London, England, Jul 25, 2017 / 03:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- For the past few months the world has watched closely as the parents of a gravely ill British infant fought an intense legal battle over whether or not his life was worth further treatment, which has raised crucial questions.
Among the most potent of these questions regards the ethics of a court stepping in and denying parents the right to seek a treatment which may benefit their child.
British and European courts had sided with officials from Great Ormond Street Hospital, who sought to bar Charlie Gard’s parents from seeking treatment for their child overseas.
In comments to CNA July 25, Benjamin Harnwell, founder of the Rome-based Dignitatis Humanae Institute, said he thought that “the hospital – and the courts – crossed a totalitarian line in refusing to hand the baby over to his parents at their request, so that they could seek further medical attention in the U.S., for which they had secured the funding.”
“I don’t think it’s ever appropriate” for a hospital or court to step in and “advocate” for a patient, especially in the case of a minor whose parents are involved, Harnwell added.
While the Church “certainly doesn’t teach that people should be kept alive ‘at all costs,’” he said “the question isn’t so much about knowing ‘when to let go’ but about the moral responsibility of parents wanting to choose when to make that decision for themselves.”
Harnwell reflected that Church teaching says “the primary role of medicine is to heal, and then to alleviate suffering when being healed is no longer a possibility.”
Harnwell spoke after the parents of British infant Charlie Gard announced July 24 that they decided to end their court case seeking further treatment for the terminally-ill child.
Gard, 11 months, suffers from a rare genetic condition called mitochondrial depletion syndrome, which causes progressive muscle weakness and is believed to affect fewer than 20 children worldwide. He has been in intensive care since October 2016, and has suffered significant brain damage due to the disease; he is currently fed through a tube, requires a ventilator to breathe and is unable to move.
His case first garnered international attention when his parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, were denied the right to transfer him to other hospitals by U.K. courts, despite having raised funds for an experimental treatment from an American doctor. They appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, but were denied a hearing.
Judges argued that prolonging Charlie’s life would inflict unnecessary suffering on the infant, and gave doctors at London’s Great Ormond Hospital, where Charlie is being treated, permission to take him off life support without his parents’ permission.
His life support was to be turned off at the end of June; however, the courts granted an extension so Charlie’s parents could have more time with their son.
After international leaders including Pope Francis and U.S. President Donald Trump voiced their support for Charlie and his parents, the courts allowed medical experts to conduct additional tests on the infant.
American neurologist Dr. Michio Hirano, who had been willing to offer Gard nucleoside bypass therapy, while acknowledging it would not necessarily heal him, traveled to London for the tests. However, after seeing a new MRI scan this week, Hirano declined to offer the therapy.
The child’s life support is expected to be pulled in the next few days, just two weeks shy of his first birthday.
In a tearful statement after the announcement of their decision to drop their court case, Charlie’s parents said, “this is one of the hardest things we will ever have to say and we are about to do the hardest thing that we will ever have to do, and that is to let our beautiful little Charlie go.”
“The American and Italian team were still willing to treat Charlie after his recent brain MRI and EEG performed last week, but there is one reason why treatment cannot now go ahead, and that is time,” they said.
“A whole lot of time has been wasted. We are now in July, and our poor boy has been left to lay in a hospital bed for months whilst lengthy court battles have been fought. Tragically, having had Charlie’s medical notes reviewed by independent medical experts, we now know that had Charlie been given the treatment sooner, he would have had the potential to be a normal, healthy little boy.”
In addition to the devastating end to this story, Harnwell pointed to a larger debate society faces.
This, he said, is the debate on whether the state ought to be “the health care provider of last resort,” stepping in as a third party who gets to decide where it’s limited resources will be spent.
Inevitably, under a socialized model “it will be the state that decides when to divert its limited resources to other patients it feels will benefit more.”
Harnwell stressed that while he didn’t want to “make a political point out of other people’s terrible tragedy,” there is a “very real debate to be had” on the issue.
For Harnwell, Charlie Gard’s case is a perfect illustration of the risks involved in allowing third parties “to assume the role of providing our own safety net.”
Socialized healthcare, he said, “offers a universal reach available (ostensibly) to all irrespective of means, but eventually rationing – decided by bureaucrats, and presumably backed up by the courts – will kick in at some point.”
However, while private healthcare is generally available only to those who can afford it, under this system “the customer is king,” Harnwell said, adding that while people generally have good reasons for choosing one or the other, “my own instinct is always to trust people to chose responsibly for themselves.”
The issue also touches on the debate surrounding the push for euthanasia and living wills currently taking place in several countries.
Fr Francesco Giordano, Director of Human Life International in Rome, related the Charlie Gard case to the euthanasia mentality, saying the problem with living wills is that “it basically takes away from the family the right to make decisions.”
In fact, in reality it “takes away the right of the individual, because when an individual in the case of the living will, the person might not be feeling sick at that time, but when they are sick that person might change his or her mind,” he said, noting that sadly, this is often not permitted.
“So basically what’s happening is the rights of individuals, the rights of the family unit, are being taken away by the states. That’s what we’re seeing here, that’s what’s most concerning for all of us.”
Regardless of the ongoing debates, Harnwell stressed that most importantly right now, “Charlie’s family is suffering unimaginably, and they need our prayers.”
Material from EWTN News Nightly was used in this report.
[…]
The Archbishop asked:
“How can we find the right attitude that does not force us to take one side to the detriment of the other? How can we keep the primary focus on the victims without forever rejecting the guilty?”
Allow me:
Remove Father Dominique Spina from the priesthood for raping a boy. Then Mr. Spina can do whatever. Problem solved.
Better still:
The Archbishop could remove himself from the episcopacy, thereby sparing himself the delicate task of rescuing a rapist.
Best of all:
Pope Leo removes Archbishop Guy from the episcopacy for gross negligence to act as a spiritual father. Perhaps the Pope can find a paper pushing job for him in the Secretary of State…
Yes, the Archbishop himself should be removed, but of course will not. It is horrible to see the Church hierarchy and many priests ignore and just dance around the straightforward commands of Scripture and great Christian thinkers like St. Augustine:
Romans 1:26-27
New International Version
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
New International Version
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a]
10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
AND SAINT AUGUSTINE
“Those sins which are against nature, like those of the men of Sodom, are in all times and places to be detested and punished. Even if all nations committed such sins, they should all alike be held guilty by God’s law” (Confessions 3.8).
This is what normal thinking Catholic men say. But when they receive Holy Orders today, some seem to think it means pardoning evil AND PRETENDING LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED. Until the Church gets real about expelling these men from the priesthood, NOTHING will be fixed. But I am beginning to think the bigger problem will be expelling these weak-minded men from the episcopate.
“Others in the end saw it as a sign of hope for abusers who had served their time and are experiencing the great trial of being totally shunned by society. For that I must ask forgiveness from the one I named and in whom I have confidence, for not having known how to find the right place to which he is entitled,” the archbishop further explained. 🤮
Speaking of “arousing suspicions,” bitter experience suggests that the Archbishop is not simply “weak-minded.” His simpering excuses are likely more than an act to survive. He chose to make a rapist his Chancellor. That’s audacious. Why? One reason would be blackmail. Another is that he and Fr. Spina are united, let’s say, at a minimum in their desire to normalize sex with children. 💋
It’s ecclesial idiocy that prompts me to make a move I’ve considered and studied
for the past few years: leaving the institutional Catholic Church and becoming
LCMS Lutheran.
How can a bishop be this incompetent and ignorant?
I think both the bishop and priest need to go.
It’s a disgrace.
In a healthy age of the Church, both would have been hung by outraged laymen.
“we have learned to look at these events first from the point of view of the people who were their victims and who suffer the consequences for the rest of their lives.”
Let us get this straight. So you contend that previously it was impossible to know that raping a child was an intrinsic evil? Or do you side with those “theologians” who say there are no intrinsic evils?
“Others in the end saw it as a sign of hope for abusers who had served their time and are experiencing the great trial of being totally shunned by society.”
Served their time?? How do criminal penalties absolve moral culpability and the need for repentance? And shunned by society? Anyone who embarrasses the Catholic Church has a great future in Hollywood.
“How can we find the right attitude that does not force us to take one side to the detriment of the other? How can we keep the primary focus on the victims without forever rejecting the guilty?”
I have an idea. Why not make an effort to discover the Catholic religion?
Too little, too late. Archbishop de Kirimel should fall on his sword and resign for even considering hiring a pedophile child rapist.
Let me get this straight. A priest who breaks the seal of Confession is automatically excommunicated, but a priest who rapes maintains his faculties and gets selected as chancellor for an archdiocese as “a sign of hope for abusers.” Maybe the latter should receive the same consequence as the former; maybe then the Faithful, to say nothing of the world at large, will believe that Church hierarchs actually care about the victims of abuse.
“For that I must ask forgiveness from the one I named and in whom I have confidence, for not having known how to find the right place to which he is entitled,” the archbishop further explained.”
What an interesting statement from the bishop. I wonder what might be the right place to which the rapist might be entitled.
This “apology” is effectively a way of saying, poor me; I made an innocent error by making an unpopular decision. But this priest is a fine man, made especially stellar as a symbol to all abusers. Yep, abusers everywhere will learn that they can become venerated if their abuse eventually becomes high profile.
We all complain about how the secular world hates the Church. But I nonetheless hope someday a prosecutor will arrest, try, and send to prison a bishop for aiding and abetting. What will it take to wake them up?
Up until quite recently in our state people who abused children that way were eligible for residency on death row.
I’m not a fan of capital punishment but it demonstrates how seriously a society takes crimes committed against minors. That seriousness seems to be lacking in this particular French archdiocese.
As with so many bishops who tolerated abuse, even in the U.S., this is not a question of
forgiveness. It is a question of competence and fitness for office.
These high clergy always hang on to office, never having the integrity
or the decency to resign.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is built upon the firm foundation of divine forgiveness. While it is a foundational truth of our faith that God’s mercy is sufficient for the atonement of all our sins, this divine prerogative does not fall within the purview of human authority. This distinction is critical when confronting grave offenses, particularly the egregious violation of a young boy by one entrusted with the sacred office of the priesthood.
Such an act is a profound betrayal of the pastoral covenant and a spiritual violence that renders a priest unfit to serve in any pastoral capacity. The dignity of the sacred office demands that such a person be removed completely from it, either to a life of perpetual penance in a monastery or through definitive removal from the priesthood. This is not a matter of human judgment superseding God’s mercy, but rather of upholding the integrity of the priesthood and ensuring the safety of the flock.
The actions of Archbishop Kirimel represent a grievous failure of pastoral duty. By choosing to overlook the deep spiritual and emotional harm inflicted upon the victim(s) and the wider community who bore witness to this sin, he has wounded the Church’s witness and fractured the trust of the faithful. Such a dereliction of office undermines confidence in the Church’s pastoral care, which is intended to be a source of healing and not further injury.
Generally, aside from lack of conviction, there seems an underlying affinity with the abuser cleric. We’ve developed into an institution in which effeminacy and same sex attraction is a commonly accepted behavior trait. Not until that’s effectively addressed does it appear it will end. How to address it in our already effeminized culture is the difficulty. Perhaps another St Peter Damian elevated to supreme pontiff.
Agree wholeheartedly, Father Morello. The cancer within the Church must be excised. We all know what that cancer is; only some have the conviction of faith to say it aloud – homosexuality.
I did not want to comment that article because what to comment? Isn’t it all clear? One does not need to be a Catholic to know how to deal with this situation. And it is so shocking to see that a Catholic (archbishop) does not know that. This is a dead end.
But I will say this: you are right, a normal man (no matter of what faith or without a faith), when he deals with such a situation, intuitively knows that he must protect the weak and abused. He even does not know that, it is an instinct which makes a man a man. All those crimes are done by men who have no true maleness. They are pathetic. It is a very small comfort for victims to know that but nevertheless it may help some: those men are pathetic weaklings.
How much longer do the laity have to suffer the abuse by priests and bishops before the laity rises up and takes each offender out into the public square and tars and feathers them? How much longer? I know that I, for one, have reached my threshold of tolerance.
Bishops who are morally corrupt cannot even understand the optics of absolute corruption. This clown should be removed from the episcopacy and forced into penance and silence.
One of the previous letter writers said homosexuality is the problem. No, homosexual acts are the problem. Homosexuality is a cross for the bearer, and if embraced as a cross can lead to sainthood. This doesn’t, however, imply that homosexuals can or should be priests. Homosexuals should not be ordained.
Thomas Heenan: Agreed. When I say that homosexuality is the problem I mean acts that are homosexual in nature and/or a disposition to make homosexuality a normative variant of sexuality which it is not. Those who do carry this burden and for whom it might be the source of grace in the struggle against homosexual acts, I would say are “same sex attracted.”