JPII...Euthanized?

I tell you, the Time Magazine of late is getting worse than the tabloids that I see in line at the super market.

This story in the latest edition of Time (Tabloid) Magazine.

Was John Paul II Euthanized?

In a provocative article, an Italian medical professor argues that Pope John Paul II didn't just simply slip away as his weakness and illness overtook him in April 2005. Intensive care specialist Dr. Lina Pavanelli has concluded that the ailing Pope's April 2 death was caused by what the Catholic Church itself would consider euthanasia. She bases this conclusion on her medical expertise and her own observations of the ailing pontiff on television, as well as press reports and a subsequent book by John Paul's personal physician. The failure to insert a feeding tube into the patient until just a few days before he died accelerated John Paul's death, Pavanelli concludes. Moreover, Pavanelli says she believes that the Pope's doctors dutifully explained the situation to him, and thus she surmises that it was the pontiff himself who likely refused the feeding tube after he'd been twice rushed to the hospital in February and March. Catholics are enjoined to pursue all means to prolong life.

MORE...

Where were they when Terry Shiavo was starved to death... no food or water and she wasn't on her death bed until then.

This from Zenit.org

John Paul II "Profoundly Loved" His Life

Final Prayer Was Lesson for Attending Physician
VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 20, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The final voiced prayer of Pope John Paul II was an act of profound asceticism, said his personal physician.

Dr. Renato Buzzonetti said the Pope's last words were "the prayer of a saint that loved life until the good Lord called him to himself," reported an article Sunday in Italy's La Repubblica newspaper.

The doctor continued: "Pope John Paul II was cared for until the last moment of his life, when at 9:37 p.m. on April 2, 2005, he breathed his last.

"It is true that he had previously told his doctors, 'Let me go to the Lord.' But that was an ascetic phrase, an elevated form of a final prayer of a man who was suffering a great deal and felt the strong desire to draw close to the Heavenly Father.

"It was certainly not a renunciation or a form of anticipated surrender of life. Nor was it an invitation to physicians caring for him to pull the plug or to discontinue care, a sort of indirect choice for euthanasia, as some are insinuating. Whoever believes this, is wrong.

"The doctor said John Paul II spoke the prayer "in a weak voice to Polish Sister Tobiana, while she was ministering near the bed. When the sister came out of the room she told us that the Pope told her that he 'wanted to be let go, to go to the Lord.'

"I repeat, it was a mystical invitation, a high form of prayer recited by a man who felt that he was near to completing his earthly adventure. But he was never left alone, without care or protection, as some erroneously are trying to insinuate.

"It was for those of us who were near him yet another great life lesson. A prayer prayed right to the end, in a very weak voice, inaudible, whispered, yet profound. The prayer of a saint that loved life until the good Lord called him to himself."

Attachment to faith

The physician was addressing certain claims that arose in media reports, especially in the wake of the document from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith released last Friday on the obligation of feeding tubes for people in a persistent "vegetative state."

"That phrase, 'Let me go to the house of the Father,' was an act of a high prayer, of profound asceticism, an original example and almost unique in its attachment to faith in God the Father and, at the same time, to life, which John Paul II profoundly loved right up to the last moment," Buzzonetti said.

"His was a long passion," he added. "On March 31, when he looked out of his window for the first time he couldn’t even speak. But he did not give up. From that day on he was administered enteric nutrition through a nasal gastric tube, because he was no longer in a condition to feed himself by mouth.

"The drip was applied and secured until the end, without interruption. Then, on March 31, he suffered serious septic shock with cardio circulatory collapse because of a urinary tract infection; he was given all of the appropriate therapeutic measures and cardio respiratory assistance.

"The physician affirmed that John Paul II, though he was not taken to a hospital for his final hours, received excellent medical attention.

"His secretary, Bishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, asked him explicitly if he wanted to go," Buzzonetti explained. "But the Holy Father wanted to remain in the Vatican where he was also guaranteed uninterrupted and quality specialized medical assistance, 24 hours a day, with highly specialized personnel."

This also from Zenit.org:

Dignity in Life and Death

Debate Continues Over Euthanasia
By Father John Flynn, L.C.ROME, SEPT. 24, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The issue of euthanasia came to the forefront of news again recently, with the publication of a note Sept. 14 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The statement, written in reply to questions sent to the Vatican by U. S. bishops, stipulated that providing nutrition and liquids to people who are in what is often termed the vegetative state is, with rare exceptions, morally obligatory.

After the fierce debate over the 2005 Terri Schiavo case in Florida, news came from Arizona a few months ago about a man who unexpectedly woke up from a coma. Jesse Ramirez suffered brain injuries in a May 30 car crash, reported the Arizona Republic newspaper June 27.

On June 8 his wife, Rebecca, had asked his doctors to remove the tubes providing him with food and water. Jesse's parents objected and obtained a court order to reconnect the tubes. Subsequently, Jesse suddenly woke up from his coma.

Earlier this year another case was reported, from Denver, Colorado. Christa Lilly had been in coma since the mid-'80s in the wake of a heart attack and stroke. In the past, Lilly had woken up for brief periods, but until this year the last time was on Nov. 4, 2000, reported the Denver Post newspaper March 8.

According to the article, a neurologist from the University of Colorado Hospital, James Kelly, thinks that Lilly might have been in a "minimally conscious state" during these years, as opposed to a persistent vegetative state.

Killing machines

Euthanasia came up for debate in Germany recently, after the announcement by Roger Kusch, ex-justice minister in Hamburg, that he has designed a machine to help people commit suicide.

According to a report in the Sept. 9 edition of the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, a simple push of a button injects a lethal solution into the terminally ill patient. German federal law prohibits helping someone commit suicide, but does not make illegal the actual act of suicide by the person involved. So with his machine Kusch hopes to avoid any legal difficulties in helping people die.

News of the invention drew immediate criticism, both from politicians and Archbishop Werner Thissen of Hamburg. Kusch is a candidate in Hamburg's October elections.

Meanwhile, in Switzerland, protests by residents in a Zurich suburb have forced the assisted-suicide group Dignitas out of its premises, according to a July 13 report on the Web site of the German magazine Spiegel Online.

Since 1998, around 700 people have come to the Dignitas center to put an end to their lives. According to the article, the largest group of clients is from Germany, with Britain in second place.

Earlier, in June, the Swiss Senate called on the government to draft a law aimed at improving controls of organizations offering assisted suicide. The National Commission on Biomedical Ethics, a government advisory panel, has also recommended increased state supervision of organizations such as Dignitas.

July also saw a court in the Swiss city of Basel sentence Peter Baumann to three years in prison for having helped three people with psychological problems commit suicide, the agency Swissinfo reported July 6.

Baumann, a retired psychologist, helped the people die between January 2001 and January 2003. According to the court, Baumann acted out of egoistic motives, hoping to obtain public recognition of his methods. The judges, however, defined his conduct as "inhuman," and criticized his behavior as negligent.

Care, not death

During his trip to Austria, Benedict XVI raised the issue of euthanasia in his Sept. 7 speech to members of government and the diplomatic corps. Saying that the issue was of "great concern" to him, the Pope added that he feared tacit or explicit pressures on the elderly and ill to put an end to their lives.

"The proper response to end-of-life suffering is loving care and accompaniment on the journey toward death -- especially with the help of palliative care -- and not 'actively assisted death,'" the Pontiff stated. He also called for reforms in the social welfare and health systems in order to assist people who are terminally ill.

Some of Canada's bishops also addressed euthanasia earlier this year. In April the Ontario episcopal conference published a brochure titled "Going to the House of the Father: A Statement on the Dignity and Destiny of Human Life."

"It seems a cruel twist of history that societies with such great medical capabilities are turning against the disabled and sick -- with lethal results," the introduction stated.

The bishops insisted that protecting life is not just a Christian or religious argument, but a basic human right. "To permit the killing of the disabled, frail, sick or suffering, even if motivated by a misplaced compassion, requires a prior judgment that such lives are not worth living," they said. "No one forfeits the right to life because of illness or disability."

"Unless the right to life is secure, there can be no sure foundation for any human rights," they added.

The statement also explained that there is a difference between deliberately causing death and unduly prolonging life. We are not morally obliged, the bishops said, to prolong life if the means used are unduly burdensome or cause additional suffering and when there is little hope of recovery.

The bishops also recommended that Christians not neglect the soul and that they should draw comfort from the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. Suffering and death for Christians, they continued, is not only a matter for medicine.

Disabled concerns

Another source of opposition to euthanasia comes from groups representing disabled people, as the Los Angeles Times reported Aug. 6. According to the article, one of the reasons why legislative proposals to allow medically assisted suicide have failed in California in the past few years is the hostility of the disabled's rights movement.

A combination of legalized euthanasia and pressure to cut increasing costs in the health care system could lead to the withdrawal of treatment for the disabled. The Los Angeles Times quoted a number of disabled people, active in groups who have fought against assisted-suicide proposals.

"The conditions I have are expensive to treat, and it would be a lot cheaper for the health care system to just let my health go to the point where I would want to die," said Los Angeles activist Laura Remson Mitchell, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, kidney disease and diabetes.

Legal leniency

Other concerns arise from the increasing reluctance by some courts to punish family members who help a sick relative commit suicide. The application of the law in Britain in recent years has been eroded to the point where courts are reluctant to punish those who say they help kill someone out of love, commented Robert Verkaik, law editor for the British newspaper the Independent in an article published May 8.

Among other examples, Verkaik noted a case from October 2006, when a man who helped his terminally ill wife to die was set free with just a nine-month suspended sentence.

Earlier, in March, a French court convicted a doctor for poisoning a terminally ill cancer patient, reported the Associated Press on March 15. In spite of his guilt, the tribunal in southwestern Perigueux sentenced Laurence Tramois to just a one-year suspended prison sentence for his role in the Aug. 25, 2003, death of Paulette Druais in the nearby town of Saint-Astier.

Misguided compassion seems destined to lead to the deaths of still more people as pressures to ease restrictions on assisted suicide continue.

I guess politics are run pretty much the same all over the world. Inject a lie and present it as the truth as in the Time article.

The Catholic Church has been consistant in it's stance on Abortion and Euthanasia. The election season is upon us, and I'm sure we will see an abundance more of this kind of "perhabs it's true" garbage ment to place doubt in the mind of the faithful.

..... lets pray that Catholic Christians and non-Catholic Christians (everyone actually) know the truths about these two important issue during the elections. If we don't get it right on these issues, we'll never work out heathcare, imagration, war, environment and others.