Euthanasia (terminating a life before its natural end) is following the dark footsteps of abortion (ending human life at its beginning) worldwide, especially in Western and rich countries.

To address ethically, theologically and spiritually the growing reality of euthanasia and assisted suicide in our word, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has issued a dense and long Letter entitled Samaritanus Bonus, SB, or the Good Samaritan (The Vatican, July 14, 2020). Its subtitle concretizes its content: On the care of persons in the critical and terminal phases of life. The text approved by Pope Francis covers in the Vatican edition (www.vatican.va) 32 pages, including 8 pages for its 99 endnotes. The model to follow in caring the terminally ill is the caring and compassionate attitude and behavior of the Good Samaritan of the well-known parable of Jesus (cf. Lk 10:30-37). Let us not forget that the Church is Teacher and also Mother.

The general purpose of the CDF Letter is an attempt “to enlighten pastors and the 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”.  The concrete objective: to “reaffirm the message of the Gospel and its expression in the basic doctrinal statements of the Magisterium” and to “provide precise and concrete pastoral guidelines” on the matter ((SB, Introduction).

At the center of caring is suffering – the cross -, which includes physical, psychological, moral and spiritual suffering. When it comes, suffering Christians look at the suffering Christ, and ask for help to accept it with patience, fortitude, and hope. Other Christians help the suffering so that they will not feel abandoned, but strengthened in their hope, and feel loved.

The first four sections (I-IV) of Samaritanus Bonus preset the framework and the main columns of ethics, theology, and spirituality of care: the care due to our sick neighbour; the human experience of suffering and of the suffering of the Crucified and Risen Christ; the proclamation of hope; the sacredness and inviolability of life. The CDF Letter faces current obstacles that obscure the sacredness and value of every human life and the fundamental and universal right to life, in particular, the unethical defence of absolute autonomy, and the false concepts of “a certain quality of life” and a “right to die”, which are presented by utilitarian ethics as compassion when in reality is “false compassion.”  

TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

In its fifth and last part (V) – the most important and the longest -, Samaritanus Bonus presents, explains and expands harmoniously the traditional teaching of the Church, and goes beyond a mere repetition of magisterial texts by explicitly excluding any possible ambiguity in the Magisterium (SB, V, 1). The CDF Letter focuses on euthanasia and assisted suicide, on aggressive medical treatment and on palliative care.

Euthanasia is defined as “an action or an omission which of itself causes death, in order that all pain may in this way be eliminated.” SB states that there is a continuing need to “reaffirm as definitive teaching that euthanasia is a crime against human life,” “intrinsically evil in every situation and circumstance.” Euthanasia is “a malice proper to suicide and murder” (SB, V, 1).It is against the primary principles of natural law and against the divine law.

            Assisted suicide (or helping directly those patients who want to commit suicide) is gravely immoral when it is formal cooperation (by those who favor euthanasia and directly assist in suicide) or immediate material cooperation (by those who say they are against euthanasia, and contradicting their words, assist by providing the help needed by the patient to be able to commit suicide). Leaders, legislators, politicians, physicians and nurses, donors, and others who recommend, approve or help implement legally unjust laws favouring euthanasia and assisted suicide are also responsible – accomplices - of unjustified cooperation in evil, of an objectively unethical collaboration: “against the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity,” and a scandal deforming consciences (cf. SB, V, 1).

This strong teaching appears perhaps too negative, but in reality, it is not, because we are trying to defend something essentially positive as it is the right to life: Every human person has the primary right to life, and there is no right to die: “There is no right to suicide nor to euthanasia; laws exist not to cause death, but to protect life and to facilitate co-existence among human beings. It is, therefore, never morally lawful to collaborate with such immoral actions or to imply collusion in word, action, or omission” (SB V, 9). In this context, Catholic institutions – and also individual doctors or nurses – ought not to collaborate (immoral cooperation) by referring patients who ask for euthanasia or assistance in suicide to other hospitals (cf. SB, V, 9). 

 A true conscience opposes unjust laws and obliges to disobey immoral laws. If one is asked to collaborate in the practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide, and if he and she want to act ethically, they ought to make recourse to their right to conscientious objection. Conscientious objection, as an expression of freedom of conscience and/or of religion, is a universal human right. “Governments must acknowledge the right to conscientious objection in the medical and healthcare fields.” Healthcare workers, therefore, “should not hesitate to ask for this right as a specific contribution to the common good” (SB, V, 9).

PALLIATIVE CARE

Bio-medically, human life may be artificially delayed when there is no true benefit to the dying. However, this is not a due prolongation of life but of dying. Why use useless means of treatment, aggressive medical treatment - to preserve life at all costs - when so many other patients need the scarce resources available?  Aggressive treatment is generally considered optional, although it appears more humane and Christian – and fairer - not to use extraordinary means that are not beneficial to the patient. To use or not to use extraordinary means of treatment, however, is a decision of the critically ill patient and/or family (through informed or substitute consent) expressed in an advance directive or will. It is important to note that from the moment a patient enters a hospital s/he and the doctor enter into the so-called “therapeutic covenant.”

Caring for patients is the goal of medicine. Integral medical care includes curing when possible and palliative care for terminal patients. While euthanasia and assisted suicide to shorten life unethically and aggressive or extraordinary means of treatment prolong dying uselessly, palliative care accompanies patients (and their families) holistically, and let them die in their proper time, neither earlier (in euthanasia and assisted suicide) nor later (in aggressive useless treatment). There is a right to life and a right to a death with true dignity, in serenity and peace (cf. SB, V, 10).

Palliative care is an exemplary expression of true compassion and empathetic solidarity. It addresses three main issues: pain, loneliness and abandonment, and the spiritual needs of the terminally ill patients. Healthcare providers deal mainly with pain and try to remove it or at least diminish it; family and significant others provide loving accompaniment - a warm heart - against the patient’s possible feelings of loneliness and abandonment; and pastoral agents provide spiritual care. The pastoral agents in particular offer empathy, sympathy and consolation, prayer and the Sacraments (cf. SB, V, 10). Samaritanus Bonus reminds us of a point critically important in our time of the terrible novel coronavirus Covid-19: “Every person has the natural right to be cared for, which at this time is the highest expression of the religion that one professes” (SB, V, 10).

 Palliative treatment must be “disseminated throughout the world” (SB, V, 12).  Today, and in general, palliative care is not given the essential importance it has, some preferring the easy and criminal short-cut of legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide. Palliative care provides beneficial treatment to the terminally ill patient, including nutrition and hydration, which are not a medical treatment per se but human needs – ordinary and beneficial means of treatment - of all terminal patients (including children), also of patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). “Obligatory nutrition and hydration can at times be administered artificially, provided that it does not cause harm or intolerable suffering to the patient” (SB, V, 3).

Palliative medical care in particular attempts at making suffering and pain bearable, even meaningful. It may include prescribing analgesics and drugs, and even what is called “deep palliative sedation” that may induce loss of consciousness and shorten the life of the patient (cf. SB, V, 7). Pain killers are given to the terminal patient who needs them with the intention to remove the pain or diminish it, but never with the intention of causing death, for in this case, we are talking of a “euthanistic practice,” which is unacceptable (cf. SB V, 7).

WALKING THE TALK

The Magisterium of the Church, faithful to the teaching of the Word of God and Christian Tradition and attempting at making it relevant, is clear and constantly repeated and expanded. The problem on the matter is whether this traditional teaching is filtered down to the faithful and particularly to those institutions and persons differently involved with the end-of-life issues and problems: Catholic medical and nursing schools, Catholic hospitals and clinics, Ecclesiastical faculties and Catholic schools, and Catholic families.

We all know that the basic and essential principle on life is this: Human life must be defended from the moment of conception to natural death. How come that many Catholic leaders, politicians and legislators, donors, and Catholic families are in favor of euthanasia and assisted suicide? Something is failing in our faith. The teaching on life ought to become a commitment of faith in favour of a culture of life and against a culture of death. On the matters of life and death, no believer in Jesus, who is the Good Samaritan and the Crucified and Risen Lord, can just be a spectator on the side of the road of life: “Every Christian must feel as called personally to bear witness to love in suffering” (SB, Conclusion). Our personal and communitarian witnessing builds the way of life, peace and love – the way of hope. In a partly hopeless world, we believers in hope are asked to give a reason for our hope - of our hope in eternal life (cf. 1 Pet 3:15): “The greatest misery consists in the loss of hope in the face of death” (SB, V, Conclusion).  

We continue praying for the grace of God to increase our hopeful faith and for the courage to witness our faith in love for all, particularly for those of our brother and sisters who are critically and terminally ill. We remember the words of Jesus: “I was sick and you visited me.”  When, Lord? “Every time you did it for the least ones, for a suffering brother or sister, you did it for me” (cf. Mt 25:31-46). We petition Jesus to help us be good Samaritans to all.

May this note on the letter Samaritanus Bonus be a fraternal invitation to you to read the whole text and pray over it! You will not regret it.

Fr. Fausto Gómez, OP.

For Christians, the month of October of every year is the Extraordinary Missionary Month, centred on the celebration of Mission Sunday: the third Sunday. Through October 2020, we are invited in a special way to spiritual and material sharing, to praying and to serving.   

I wish to share with you, dear readers, some thoughts on mission and missionaries today. I focus on the rich teaching of the church from Vatican II on.

MISSION TODAY

After He prepared well the apostles for the mission, and after his resurrection and before his ascension into heaven, the Risen Lord Jesus Christ gave to the apostles - and to all his followers thereafter - the great commission, their mission: “As the Father sent me I also send you” (Jn 20:21); “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:16); “Preach the Gospel to the whole creation” (Mk 16:15). God wants the salvation of all, and Jesus died for all.    

The Christian life is a life in mission. The Church is missionary by her very nature (Vatican II, Ad Gentes, AG 2): “Evangelizing is, in fact, the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity” (John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, RM 14).  Her mission is evangelization which comprises preaching the word, communicating divine life through the sacraments, praying, and witnessing charity. It is the proclamation of the Gospel, integral salvation, that is, “the liberation from everything that oppresses man, but which is above all liberation from sin and the Evil One” (Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, EN 9). In this context, Pope Francis underlines “the evangelizing power of popular piety” (Evangelii Gaudium, EG 122-126). Moreover, integral ecology is part of the evangelizing mission of the Church (cf. Pope Francis, Laudato Si’).

The centre of evangelization is Jesus Christ “who was crucified, died and is risen” – and lives (RM 44). He is the Good News, “the heart” of catechesis and evangelization (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 426-429).

MISSION AND MISSIONARIES AD GENTES

Before Vatican II, mission was mainly understood as the evangelization of non-Christians and unbelievers. Missionaries were sent to announce Christ where he was not known, or sufficiently known, and where the Church was not fully implanted. It was, above all, missio ad gentes (AG 6).

After Vatican II, missio ad gentes is also – more explicitly - missio inter gentes, which underlines not only proclamation, but also multifaceted dialogue, commitment to justice and peace, and solidarity with the poor (cf. RM33; EG 15). The mission ad gentes focuses on the proclamation of Christ and his Gospel, the building up of the local church, and the promotion of the values of the Kingdom (cf. AG 23, 27; RM 34).

It is important to note that mission ad gentes continues to be a necessary form of evangelization. Pope John Paul II writes: “To say that the whole Church is missionary, does not preclude the existence of a specific mission ad gentes, just as saying that all Catholics must be missionaries not only does not exclude, but actually requires that there be persons who have a specific vocation to be ‘life-long missionaries ad gentes’” (RM 32; cf. Ibid 31-40). Hence, “the special vocation of missionaries ‘for life’ retains all its validity. It is the model of the Church’s missionary commitment” (RM 66).

Pope Francis urges mission ad gentes: “Today, too, the Church needs men and women, who by virtue of their baptism respond generously to the call to leave behind home, family, country, language and local Church, and to be sent forth to the nations, to a world not yet transformed by the sacraments of Jesus Christ and his holy Church” (Message, 2019 World Mission Day). 

 

In Asian context, Pope John Paul II stresses the promotion of religious and cultural values dear to the peoples of Asia, such as, “respect for life, compassion for all beings, closeness to nature, filial piety towards parents, elderly and ancestors, and a highly developed sense of community” (Ecclesia in Asia 6).

Like all missionaries, missionaries ad gentes offer Christ and the freedom He provides, to all peoples. They are missionaries on the frontiers, on the peripheries committed to respect the peoples’ “fidelity to their native land, and national culture” (RM 43; cf. GS 53; RM 52-54). Certainly, Christian faith has different cultural forms of expressing itself and thus is enriched (cf. John Paul II, Novo Millenio Ineunte 40; Ecclesia in Asia 21). 

MISSIONARIES’ LIFE AND SPIRITUALITY

All the baptized in the Blessed Trinity, the community of disciples - priests, religious and lay faithful - are missionaries, agents of evangelization: “I am a mission, always; you are a mission, always; every baptized man and woman is a mission… This mission is part of our identity as Christians” (Pope Francis, Message, 2019 World Mission Day; cf. EG 120). All disciples, who are all missionaries, form the Mystical Body of Christ and serve the local church. United, and led by their authorities, they collaborate with each other according to their specific vocation.

Christian life is “a singular missionary journey of discipleship,” a process of “gradual configuration in Christ” (RFIS 87) so that each one becomes “another Christ” today. “We have to form Christ in us, and thus be his missionaries and preachers” (St. Gregory of Nyssa). Christian discipleship is an ongoing call to mission and to holiness (RM 90).

Christian spirituality is a spirituality of mission, that is, a spirituality “to live the mystery of Christ as sent” (RM 88). As Christ was sent by the Father in the Spirit to preach the Good News, all his disciples are sent by Christ to the world: missionaries ad intra (pastoral ministers and re-evangelizers) and missionaries ad extra (ad gentes). Both are deeply connected and mutually interdependent (cf. RM 34; EG 15).

Missionaries ad gentes are called and sent “to those who are far from Christ.” This especial vocation implies a commitment to an evangelization that “involves the missionary’s whole person and life, and demands a self-giving, without limits of energy or time” (RM 65). The missionary is never – ought not be -  an intruder, but universal brother or sister, man/woman of charity, person of the Beatitudes, holy, contemplative in action (cf. RM 89-91; Ecclesia in Asia, 23). He or she has been given a unique vocation and a consequent commitment. Certainly, “missionaries must always meditate on the response demanded by the gift they have received, and continually keep their doctrinal and apostolic formation up to date” (RM, 65). All, and the missionaries ad gentes in particular, need a deeper conversion for the mission, so that they will “never be robbed of missionary enthusiasm” (cf. EG 90).

PRIMARY MISSION: WITNESSING

Oral preaching and vital witnessing ought not to be separated (cf. Ecclesia in Asia 23). Christ, however, did not save us through his oral preaching but by his passion, death and resurrection; by his saving deeds of unconditional love. Jesus is the witness of God par excellence, and the model for all Christians to follow (cf. RM 42).  He keeps asking us today: “You shall be my witnesses …to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8; cf. Ibid 22:21; Mt 28:18-19).   Undoubtedly, “To evangelize is first of all to bear witness” (EN 26): “the witness of the Christian life is the first and irreplaceable form of mission” (RM 42), “living the Gospel above all is the principal contribution we can make” (Pope Francis, May 18, 2013). Indeed: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers it is because they are witnesses” (EN 41). The witnessing missionary possesses a passion for evangelization, which means a passion for Jesus and passion for his people (cf. EG 268).

In some places, Christians cannot proclaim the Gospel by words. Their preaching is by “silent witnessing,” the loud and attractive voice of the silence of charity, service and prayer (cf. RM 32-34; Ecclesia in Asia 23). Illuminating words of Pope Benedict XVI: “A Christian knows when it is time to speak and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak” (Deus Caritas Est 31). Moreover, the disciples of Christ, that is, the missionaries are to accept courageously suffering and persecution (RM 91). In his Message for World Mission Day (2020), Pope Francis says that love is always ‘on mission’ - a living love that bears the cross of life patiently and joyfully.

The missionaries, collaborators of God and servants of Christ, are asked to be especially today witnesses and ministers of hope. Words to ponder: The future of humanity is in the hands of those who are strong enough to provide coming generations with reasons for living and hoping (Vatican II, GS 31; cf. EN 28).  

In closing, we underline what we all know well: the continuing need and help of prayer. Prayer is the lung, “the deep breath” of life and evangelization.  We are not afraid! Jesus is with us. We have his word: “Remember I am with you always, to the end of time” (Mt 28:20)

May our Mother Mary, the first missionary and the most committed to the mission of her Son, our Lord and Savior, accompany us!

By Fr. Fausto Gómez, OP.

An ecology, which is anthropological ecology and theological anthropology, connects deeply with spirituality and mysticism.  Without opposing a spirituality of creation to spirituality of redemption, we must underline the need of an integrated spirituality of creation that stems from God's creation of everything, and the goodness of all that comes from the hands of God. This goodness was weakened by sin but not destroyed. It is a goodness that Christ the Redeemer restored. Indeed, humanity and also the whole creation are on a painful and hopeful journey to total liberation at the end of time (cf. Rom 8: 18- 23). 

POINTS TO REMEMBER

Some points on the relationship between ecology and spirituality (cf S. Spinsanti, Ecología 1983):

1. From the biblical story, and not to falsify its message, we have to integrate the two complementary points, that is, "subdue the earth" (Gen 1:28), and "cultivate it and care for it" (Gen 2:15).

 2. Historically, that double dimension is translated, on one hand, in ''franciscanism'' (Franciscan conservation) and, on the other, in "benedictinism" (Benedictine organization). Thanks to the work of St. Benedict of Nursia and the Benedictines (including also other religious men and women and many others), ''the earth became more habitable for man." In the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (no. 464), we read: “Benedictine and Franciscan spirituality, in particular, has witnessed to this sort of kinship of man with his creaturely environment fostering in him an attitude of respect.”  In his lovely Canticle of Creatures, Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecologists, prays: May you be praised, O Lord, in all your creatures, especially brother sun, by whom you give us light for the day; he is beautiful, radiating great splendour, and offering us a symbol of you, the Highest... May you be praised, my Lord, for sister earth, our Mother, who bears and feeds us, and produces the variety of fruits and dappled flowers and grasses...Praise and bless the Lord, give thanks and praise him in all humility  (cf. CCC 344). For Francis, all beings, all animals were his brothers and sisters: brother wolf, sister water. It is said that the Poverello of Assisi asked the gardener to leave a bit of land without cultivating it at all so that the grass and wildflowers could also give glory to God.

3. An integral Christian spirituality implies a relationship with God, with oneself, with others and with nature. But let us never forget that Christian spirituality is the following of Christ. Let us not forget either that all Christians ought to be ecologically concerned and responsible.

4. Economic development has its limits, and also consumerism. Moreover, the earth belongs to all, as stewards - not only to the rich and powerful, not only to our generation.

5. The importance of asceticism and the need to revive it today. Asceticism is a necessary element of life, of an ecological spirituality, of all spirituality. Mysticism has also conversed respectfully with nature. We may say that, in general, and realizing their different historical and cultural environments, the mystics have found in the earth the place and the grace to contemplate God.

Contemplating the night, with her sister Celine, St. Therese of Lisieux writes in her enchanting Story of a Soul: "With enraptured gaze we beheld the white moon rising quietly behind the tall trees, the silvery rays it was casting upon sleeping nature, the bright stars twinkling in the deep skies, the light breath of the evening breeze making the snowy clouds float easily along; all this raised our souls to heaven, that beautiful heaven whose 'clean reverse' alone we were able to contemplate" (Manuscript A, Chap. V). On her way back to France from Rome, where she had asked Pope Leo XIII to allow her to enter Carmel, young Therese, remembering the marvellous beauty of God's creation writes "... My heart longed for other marvels. It had contemplated earthly beauties long enough; those of heaven were the object of its desires, and to win them for souls I was willing to become a prisoner" (ibid. Chap. VI).

St. John of the Cross is, perhaps, one of the best examples of a mystical ecology. Walking through the night, the mystic of The Dark Night recommends detachment, the negation of creatures: God is ''todo,'' everything; the creature, every creature, is ''nada,'' nothing! Indeed, if one compares God with the creatures, these are nothing. However, once the union with God is reached on the mountain, then the soul reencounters the creatures and contemplates joyfully their beauty. The poetry of John of the Cross is the poetry of “going back” (“poesía de Vuelta,” as poet Gabriel Celaya says), going back from the union with God to his creatures, and now without any fear to be distracted by creatures, which are now contemplated as “vestidas de la hermosura del Amado” - dressed up by the beauty of the Beloved. 

Who is not moved by the breathtaking beauty of verses from his Spiritual Canticle? In the first part of the Canticle, the soul speaks of her Beloved, Jesus Christ: Pouring out a thousand graces / He passed these groves in haste and having looked at them / with his image alone / clothed them in beauty 

(Mil gracias derramando / pasó por estos sotos con premura / y yéndolos mirando / con sola su figura / vestidos los dejó de su hermosura).   

In the second part of the Spiritual Canticle, the soul encounters the Beloved and tenderly sings: My Beloved is the mountains / and lonely wooded valleys / strange islands / and resounding rivers / the whistling of love-stirring breezes… / the silent music / the sounding solitude / the supper that recreates and enamours 

(Mi Amado las montañas / los valles solitarios nemorosos / las ínsulas extrañas / los ríos sonorosos / el silbo de los aires amorosos…/ la música callada / la soledad sonora / la cena que recrea y enamora) 

ACTION, PLEASE!

As creatures and children of God, we are invited by the Creator of the world and the Lord of life to be his collaborators (co-creators) in caring, cultivating, maintaining and improving God's creation. (Cf. II Cor 6: 1; I Cor 3:9; I Thess 3:2; CCC, no. 307). 

Looking at our surrounding environment, what can we do? We may plant a tree, care for our garden, and treat well our domestic animals. We may become involved in the concrete programs of our community, our parish, our city or town: programs ordered to maintain and renew our environment. We all need, perhaps, to enter into a deeper dialogue with nature. From time to time, it is good and healthy to get out of the city to breathe clean air, to watch the sunset from the bay or the mountain, to enjoy the music of silence of the countryside mixed with the songs of birds, to meditate with the rhythm of the wind or the rain, to relax walking through the woods without a cell phone... In these situations, we can also experience God.  

Words to ponder: “The relation between humans and nature is reciprocal. What we buy, how we travel, what we eat and drink, how much energy and water we consume, what kind of energy we utilize  and in what companies we invest our money, all this determines our ecological behaviour” (Acts General Chapter of the Order of Preacher, Bien Hoa 2019, no, 174)

We need less talk and more action to stop environmental degradation. Our Church, all of us the Body of Christ, must contribute to the ecological education of our people, raising their ecological consciousness, and motivating them to be committed to the building of a harmonious environment, of our common home. 

The apocryphal gospel of St. Thomas puts these words in the lips of Christ: "I am the light which is above all things. I am the universe. The universe came out from me and returned to me. Cut a piece of wood and I am inside it; lift a stone and I am under it" (logion 77). In this context, we remember the monks of famous Mount Athos: they used to place their ears close to the pavement of the Church to listen to the palpitations of Christ, and to affirm his cosmic lordship. (Cf. Bartomeu Bannassar, Moral evangélica, moral social, 1990). 

Albert Schweitzer, a reverent lover of nature and ecological harmony, wrote that, since he was a child he used to add this prayer to the ones taught by his mother (all petitions for human beings): ''Dear God, protect and bless all living things; keep them from evil and let them sleep in peace." (Out of my Life and Thoughts, 1950)

"And man, but a speck of your creation, wants to praise you" (St. Augustine, Confessions). "Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord! Alleluia" (Ps 150:6). ''Father, you are holy indeed, and all creation rightly gives you praise. All life, all holiness comes from you, through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, by the working of the Holy Spirit" (Eucharistic Prayer, III). And Jesus said to the apostles: '''Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to the whole creation" (Mk 16:15). 

By Fr. Fausto Gómez, OP.

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