Emanuele Preda’s Blog

Eluana: the Church contradicts itself

Welby was denied his funeral because they said he was a self-confessed suicidal. I don’t think they’ll have the courage to do the same to Eluana, whose plug has been switched-off because the Supreme Court accepted the proof that it was her will, expressed when she could actually make a statement, that is 17 years ago.

It should be remembered, though, that both Welby and Eluana did not wish to “end their own life”: both loved life very much. Their statements were a refusal of “therapeutic tenacity”.

All obstacles brought to impede the interruption of hydration and feeding of Eluana, interruption continuously requested by her father for 17 years, are direct consequence of the pressure from the Catholic church on both the politics and the tribunals. I say that there is no doubt about it. If the Pope said “I prei that Eluana iss left frei to reetrn to die hause of der pater”, no one would have opposed the interruption of the treatments.

What is even more grotesque is that the same Catholic church teaches in Catechism:

2278 – The interruption of medical procedures that are costly, dangerous, extraordinary or disproportionate to the expected results may be legit. In this case we renounce the “therapeutic tenacity”. There is no wish to cause death: there is acceptance that we can’t stop death. This decision has to be made by the patient, if he is capable and competent, or else by those who have the legal right to make such decision, always in the respect of the reasonable will and interest of the patient.

In other words: in catechism they write the plug can be pulled off, and that the decision can be made by relatives.

So why such a can can? Because Eluana’s father did not chose to do things “under cover” but he chose a public way instead, and such a public way could’ve put on the table again the debate about a law on euthanasia.

Therefore, the Catholic church tortured Eluana and her family for 17 years, with no biblical or magisterial support, with the sole objective of leaving what the Church considers a “sin” – euthanasia – a crime.

The confusion with euthanasia has been backed by the bishops and, in a particularly fanatic manner, by the daily newspaper of the CEI, Avvenire.

The Card. Javier Lozano Barragan should read the article “The right to die: a document unheard” written by the Jesuit father Mario Beltrami from the Aloisianum of Gallarate, and published in Dolentium Hominum, n.68, 2008, pages 57-62. This is a publication of the Pontificium Consilium for medical practice (Pastorale della salute), which is the Vatican office under Barragan’s responsibility. The article further clarifies the correct interpretation of the renounce of therapeutic tenacity as stated in the art. 2278 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church with conclusions that, if applied to the Englaro case, guide us to completely different solutions than those brought up during the current campaign.

Italian bishops should read the document “Christliche Patientenverfugung” (Sanitary dispositions of the Christian patient). It’s a text signed in 1999 (and revisited in 2003) by both the Catholic church of Germany and all the evangelic churches, addressed to German Christians, that contains a statement about the end of life (a sort of biological testament). It seems that it has been signed so far by more than three million people. It holds, among other things, some really clear statements regarding the respect of the will of the patient, the difference between active euthanasia and passive euthanasia and therapeutic tenacity. Statements that are radically different from those we have heard from the promoters of the campaign that went on in our country. (source: press release N.S.C., 4/02/09)

I’m happy and proud I’ve left the Catholic church at the time of the Welby case, and today I renew my indignation and “shake the dust off my shoes”.

And I might add: should I end up in similar conditions (vegetative life, dementia, incapacity) I pray of anyone who is my friend to find a quick way, even if it’s painful, just make it quick enough, to let me go to the other side. A knife stub, a lethal injection, a liter of whiskey in my drip-feed… whatever, but no legal ways. Do it undercover and in secret. Better if it’s Irish whiskey at least 16 years old. Of course, have a sip of it in my honor, first.

And then break the bottle on my head, just to be sure. And then have a great party, to the sorry faces of all those assholes who would have liked to torture me.

And how’s that, when it was the Pope’s time to go, for him no therapeutic tenacity. Hard to guess why…