Washington D.C., Sep 24, 2019 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- The Catholic Medical Association, along with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Association, are voicing support for a bill pending in Congress to fund training, research, and education on palliative care.
Palliative care involves medical care and pain management for the symptoms of those suffering from a serious illness, and refraining from taking actions that directly take the life of the patient, as opposed to the practices of assisted suicide and euthanasia.
“Our role as physicians is to care for patients at all stages of their lives, and to try to do so in an empathetic manner, showing them kindness and charity in their particular circumstances,” CMA President Dr. John Schirger said in a Sept. 23 statement.
“When there is nothing further we can do to change the course of a disease process, we can still remain with them, showing them kindness and solidarity. Our colleagues who practice palliative care have a privileged opportunity to care for patients during this most important time of their lives.”
According to the CMA, the bill would provide federal grants to train more health professionals with expertise in palliative care so they can integrate it into their own practices, and would also fund research to improve methods for palliative care, and support programs to inform patients and health professionals of the benefits of such care.
The CMA noted that “some of our friends and allies in the effort against euthanasia and assisted suicide” have cited cases of patients being given large doses of painkillers to cause death, and also some physicians, ethicists, and state legislators who are attempting to define assisted suicide as a form of palliative care.
Despite this, the CMA said they see the current bill as “not part of the problem but part of the solution.”
The organization noted that S.2080 incorporates the policy of the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act, which since 1997 has excluded assisted suicide and euthanasia from all federal health programs. It also adds an explicit provision that “palliative care and hospice shall not be furnished for the purpose of causing, or the purpose of assisting in causing, a patient’s death, for any reason.”
While the Catholic Church recognizes life as a good, patients and doctors are not required to do everything possible to avoid death if a life has reached its natural conclusion and medical intervention would not be beneficial.
The CMA emphasized their position that “the goal of palliative care is to promote effective relief of pain and suffering, not to eliminate the sufferer.”
Countries with legal euthanasia are the Netherlands, Belgium, Colombia, Luxembourg, and Canada. Assisted suicide is legal in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. In the US, assisted suicide is legal in California, Colorado, Hawaii, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia, and in Montana by a court ruling. A law allowing it in Maine will take effect Jan. 1, 2020.
The bishops of Canada have been particularly vocal in support of palliative care, amid governmental efforts to expand assisted suicide and euthanasia, practices which have been legal in that country since 2016.
The Canadian bishops have multiple times stated that it is imperative that assisted suicide and euthanasia not be included as part of palliative care programs.
The bishops recently signed an interreligious statement that defines palliative care as “a comprehensive approach to end-of-life challenges, palliative care combines pain management with efforts to attend to a patient’s psychological, emotional, social, and spiritual needs, as well as caregiver support…the practice of palliative care does not include interventions which intentionally cause the death of the patient.”
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Legatus President Stephen Henley is pictured here speaking at the organization’s 2025 annual conference last month in Naples, Florida. / Credit: Courtesy of Legatus
Miami, Fla., Mar 13, 2025 / 07:20 am (CNA).
In today’s culture, often hostile to expressions of faith, many Catholics struggle with how to hold true to their values within the workplace. That’s why, in 1987, Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan started the Catholic organization Legatus.
From the Latin word for “ambassador,” Legatus aims to empower Catholic presidents, CEOs, and managing partners to become what St. Paul coined “ambassadors for Christ,” explained Stephen Henley, president of Legatus.
Offering peer support groups, networking, speakers, pilgrimages, and an annual international summit, Legatus’s goal is to “inspire members to live out their faith in all aspects of their life.” There are currently about 90 Legatus chapters in North America.
Chapter meetings are held once a month, providing the opportunity for members and their spouses to participate in confession and Mass, the recitation of the rosary, a cocktail reception dinner, and a speaker’s presentation.
“All of this is to help fortify the members’ marriage, the peer support group, the networking of this group, and then embolden them to go out and live their faith,” said Henley. “Tom felt that if we can bring together these Catholic CEOs, how much more can we change society with these people that have high impact and high influence?”
In interviews with Catholic News Agency, Hawkins, Dean Abela, and Henley covered three tips for bringing the Catholic worldview into the workplace.
Commit to your priorities
Dean Andrew Abela’s Catholic faith wasn’t always as important to him as it is now. As a teenager, he even stopped practicing.
“I came back in my mid-20s, funnily enough, while I was in business school,” he recalled. As a student in 1991, he encountered Pope John Paul II’s new encyclical letter Centesimus Annus, and the pope’s reflection on economics changed the trajectory of his life.
“Just a few months after, I returned to the Church,” he said. “When I reverted to the faith, I wanted to know what my newly rediscovered Catholic faith meant for a life in business.”
Andrew Abela is dean of the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America. Credit: Legatus
After working for companies including Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Company, and the Corporate Executive Board, in 2002 Dean Abela eventually began teaching at the Catholic University of America. He is also a consultant to Fortune 100 corporations.
“The reason I left business and switched to academia was that I wanted to dedicate myself full-time to studying questions about what it means to be a faithful Catholic in the workplace,” he explained.
A member of Legatus since 2000, Dean Abela mentioned that members can follow what the organization terms a “spiritual plan” to attend daily Mass, recite the rosary daily, and do monthly confession.
Known as Tres Magna, or the “Big Three,” this plan was inspired by Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula, who “attributed the perfect season to him going to daily Mass,” explained Stephen Henley. “Tom [Monaghan] thought, well, if he can go, there’s no reason why I can’t go.”
“Daily Mass, daily rosary, and monthly confession will align your life and priorities,” added Henley.
Find a supportive community
When Kristan Hawkins first encountered Legatus, she was not a Catholic. Hawkins was raised an Evangelical. After Students for Life’s 2006 launch, she began speaking at Legatus events.
In 2014, Hawkins decided to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, “a pilgrimage Legatus had sponsored.” “I was the only Protestant there,” she recalled. “I decided there that I was going to enter RCIA.”
She became a full-fledged member of Legatus soon after becoming Catholic.
“As a pro-life activist who starts a pro-life organization, I want to save babies, I want to end abortion, I want to help as many families and women. You don’t start a non-profit because you’re necessarily a great business leader or have all these skills. You started this non-profit, this mission, because you want to see this mission accomplished,” Hawkins said. “For me, that’s one of the powerful benefits of being in Legatus, is having friends and mentors who were successful in the for-profit world who I can call on and ask questions.”
Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins. Credit: Legatus
“It’s very powerful and important to have those relationships. For me, in the work I’m doing, it’s a constant spiritual attack,” she added. “One of the best things about Legatus is I can call any of my Legatus friends at any moment, and they’ll be there for you. They know the power of the work we do and the resistance we face.”
Dean Abela also finds a sense of community in Legatus and also strives to build a supportive Catholic community at the Catholic University of America.
“We share with students the principles of Catholic social doctrine, things like human dignity and solidarity, and try to embed these principles into all of our classes,” he explained. “We’re also increasingly trying to give them opportunities to practice different virtues as part of their studies and schoolwork.”
For instance, Dean Abela explained, “To teach graduate students about decision-making, we go through a couple of survivor simulations, where you crash land in the north of Canada and you have to decide what you’re going to do. We have them go through decision-making exercises explicitly practicing the virtue of prudence or practical wisdom, the habit of making wise decisions. We break apart the components of practical wisdom, which include things like alertness, preparedness, and reasoning, and we have them try to exercise those as part of the decision-making process.”
These skills built in the classroom can be applied not only in business, but also in students’ personal lives.
Model the behavior you expect from others and celebrate your co-workers’ integrity
For Henley, giving authentic witness to the Catholic faith in the workplace can start with a simple “hello.”
“First, live the golden rule,” he said. “When you’re walking down the hall, say hello to the janitor, to the executive, and to everyone in between. It matters a lot.”
He added: “Another practical thing: take the opportunity to pray before meals. If you’re going on business lunches, you’ll be surprised at how many people say, ‘Yeah of course, let’s pray.’ It’s more common than not for people to pray before meals. The fact that you’re doing it shows that you’re a bold leader and that you’re spiritual.”
Dean Abela agrees that these types of habits make all the difference, and were the subject of the presentation he made of his book Superhabits: The Universal System for a Successful Life last month during the 2025 Legatus Summit.
“The main focus of the book is understanding that things like diligence, honesty, and resilience are not genetic characteristics. They are habits that anyone can acquire through practice,” Dean Abela explained. “Companies can focus on one of the most important virtues and give employees opportunities to practice those virtues.”
For instance, Dean Abela explained the GrowVirtue App, an AI-driven app “based on the work of the book,” which organizations can use to evaluate which virtues their company has already made a habit of, which virtues they might target, and tips for how to make progress.
“The important thing is that the company would choose a virtue that they think would be directly beneficial to the company right now,” said Dean Abela. “Although personal results are private, the whole company can see what employees as a whole are weakest in. So, if you’re trying to grow in customer service, you might encourage the virtue of friendship or friendliness.”
Dean Abela discussed the value of recognizing virtue both inside and outside the company.
“See examples in action or read about examples,” he suggested. “You can have employees watch videos or you can share articles that demonstrate examples of a particular virtue in action. And you can make sure senior folks are role models for junior employees.”
“Most importantly, give the employees the opportunity to practice the virtues, and give feedback,” he added. “When companies give awards, they tend to do this more with core values. They should shift to core virtues and give it to people who are exemplars of that virtue.”
Ultimately, the goal for Catholics is to live authentic lives that draw others to Christ.
“Stay true to who you are, don’t give in,” said Hawkins. “They’ll know you by your fruits. I think that’s very important. You don’t have to work in the pro-life movement or specifically in an apostolate to be a good Catholic, a faithful Christian in the workplace. You can do that in any job, in any position you have – in McDonald’s or in a Fortune 500 company.”
St. Louis, Mo., Apr 2, 2023 / 04:00 am (CNA).
Catholic schools in the United States have grown in enrollment for two straight years, reaching record levels in some dioceses. Nationwide, Catholic enrollment j… […]
Sacramento, Calif., May 16, 2018 / 04:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- California’s assisted suicide law was wrongly passed in a special legislative session, ruled a California judge this week.
Though the ruling might only be temporary, one terminally ill woman at the May 15 hearing was grateful for it.
“The bill’s proponents tout dignity, choice, compassion, and painlessness. I am here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. Choice is really an illusion for a very few,” Stephanie Packer said, according to the Los Angeles archdiocese’s Angelus News. “For too many, assisted suicide will be the only affordable ‘treatment’ that is offered them.”
Packer said that her insurance company would not fund potentially life-saving chemotherapy treatments for her lung cancer, but instead offered her “aid-in-dying” drugs that would cost her $1.20. The action made the married mother of four a vocal opponent of assisted suicide laws, including California’s the End of Life Option Act.
Judge Daniel Ottolia of the Riverside County Superior Court ruled on Tuesday that lawmakers had unconstitutionally passed the law in a 2015 special session of the legislature dedicated to health care funding. The judge has postponed his judgment for five days to allow the state to file an emergency appeal.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra voiced strong disagreement with the ruling and said he plans to appeal it.
The judge’s decision drew support from other foes of the legislation.
“The act itself was rushed through the special session of the legislature, and it does not have any of the safeguards one would expect to see in a law like this,” Stephen G. Larson, head counsel for a group of doctors who filed a legal challenge to the law, told the Sacramento Bee.
The bill lacked an adequate definition of terminal illness and a provision exempting from legal liability the doctors who prescribe the drugs, according to Larson’s clients.
However, Larson challenged the bill specifically on the fact that the special session was called “to address funding shortages caused by Medi-Cal.”
“It was not called to address the issue of assisted suicide,” he said.
Under the law, lethal prescriptions may be given to adults who are able to make medical decisions if their attending physician and a consulting physician have diagnosed a terminal disease expected to end in death within six months.
The initial legislative effort to pass an assisted suicide bill failed in committee during the 2015 regular season, following months of media attention to the case of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman with an aggressive brain tumor who moved from California to Oregon in order to take advantage of legal physician-assisted suicide there.
Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman, who backed the bill, charged that the judge’s decision interfered with Californians in the process of securing the lethal drugs under the law.
“It’s a reminder for all of us that there are those out there who would like to take our rights away,” she said. “When we move forward, there are those who would like to drag us back.”
Harry Nelson, a healthcare attorney in Los Angeles who represents several doctors who have prescribed lethal prescriptions, told the Los Angeles Times he thinks it is unlikely the law will be permanently overturned. He believes the legislature will be able to reinstate the law with any changes the court believes to be necessary.
Matt Valliere, executive director of the New York-based Patients Rights Action Fund, applauded the ruling. He said it affirmed that assisted suicide advocates “circumvented the legislative process.”
“It represents a tremendous blow to the assisted suicide legalization movement and puts state legislatures on notice regarding the political trickery of groups like Compassion and Choices,” he said.
In the first seven months after the law took effect in June 2016, there were 111 people who chose to end their lives under it, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Including California, seven states and the District of Columbia have legal provisions allowing assisted suicide, National Public Radio reports.
In January 2018, the California Catholic Conference reiterated its opposition to assisted suicide and criticized the lack of data collected and the lack of transparency of the law’s implementation.
“There is far too much still not known about how this law is put into practice – especially as it pertains to disabled, elderly and other populations,” the conference said Jan. 24. “California is failing to properly investigate some very fundamental questions such as whether patients were coerced into the procedure or somehow influenced and, especially for Medi-Cal patients, whether they had the option of good, effective palliative care.”
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