Vatican City, Sep 22, 2020 / 03:45 am (CNA).- In a new document released Tuesday, the Vatican’s doctrinal office reaffirmed the Church’s perennial teaching on the sinfulness of euthanasia and assisted suicide, and recalled the obligation of Catholics to accompany the sick and dying through prayer, physical presence, and the sacraments.
The document also addressed the pastoral care of Catholics who request euthanasia or assisted suicide, explaining that a priest and others should avoid any active or passive gesure which might signal approval for the action, including remaining until the act is performed.
Samaritanus bonus: on the Care of Persons in the Critical and Terminal Phases of Life is a new document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), published Sept. 22.
The 45-page text, approved by Pope Francis on June 25, is signed by CDF prefect Cardinal Luis Ladaria and secretary Archbishop Giacomo Morandi.
The letter presents Catholic teaching on a range of end-of-life issues, affirming the intrinsic value and dignity of every human life, especially for those who are critically sick and in the terminal stages of life.
The document’s introduction noted that “it is widely recognized that a moral and practical clarification regarding care of these persons is needed.”
Pastoral accompaniment of those who expressly request euthanasia or assisted suicide “today presents a singular moment when a reaffirmation of the teaching of the Church is necessary,” Samaritanus bonus said.
It explained that closeness to a person who has chosen euthanasia or assisted suicide is necessary, but must always be ordered toward the person’s conversion.
The document recalled that a person who has made this decision, “whatever their subjective dispositions may be, has decided upon a gravely immoral act and willingly persists in this decision.”
This state “involves a manifest absence of the proper disposition for the reception of the Sacraments of Penance, with absolution, and Anointing, with Viaticum.” In this situation, the congregation explained, the priest must withhold absolution.
“Here it remains possible to accompany the person whose hope may be revived and whose erroneous decision may be modified, thus opening the way to admission to the sacraments,” it continued.
It added that “to delay absolution is a medicinal act of the Church, intended not to condemn, but to lead the sinner to conversion.”
The Church’s position in this situation “does not imply non-acceptance of the sick person,” the letter emphasized. Withholding absolution “must be accompanied by a willingness to listen and to help, together with a deeper explanation of the nature of the sacrament, in order to provide the opportunity to desire and choose the sacrament up to the last moment.”
“The Church is careful to look deeply for adequate signs of conversion, so that the faithful can reasonably ask for the reception of the sacraments,” it said.
The purpose of the new letter, the CDF explained in the introduction, is to enlighten pastors and the Catholic faithful “regarding their questions and uncertainties about medical care, and their spiritual and pastoral obligations to the sick in the critical and terminal stages of life.”
It said that there were particular situations today which require “a more clear and precise intervention on the part of the Church,” to reaffirm the message of the Gospel and its expression in the basic doctrinal teachings of the Magisterium, especially for the sick and dying and those who come into contact with them.
Euthanasia, the CDF letter affirmed, is “an intrinsically evil act, in every situation or circumstance” and “any formal or immediate material cooperation in such an act is a grave sin against human life.”
“Euthanasia and assisted suicide are always the wrong choice,” it said, because, as St. Pope John Paul II wrote in Evangelium vitae, “euthanasia is a grave violation of the Law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.”
There is also “no right to dispose of one’s life arbitrarily,” it continued, which is why “no health care worker can be compelled to execute a non-existent right.”
It is also “gravely unjust to enact laws that legalize euthanasia or justify and support suicide,” the congregation stated, and “such laws strike at the foundation of the legal order: the right to life sustains all other rights, including the exercise of freedom.”
“The existence of such laws deeply wound human relations and justice, and threaten the mutual trust among human beings,” the document continued. “The legitimation of assisted suicide and euthanasia is a sign of the degradation of legal systems.”
The CDF explained that according to Church teaching, euthanasia “is an act of homicide that no end can justify and that does not tolerate any form of complicity or active or passive collaboration.”
It said: “Those who approve laws of euthanasia and assisted suicide, therefore, become accomplices of a grave sin that others will execute. They are also guilty of scandal because by such laws they contribute to the distortion of conscience, even among the faithful.”
To take one’s own life breaks one’s relationship with God and with others. “Assisted suicide aggravates the gravity of this act because it implicates another in one’s own despair,” it said.
The Christian response to these actions is to offer the help necessary for a person to shake off this despair, it emphasized, and not to indulge “in spurious condescension.”
“The commandment ‘do not kill’ … is in fact a yes to life which God guarantees, and it ‘becomes a call to attentive love which protects and promotes the life of one’s neighbor,’” the letter said.
“The Christian therefore knows that earthly life is not the supreme value. Ultimate happiness is in heaven. Thus the Christian will not expect physical life to continue when death is evidently near. The Christian must help the dying to break free from despair and to place their hope in God.”
The letter affirmed that it is “a supreme act of charity” to spiritually assist the Christian at their moment of death.
“Death is a decisive moment in the human person’s encounter with God the Savior. The Church is called to accompany spiritually the faithful in the situation, offering them the ‘healing resources’ of prayer and the sacraments.”
[…]
Anyone who seeks truth seeks God, itself an irrefutable truth whether one proceeds to identify God as truth itself. Doctor of truth, “A title that was proposed for her at the time was ‘doctor veritatis’ because of her relentless intellectual pursuit of truth, which after her conversion she recognized in the person of Jesus Christ”.
Edith Stein as she preferred to be called identified Christ with his Cross, which is to identify him as love. Her history, a life story of discovering truth in Christ during a philosophical search for truth makes her a perfect model and source for grasping our teleological end in this life. From this writer’s perspective her writing has the depth and clear focus on the acquisition of truth that would benefit the reader.
I am unaware that Teresa Benedicta of the Cross preferred to be know by her secular name. At her Baptism she was named Teresa. At her clothing with the Discalced Carmelite habit she once again deliberately chose Teresa, added Benedicta in honor of St. Benedict whose monks were instrumental in giving her a deep love for the liturgy and matured her personal spirituality. The title “of the Cross” was in honor of St. John of the Cross for whom she had great devotion. She thought of it as Teresa “blessed by the Cross.”
I am often disappointed and simultaneously amused at the contrived use of photos of Sts. Therese and Teresa Benedicta before they took the habit. There was not much that they desired more than to be clothed in the habit of Carmel. Presently we even have to strip the saints of their religious habits in order to be post-conciliar. I don’t have to wonder what they would think of the confection.
Assuming a new name upon monastic investiture is a very personal and deeply spiritual act. Her religious name framed her existence as a Discalced Carmelite which fulfilled the deepest longing of her heart.
Edith Stein no longer existed
“I am often disappointed and simultaneously amused at the contrived use of photos of Sts. Therese and Teresa Benedicta before they took the habit.”
Weird Comment of the Day. Sigh.
How often do you see a book on John Paul using his image from a time before his papacy? Unless a photo is specific to a topic in the individuals life, why would use one that did not portray the person in the maturity? Or even his priesthood?
How often Padre Pio as a layman? Maximilian Kolbe in his civvies? How often a portrait of Ignatius in his armor?
The abandonment of the religious habit was instrumental eradicating religious life, particularly for women.
The attempt, frequent within the effort to justify the abandonment of the traditions of orders and congregations, to equate figures from their history assenting to the mutilation they have undergone is propaganda. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face fought hard to get that habit, Edith Stein sought for ten years to enter Carmel. Embraced in their spousal relationship with Christ the old woman was dead.
Therese of the Child Jesus died the Carmelite iron maiden, at the height of her religious maturity, no little girl.
Teresa Benedicta walked off to her death at the hands of the Nazis braced in her Carmelite habit, a nun, no longer the up and coming academic. What a comfort to her fellow prisoners, what a chill up a Nazi spine.
I understand the point you are making yet I have no problem with those two photos. In fact, I like them because they represent the development, the path of the person to God and this article does just that, outlines her path so two photos provide a good illustration. It is also very interesting and enlightening to see the transformation reflected on the face of the Saint.
I also disagree with “Edith Stein no longer existed”. She was incorporated. The academic did not disappear but very clearly seen in her last book, ‘The Science of the Cross’ (a discourse about St John of the Cross’s doctrine’.
I recently read ‘The Milestones’, Pope Benedict’s autobiography written while he was a Cardinal. I looked at his photos there, from the early age to older with great delight. By the way, his autobiography convinced me of his true and utmost humility and truthfulness = holiness. I think he is Blessed.
Yet you might well see books by Joseph Ratzinger from the time before he became Pope Benedict bearing photos of him from about the time he wrote the books. As Edith Stein, she wrote about philosophy, and, aside from her last days leading up to and including her martyrdom, these writings are what most people know about her.
To my understanding, Sr Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was not a martyr for Christian faith. She (so as her sister Rosa) was killed because she was a Jew. I have always thought that “Doctor of the Church” is the best title for her.
In connection to her, I also recall that the Discalced Carmelites organized a monastery on the territory of Auschwitz with the major purpose to pray there and make reparations and purify the place of horror, hell on earth. Unfortunately, they had to leave that place because of the pressure of Jews who claimed Holocaust as their own; they accused the nuns of “appropriating” the Jewish Holocaust. To settle the conflict, Pope JPII (I think it was him) ordered Carmelites to leave their house. Reportedly, many visitors of Auschwitz would drop into the monastery seeking some comfort after what they saw and so the removal of Carmelites was bad for everyone including non-Christians.
I think Sr Terresa Benedicta of the Cross would be appalled with the fact that some people of her race insisted on a removal of a group of the dedicated to God women from the sight the murder, of her and many others – Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, Christians, communists. I studied her life, she was deeply Jewish and deeply Christian, her Jewishness found its completion in her Christianity. Her zeal for God is something I believe to be innate in the Jewish people. That utmost dedication to One True God to the point of death is very Jewish, like in the Prophets.
I am not sure why I am writing about this. Probably because figures like Edith Stein highlight the tragic idiocy of humanity (“this is mine” – “no, this is mine”) making it truly unbearable.
No offense, but I would like some clarification on what it now means to be a “Doctor of the Catholic Church”. For centuries, the title seemed to designate a saint who had ALREADY had a remarkable influence on the Church as a whole, but more recently it seems to indicate someone whom the Pope then reigning HOPES will at some point in the near future have a larger influence on the Church. Sts. Athanasius, Anselm, Ambrose, and Augustine fall into the former category; St. Hildegard into the latter.
Wikipedia can be useful: “Doctor of the Church (Latin: doctor “teacher”), also referred to as Doctor of the Universal Church (Latin: Doctor Ecclesiae Universalis), is a title given by the Catholic Church to saints recognized as having made a significant contribution to theology or doctrine through their research, study, or writing.”
This certainly describes Edith Stein, even in her earlier writings on phenomenology which she wrote under her preceptor, Edmund Husserl.
“This certainly describes Edith Stein, even in her earlier writings on phenomenology which she wrote under her preceptor, Edmund Husserl.” At best, that is like saying that Lars Onsager is a famous physicist. He kind of is, but unless you are a physicist (or maybe a chemist, since he won a Nobel prize in chemistry), I’m pretty sure you’ve never heard of him.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, on the other hand, is basically a nobody that everyone has heard of. You might not think physics had the equivalent of a Paris Hilton, but that’s kind of what he is.
Then there are people like Einstein and Newton; physicists who are genuinely important and actually well-known. These are the physics equivalents of Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas; they need no introduction.
If you really want to see what something means, sometimes you have to dig deeper than Wikipedia.
God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us – Mahatma Gandhi
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross has been an object of devotion for me since I was a boy sixty years ago. What a heroic woman…she continues to leave me speechless. I made sure I was at her canonization. Her witness to Jesus Christ has been an anchor for my faith for many decades.
She was an impressive philosopher. I have found her theological and devotional writings rewarding. Do they support her being declared a Doctor of the Church? I think not. That sort of theological reflection was not her vocation.
Let us be honest in our recognition of heroic virtue and of superior theological contributions to the faith. There is no need to patronize any individual over and above their accomplishments achieved by cooperation with Grace. For some time now we have been canonizing individuals who, while good, very good even, are not exactly examples of heroic virtue.
The ambition to bestow the doctorate upon St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross is, honestly, merely an ecclesiastical DEI job because of her identity as a woman, a Jew, a scholar. It has nothing to do with groundbreaking exceptional theological reflection. It is a vacuous effort, it is ultimately dishonest.
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross would not approve. She was a profoundly honest woman of exceptional common sense and virtue. Not a theologian. Her contemplative reflection does not rise to the level of Teresa, Catherine, Therese…
Well said. We need great theologians like St. Augustine, but we need great prayer warriors like St. Monica even more. St. Monica will never be a Doctor of the Church, nor should she, but she might be greater in the Kingdom of Heaven than her son, and we can be sure that for every famous theologian, there are hundreds or thousands of St. Monicas known only to God.
Profoundly insightful, and wonderfully unsettling. Puts things in their supernatural perspective.
I too greatly admire the writing and the life of St. Teresa Benedicta together with her fellow Carmelite saints Teresa, Therese, and John of the Cross. I’ve read much of their work, some more than once. Teresa Benedicta wrote a treatise on St. John (The Science of the Cross), but she very meticulously repeated and clarified what St. John had written. She has a brilliantly detailed work on ’empathy’ which is philosophy, not theology. I believe she wrote biographical notes or essays on some other notable Carmelites. She also has some wonderfully thoughtful and insightful essays on womanhood.
Her heroic virtue in her arrest, time in the concentration camp and facing death was apparent to all. Her love for her natural family, particularly her mother, was heart-rending to us folk who shared Edith’s anguish on the days leading to the day in the parlor. There we share Edith’s sorrow at informing her Jewish mother of her wish for Catholic Baptism. Her biography inclines her to sainthood. But what inclines the Church to name her one of its doctors? Nothing that I know.
Correction: The days of anguish for Edith occurred not prior to her Baptism but prior to her entrance into convent.
Would that St. Benedicta and St. John of the Cross would help me reserve my exuberant sharing of inaccurate memory!
Why the bigotry of calling her by the wrong name? She is St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross.
I don’t think anything ill is meant by it. We tend to call recently departed saints by the names they were best known by when they were alive. We’ll be saying “Mother Teresa” instead of “Saint Teresa of Calcutta” and “Padre Pio” instead of “Saint Pio of Pietrelcina”, which is not quite the same thing, but somewhat related.