Church Teaching for Morality

2.  Definition of Euthanasia
 Involves the decision by doctors, family
members, or public officials to end the life of a
person who has been given little to no chance of
recovery and is thought to have a poor quality of
life
 Vs. definition of assisted suicide
 The person who is suffering requests help from
doctors, nurses, family members, or friends in
ending his/her own life.

3.  Extraordinary vs. ordinary means
 Extraordinary – can be refused when there is no
hope for recovery, when they prolong the
imminent dying process, or when they impose an
odious burden on the patient or family. This is
allowing a patient to die, vs. euthanasia (taking
life).
 Ex: the use of a respirator with a brain dead patient
 We must be careful in deeming means extraordinary –
ex: patients in a persistent vegetative state may still
have brain activity (Terri Schiavo)
 Ordinary – ex: nourishment, hydration,
medication to sustain life – means that can never
morally be withdrawn. To do so is euthanasia.

4.  Suffering is evidence that there is evil in the
world – things are not as they should be.
 However, the Church teaches that we cannot
take any means necessary in order to avoid
suffering particularly when this means doing
violence to or taking our own life or the lives
of others.
 Suffering takes on a power and purpose when
united to Christ’s suffering – it becomes
redemptive.

5.  Summarize Philip’s response to Brittany.
 Explain the meaning that he finds in
suffering.

6.  a) In regard to the Death Penalty
 It is impossible to think that today States do not have at
their disposal means other than capital punishment to
defend the life of other persons from unjust aggression.
 Saint John Paul II condemned the death penalty (cf.
Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, 56), as does also the
Catechism of the Catholic Church (N. 2267).
 However, it can be verified that States take life not only
with the death penalty and with wars, but also when
public officials take refuge in the shadow of State powers
to justify their crimes. The so-called extra-judicial or
extra-legal executions are deliberate homicides committed
by some States and their agents, often making it appear as
clashes with delinquents or presented as the undesired
consequence of a reasonable, necessary and proportional
use of force to have the law applied. In this way, even if
among the 60 countries that keep the death penalty, 35
have not applied it in the last [ten] years, the death
penalty is applied, illegally and in different degrees,
across the whole planet.

7.  The same extra-judicial executions are perpetrated in a
systematic way not only by States of the International
Community, but also by entities not recognized as such,
and they represent genuine crimes.
 The arguments opposed to the death penalty are many and
well known. The Church stressed some of them
opportunely, such as the possibility of the existence of
judicial error and the use that totalitarian and dictatorial
regimes make of it, which use it as an instrument of
suppression of political dissidence or of persecution of
religious and cultural minorities, all victims that, for their
respective legislations, are “delinquents.”
 Therefore, all Christians and men of good will are called
today to fight not only for the abolition of the death
penalty, whether legal or illegal, and in all its forms, but
also in order to improve the prison conditions, in respect
of the human dignity of the persons deprived of freedom.
And I link this with a life sentence. In the Vatican, since a
short time ago, there is no longer a life sentence in the
Penal Code. A life sentence is a hidden death sentence.

8.  There are 2 types of stem cells:
 ADULT (SOMATIC) STEM CELLS
 EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS
 These cells aren’t specialized; rather they
can become any type of cell.

9.  Adult stem cells can be found in the human
body, for example in bone marrow, the liver,
and the brain.
 These cells are used to treat patients
suffering from diseases like Parkinson’s and
leukemia.
 There has already been great success with
adult stem cells. Part of the reason for this is
that since they are taken from the patient’s
own body, the body usually does not reject
them.

10.  This is not as true of embryonic stem cells.
Since they are taken from an embryo, they
are not from the person’s own body, and the
body frequently rejects them. The cells also
often grow uncontrollably and can become
tumors.
 However, scientists believe that these cells
have untapped potential. Since they are
more elastic, they may be able to be used to
treat more diseases and experimentation
with them continues.

11.  The moral issue comes with embryonic stem
cells. Since taking stem cells from an embryo
destroys the embryo, thereby taking a life,
the Church opposes embryonic stem cell
research.
 However, the same is not true of adult stem
cells. Since taking these cells requires no
destruction of life, the Church supports adult
stem cell research.