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04/04/2005: "Out for Fifteen"

The passing of Pope John Paul II has called to mind how active and significant his papacy was. We’re hearing one story after another of his charisma and influence. But what if there had been no John Paul II over the last several decades, in fact no pope at all? Could this have happened? What if the Pope had become mentally injured but with internal organs otherwise functioning, in the manner of Terri Schiavo? For example, what if the aim of his would-be assassin had in 1981 been just slightly different so that the bullet caused enough of a loss of blood to the brain to trigger Schiavo’s condition? It’s certainly possible to imagine that this could have happened. Indeed, the juxtaposition of these two events – the passing of both within days of each other – has certainly caused many people of faith to wonder about the coincidence. This confluence of events shows the danger of applying absolutist positions to real life situations. That is certainly the lesson I’ve taken from of reading letter after letter to the editor from religious absolutists comparing the cessation of force-feeding to cold blooded murder. Sorry, but cold blooded murder is shooting the witnesses to a robbery. Murder is locking someone in a room so they can’t walk down the street for a Big Mac (something that Schiavo was free to do had she a mind to). Murder is not discontinuing a procedure only a medical professional using special medical equipment and prescription nutrient formulations is qualified to do, a procedure applied to a patient with zero measured EEG function for fifteen years with no improvement. Some might argue that the situation with a Florida homemaker can’t be compared to the spiritual leader of a billion people, but morality is a great leveler. John Paul II, as much as any moral leader, would have doubtless affirmed that what’s moral for the humble must also be moral for the great. That being said, would the Vatican’s recent absolutist pronouncement on the requirement for long-term force-feeding of the brain-dead have occurred had the Church collectively experienced the same pain as has the Schiavo family over the last fifteen years?