Any Stick to Beat the Church.

Internet Monk Michael Spencer posted this on Boar's Head Tavern:

Hypocrisy in the death of JPII? Should the Pope have taken a feeding tube?

My quick response:

The Times article has this claim:

“Catholics are enjoined to pursue all means to prolong life.”

That’s just wrong - painfully wrong.

Catholics are enjoined to pursue all reasonable means to pursue life. They are not required to pursue heroic or extraordinary means. Look at the Catechism para 2278: “2278 Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of “over-zealous” treatment. ”

This was clear in the seminal case of Karen Anne Quinlan, where Catholic teachings were used to justify taking Quinlan off of life support, but presumably the Times’ reporter is innocent of any knowledge that didn’t happen after 1990.

So, we once again have a reporter’s ignorance being used to invent a case of gotch’a against the Catholic church.

I see that the story is getting some play on Foxnews, so it probably has some legs.

Also, the story is based on one report from someone with no contact with JPII.

Yet, it's a Time news story.

Pathetic.