Time: Was John Paul II Euthanized?

Time Magazine is quoting a doctor who never saw the Pope in person but based her diagnosis over the television in saying that the Pope was likely euthanized. Are you getting this? A doctor is saying the Pope was killed based on a diagnosis off television. And Time Magazine is reporting this as a real news story.

Remember when Senator Bill Frist diagnosed Terri Schiavo after watching video of the poor woman. Remember how he was ridiculed by the mainstream media including Time Magazine? But I guess it’s OK when you’re against the Pope.

In a provocative article, an Italian medical professor argues that Pope John Paul II didn’t just simply slip away as his weakness and illness overtook him in April 2005. Intensive care specialist Dr. Lina Pavanelli has concluded that the ailing Pope’s April 2 death was caused by what the Catholic Church itself would consider euthanasia. She bases this conclusion on her medical expertise and her own observations of the ailing pontiff on television, as well as press reports and a subsequent book by John Paul’s personal physician. The failure to insert a feeding tube into the patient until just a few days before he died accelerated John Paul’s death, Pavanelli concludes. Moreover, Pavanelli says she believes that the Pope’s doctors dutifully explained the situation to him, and thus she surmises that it was the pontiff himself who likely refused the feeding tube after he’d been twice rushed to the hospital in February and March. Catholics are enjoined to pursue all means to prolong life. Indeed her accusations are grave, questioning the Catholic Church’s strictly traditional stances on medical ethics, including the dictum from John Paul’s own 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae to use all modern means possible to avoid death.

WHAT!? Time is either guilty of a complete misunderstanding or an outright lie. Nowhere does the Church say that Catholics must use all modern means possible to avoid death. Evangelum Vitae forbids euthanisia.

The Vatican has quickly fired back. John Paul’s longtime doctor Renato Buzzonetti said that doctors and John Paul himself all acted to stave off death. “His treatment was never interrupted,” Buzzonetti told the Rome daily La Repubblica. “Anyone who says otherwise is mistaken.” He added that a permanent nasal feeding tube was inserted three days before the Pope’s death when he could no longer sufficiently ingest food or liquids.

So here you have a doctor who made a diagnosis from the television vs. doctors who were there. And just as you would think Time Magazine calls it a draw.

The medical aspects of the Pope’s final days are clearly difficult to verify from afar, and the Vatican is convinced that the actions of the both its doctors and its Pope were in absolute good faith. Of course, medical opinions can often vary. So too can those on bioethics.

Gotta’ love that closing line. Leaves everything in a moral gray area. What is not gray, however, is that Time is guilty of an outrageous piece of filth that not only pushes a bias but lies outright about the Church and its teachings. Shame on Time Magazine.