Pope was euthanized is simply another way of confusing the issue by the media," insisted Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. "The TIME magazine story confuses the nature of extraordinary means with ordinary means of receiving treatment."
The Church's position is far from esoteric and is elucidated in its official Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of 'over-zealous' treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted." (2278)
"Euthanasia is an intentional action or omission to cause death whereby that intentional action or omission is the cause of death," said Schadenberg. "To remove food and fluids from a person who is dying and unable to effectively assimilate (benefit from it) the food and fluids is not euthanasia but a natural death."
However, TIME's lack of fact-checking and deficient scrutiny of Pavanelli's sensationalist claims provoked Fr. Jonathan Morris, LC, a columnist with FOXNews.com, to demand TIME issue "a public retraction of its error." Morris observed that TIME had provided "a global megaphone to call into question the character and courage of John Paul II" in order to debate the Vatican's recent declaration that providing food and fluids constitutes "ordinary medical treatment."
The Vatican, however, has acted swiftly, devastating Pavanelli's position with the facts saying Pavanelli had irresponsibly diagnosed the Pope's condition without any clinical experience or access to his medical records, but concocted her serious charges from television and press reports. (Ironically, the media did not give Sen. Bill Frist this same pass when he commented on Terry Schiavo's medical condition). The Vatican then obliterated Pavanelli's conjecture that the Pope must have refused food and fluids until just before his death, by showing the Pope had a feeding tube inserted much earlier than when it was announced to the press March 30, 2005.
Pavanelli, accompanied by Welby's widow, attempted to rescue her position Wednesday at a press conference and to convince the media that despite the Vatican's facts, she still thinks Pope John Paul II could have committed suicide because she had no idea why he never had a stomach feeding tube.
"It is not true that the medical treatment of the Holy Father was interrupted", John Paul's personal physician of 27 years, Renato Buzzonetti, told the Italian daily La Republica. "He was never left alone, without monitoring and assistance, as some people wrongly want to suggest."
Buzzonetti said he found the notion repugnant that the pope's last known words, "Let me go to the house of the father" would be construed as an appeal for doctor's to discontinue ordinary care or assisted suicide.
"That sentence was an act of very high prayer ... an almost unique example of his attachment to the faith of the Lord and at the same time to life, which John Paul II deeply loved until the very last moment," Buzzonetti told the Italian daily La Republica.
See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:
Two Years Later: Pope John Paul II Especially Remembered as Greatest Defender of Life and Family
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/apr/07040205.html
Pope Rules Patients in Permanent Vegetative State May Not be Denied Artificial Nutrition and Hydration
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/sep/07091402.html
Have they no shame?
Please Oh Pleaseeeee
This reminds me of nothing so much as the demon in “The Exorcist,” trying to convince the priest that he was responsible for his mother’s death.
Time is a slick version of the National Enquirer..
Nope.
This is the real thing. The demons are attacking the Catholic Church with everything they can launch. So far, so good. But we need to continue praying for the Catholic Church, because Satan desires to sift her like wheat. His technique will the boldest kind of lies his evil, hateful, raging mind can come up with.
“Can I write the story about Bill and Hillary’s love life???”
So you write ‘short’ stories?
:0)
Oh my God. Disgusting. TIME has no shame...
Another bogus story from the illegitimate American MSM.
ROTFL!
“National Enquirer”
No, the National Enquirer at least writes stories that some will find convincing because they are (somewhat) based on fact.
Time does not even try to do that.
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