Catholic clergy and the end of life debate.

I think this is the most sensible thing I’ve heard from a member of the
Catholic clergy in a long time:

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff Peter Smith told the BBC: “We must not kill an innocent person under any circumstances, there is no moral justification for that.
“But when it comes to the end of life, we wouldn’t take a vitalist view, and
say somebody has got to be kept alive by most extraordinary means.”
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7956845.stm)

Regarding a baby with serious medical issues that was taken off life support
despite the parents wishes.

It’s an interesting and difficult ethical issue, I think.

Also, I see a lot of Catholic patients who have “the full monty” when a less is
more approach would be, in my mind, more ethical and cause less suffering for
everyone with regard to end of life care.

My suspicion is that many of these patients justify their decisions by
expressing what they’ve heard or think they’ve heard from clergy in an attempt
to avoid the heart of the matter – which is that they are afraid to die.

I wish that more Catholic clergy would be more outspoken about reasonable end
of life care.

It would also be great if everyone would read about how Socrates handled his
end of life and his argument that fear was pretty unreasonable.

Quoted from here.

He says that emotions follow from knowledge, and since he has no knowledge of what death is, he has no feelings or emotions about death. Socrates only has emotions if they are first authorized by reason, so it is illogical for him to be afraid of death when he knows nothing about it. “To fear death, gentleman, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know”

The actual “Apology” can be found here.