Fr. Richard McBrien poses an interesting and legitimate question in his latest column. He writes about the lack of canonical provision for a Pope that has become incapacitated. Leaving aside the obvious wishful thinking aspect of McBrien’s concern, the topic is legitimate. Illegitimate however Fr. McBrien’s view on the value of a life.
Posing the question, Fr. McBrien writes:
“In this new age of advanced medical technology, it is a fact that people can be kept alive long past the time when they can function in any meaningfully human manner.”
Meaningful administrative manner, okay. Meaningful exercise of the Office of the Papacy, sure. Meaningfully human? No way. These are words that should never come out of the mouth of anyone charged with the promotion of the Culture of Life that is the Catholic faith.
Even Fr. McBrien, although long bereft of the ability to think in any meaningful manner, should know that every human life is meaningful. That meaning is intrinsic, given by God. This means that unborn babies have it. This means that the elderly and infirm have it. This means that asinine liberal theology professors have it. And yes, even Popes that Fr. McBrien wish would just die already have it.
Speaking of necessary canonical provisions, I am sure there are some on the books for dealing with Priests that regularly teach and promote concepts contrary to the faith. They seem to be more critical right now.
November 11, 2009 at 3:56 am
God old Fr. McBrien…now what 73? and still hasn't made peace with his God or his Church. Even in this "new age of advanced medical technology", Fr. McBrien can only expect just so much remaining patience from his Heavenly Father–no matter how advance the technology. And considering that McBrien likes to fiddle along the edges of apostasy, he might be better off kneeling in contritional prayer at his prie dieu than hunting and pecking away at nonsense on his keyboard.
November 11, 2009 at 4:37 am
This is about the 3rd time this week that I have had a major conversation with someone about issues of Faith, only to come home and find a blog post about it.
I was just reading through my blog/rss reader and was planning on writing a post about "function, value, quality, and other words that should not enter our health care vernacular… CMR is of course right on target… which is great… although I may be out a blog post topic.
November 11, 2009 at 10:46 pm
While all life is meaningful even if the person were simply suffering together with the Lord, I wonder if the question that he is considering is when is it an obligation to use extraordinary measures to preserve life? If the Pope became comatose and is reduced to a vegetative existence, should he remain the Pope.
November 12, 2009 at 12:36 am
How odd that despite Fr. McBrien's views, I see no loopholes in the catechism.
😉
November 12, 2009 at 8:51 am
Father McBrien – what a disgrace to the catholic faith.
November 13, 2009 at 4:56 pm
It might be a mistake of several sorts to focus too much on the phrase 'meaningfully human manner' when the rest of the column clearly focuses on the issue of Church governance in the case of a Pope who still lives but cannot discharge the duties of his office. Whatever you may think of Fr. McBrien and his views, he makes a very valid point. No mechanism exists for the succession of the Pope before his death, and modern medicine is such that the interval between incapacitation and death can be a long one. The Church does itself a disservice by not creating, in advance, a means to deal with such a circumstance.