Random posts, May 2023
Firstly today I feel that I need to offer a small explanation and apology for my previous ‘Random’ post – the one in which I tried to cover the difficult and emotive subject of suicide, medically assisted suicide and actual euthanasia. Even by my low standards of blogging I consider it a too complex subject handled inadequately and written poorly : my explanation is that I wrote it and edited it over several sessions such that I went off track many times and tried to include side issues that should never have been there. The positive side is that I took a leaf out of fellow nurse John Campbell’s playbook and actually went looking for the material that would either prove or disprove my case – the end result was neither a hit or a miss as most of what I came across was anecdotal and not hard data.
Also….if it seems that I was merely ‘bashing the Catholics’ because the main point of my post was a critique of a Roman Catholic bishop and the director of a Catholic publishing house then there is also a very different side in that the Catholic church isn’t a single minded monolith but a church of many parts and I can point to several Catholic communicators who present a completely different picture. Of note is the young Franciscan brother Fr Casey Cole of ‘Breaking in the Habit’ who also spoke more knowledgeably and compassionately about end of life ethics.
Today then I would like to make partial amends by continuing with the same theme but really giving closer attention to what the ‘boss’ ie the Pontiff (and previous Pontiff’s) have said in similar related problems. For those of you whom are interested in but not familiar with the written output of the RC church it is quite normal for the pontiff (pope) to put out an encyclical on a subject and they are usually well thought out and well presented. In this post I mainly just want to talk about the recent papal encyclical Deus Caritas Est wtitten by pope Benedict XVI…..my apologies in advance if I occasionally refer to him as ‘Pope Benny’.
For anyone who feels a need to research the subject then I have to warn you that there is a whole heap of papal encyclicals regarding the dangers of socialism, communism and nihilism going back to at least pope Pius from 1846 to 1878 and it looks as though most of the recent incumbents of the throne of Peter have had something new to say about it. The reason why iv’e chosen to take this angle in this follow up post is that it looks as though the main political and social drive for acceptance of medically assisted suicide and euthanasia is from those states that consider themselves to be both ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ thus Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands which are not only seemingly accepting and promoting medically assisted suicide and euthanasia but also acting as ‘total’ states…..like a soft and fluffy version of hardcore communism.
Here’s a short section from Pope Benny’s encyclical ‘Deus Caritas Est’…..the titles of papal encyclicals are always in Latin….get used to it !
“The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person − every person − needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. … In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live ‘by bread alone’ (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3) − a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human.” (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, December 25, 2005, n. 28)
If you’re slightly confused now in the way of me starting to talk about something other than assisted suicide and euthanasia it is because it looks to me as though nearly every state is trying to grab more and more power over it’s subjects, from the way that children are educated (indoctrinated) unborn babies are killed, medicines (vaccines) are mandated , whole countries are ‘locked down’, the very ways we are ‘permitted’ to live, travel and eat and then ultimately the way we die. Along the way, as with Canada , Australia , New Zealand and the Uk the ‘big state’ also seeks to quash information, dissent and even debate in their own parliament…..as an example just take a look at the way British MP Andrew Bridgen was treated when he raised the issue of vaccine injury.
As pope Benedict pointed out in his encyclical everything becomes just a massive grey bureaucracy where, as long as the right boxes are ticked and the right forms filled out we (the state) can throw away those whom are deemed less worthy of life……what we have seen that include so far are unborn babies because the progressive/feminist view demands it, the sick and mentally unwell can simply be disposed of, even those who seek a small piece of practical help from the state – they can all be offered assisted suicide and I do wonder when this will ultimately ‘progress’ to government mandated euthanasia. If you take the hopelessly optimistic view that it could never happen then think again – and then go and do the most basic search for a programme called ‘Aktion T4’. Yes , that was under the Nazi state but do remember that Nazism was basically ‘National Socialism’ writ large.
With most of this stuff the established churches have been meekly compliant rather than being the one organisation that could at least push back but failed to do so – maybe in acting that way they have just become even more irrelevant. At the very head of the established church we at least seem to have a few men who have thought deeply about this but below that we mostly seem to have men who hide behind canon law rather than engaging with these tough subjects.
To at least try and not fall into the same failure as Barron and Vogt here at the least are a few links to relevant information.
Have a nice weekend !
Deus Caritas Est https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est.html
Also, the papal encyclical on social justice (rather than social justice warriors)
Caritas Veritate : https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate.html
Euthanasia in the Netherlands : https://spcare.bmj.com/content/bmjspcare/early/2021/01/12/bmjspcare-2020-002573.full.pdf
Euthanasia and poverty in Canada (sorry it’s the Grauniad but hey !)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/11/canada-cases-right-to-die-laws
Euthanasia and mental illness (Canada again)
Dirty Wet Dog, the great adventure. 