As Sulmasy notes, most people’s reaction to the prospect of being kept alive in a condition like Terri Schiavo’s is one of horror. That moral instinct has long been recognized in Catholic teaching, as has the distinction between removing feeding tubes from someone in PVS, thus allowing him to die, and intending his death.
It is hard to imagine a step that could discredit the church’s opposition to euthanasia more than Rome’s insistence that those afflicted with PVS are essentially condemned to spend the last ten, fifteen, or twenty years of their lives-even against their own wishes-in such a condition. Some may consider this a call for moral heroism on the part of PVS patients, their families, and the wider community, but the church has never taught that heroism is morally obligatory.
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Popular confusion, sensationalistic journalism, and crazy statements on all sides of the case gripped the Italian media for weeks before and after Welby’s death. Vatican officials said that it would be morally licit to stop the ventilator if Welby and his doctor were to decide that the ventilator had become an extraordinary means of care. But by declaring his intent to euthanize himself, Welby had put the church in a difficult position. Finally, the church felt pressed to deny him burial in order to affirm its teaching against suicide. The case was bigger in Italy than Terri Schiavo’s was in the United States.
This controversy-among others-formed part of the backdrop to the Vatican’s September statement on the morality of providing feeding tubes to patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Writing in response to questions from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) regarding the treatment of PVS patients, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) ruled that, in such cases, feeding tubes must be considered, “in principle, an ordinary means of preserving life.” The statement seemed to clarify John Paul II’s much-debated 2004 allocution on PVS, in which he referred to artificial nutrition and hydration as “normal care.” Since that statement was delivered in the throes of the Schiavo debate, one could perhaps be forgiven for believing the CDF is responding mainly to the U.S. situation. Yet Vatican statements on PVS must be understood in their proper context. More than most Americans appreciate, that context is shaped by European politics-especially Italian politics and the broader European debate about euthanasia.
Preserving Life? The Vatican & PVS
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Terri’s horror? Only when they came to kill her the last time. Before that, there was Terri’s laughter. Since Terri, I have much less tolerance for the far left and for RINOS.