Posted on 11/16/2008 11:25:27 AM PST by wagglebee
ROME (AFP) - The Vatican on Friday firmly condemned an Italian court decision allowing a father to remove his comatose daughter from life support, saying "the right to die does not exist."
"Life is sacred, the right to die does not exist," the Vatican's "health minister" Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan said in an interview published by the Italian daily La Stampa.
On Thursday, Italy's highest appeal court upheld an earlier ruling that doctors could stop artificially feeding Eluana Englaro, 37, as it had been proven that the road accident victim's coma was irreversible.
"To stop giving food and drink to Eluana is tantamount to committing murder," said Barragan, who heads the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care.
"It means letting her die of hunger and thirst, condemning her to a monstrous end," he added.
Englaro has lain in a hospital in northern Lecco since January 1992, and her father Beppino Englaro has been seeking an end to her life support since 1999.
The lower court had accepted testimony that when fully conscious Eluana Englaro had stated her preference to die rather than being kept alive artificially.
(Excerpt) Read more at au.news.yahoo.com ...
Amen!
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This despite his decades of experience in the healthcare field.
Where in this article is Barragan's "experience" addressed? Most readers would wonder about the mention of a "health minister" in the Vatican. Perfectly proper usage of quotes.
Yeah, sure.
President of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers isn't a bit unwieldy. ;-) And of course, with no quotes, the criticism could be, "That's not the title...look at how there are no quotation marks to indicate it's a paraphrased title!"
AFP is far from my favorite organization on this planet, but I think you're stretching.
From Catholic Pages:
Name:
H.E. Javier Card. LOZANO BARRAGáN
Position:
President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers
Age:
75 (Born Thursday, January 26, 1933)
From:
Mexico
Cardinal since:
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Title:
Cardinal Deacon of St. Michael the Archangel
Cardinal Lozano Barragan was born in Toluca (Mexico) on 26 January 1933. He studied for the priesthood in Zamora and at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He has a doctorate in theology.
He was ordained in Rome on 30 October 1955. He has held a number of theological responsibilities in his diocese of Zamora and for the Episcopal Conferences of Latin America (CELAM).
He was appointed auxiliary Bishop of Mexico City on 5 June 1979. He was consecrated by Cardinal Corripio Ahumada, Archbishop of Mexico City, on 15 August 1979.
He was later appointed Bishop of Zacatecas on 28 October 1984.
He was appointed President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers on 31 October 1996.
Pope John Paul II elevated him to the College of Cardinals on 21 October 2003.
The media will do EVERYTHING they can to belittle the Vatican on pro-life issues.
No other sovereign nation's health minister would be referred to in scare quotes.
Perfectly proper usage of quotes.
Only if you've never encountered quotes before.
Secretary For Health And Human Services is also lengthy. So European papers refer to the officeholder as health minister or health secretary - and not in scare quotes.
The Dutch Parliamentary Minister For Health, Well-Being And Sport is usually referred to as the Dutch health minister, without scare quotes, in the media.
Exactly, every civilized nation in the world has a person who serves in the capacity of secretary/minister of health. This person is almost never a trained physician and NOBODY questions this.
Many larger nations have a position that along the lines of the Surgeon General in the United States, because Vatican City does not have any hospitals this is unnecessary there.
The media is clearly trying to discredit the Vatican's authority to speak on moral matters.
*****************
Exactly right.
What other sovereign nation has the authority to speak on moral matters?
All of them, though some obviously advocate immorality.
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