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Reflections on the Issue of Assisted SuicideRev. Ronald M. Ketteler, S.T.L. Associate Professor and Chair Department of Theology, Thomas More College First Draft September 2002 Reflections on the Issue of Assisted Suicide A Theological Critique of the Culture of Death at the End of Life
Essay 1 - On Legalizing Assisted Suicide Messenger … April 22, 1994 [Revised August 14, 2002] Initiative 119 was narrowly defeated by voters in Washington state in 1991. If the proposal had passed, the first assisted suicide law would have been enacted in the United States. A year later, Californians rejected a similar referendum, Proposition 161, by an identically slim margin ---54 percent to 46 percent. (Note: In spite of previous defeats, the first such law would eventually be passed in Oregon in 1994.) Albert R. Jonson, a medical ethicist, had judged that Initiative 119 would be placing Washington state "on the edge of a moral cataclysm." His ominous prognosis at that time was apparently filtered out of consciousness at the grass roots level where sympathy for assisted suicide had grown helter-skelter within a few short years. Concerns about the dilemmas created by hi-tech medicine may have propelled support for an answer which is a radical break from the ethics of the Judaeo-Christian tradition as well as the Hippocratic heritage of medicine. From an explicit theological perspective the sanctity of the gift of life is ultimately rooted in its transcendent relationship to God who alone is the Author of life. Religiously speaking, then, it is a question of divine sovereignty and human stewardship. But, religiously-based moral convictions also disclose the human good. Thus, the sanctity of life represents a value that is shared with Christians by many others who reverence the right to life as a fundamental principle of society. The social impact of legalizing assisted suicide would produce threatening ramifications for the very underpinnings of a just society In truth, the health care profession itself would face an undermining of its very soul. The vocation of healing ---the covenant between physician and patient ---would be redefined to permit a doctor's cooperation in causing the death of the terminally ill. The therapeutic relationship which is based on trust would be severely jeopardized since "killing" would come to be viewed as equally acceptable as "treating" or "caring." Once an unrestricted notion of patient self -determination is legitimated, it would be difficult to restrict future extensions or applications beyond the narrow category of the terminally ill. If life is viewed as a possession subject to personal choice alone, how can such "privacy" rights be confined only to extreme end-of-life cases in the long run? Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Center has penned several telling critiques of the movement to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide. In" Aid-in-Dying: The Social Dimensions" (Commonweal 1991), the well-known bioethician projected the ultimate social implications of the two key assumptions invoked to justify these practices: the argument from the right of self-determination and the appeal to mercy as justification for relief of suffering at the hands of others Callahan believes that these two premises in the long haul will render society powerless to prevent euthanasia. He spells out the impact in this manner:
In spite of legal and procedural safeguards, the inconsistent rationale of such presuppositions will trump any safeside logic to restrict euthanasia. As a tragic byproduct, this flawed thinking will launch society on the slide down the "slippery slope" to unlimited self-determination and ultimately to involuntary euthanasia. In 1992, the Ramsey Colloquium issued "The Euthanasia Temptation: "Always to Care, Never to Kill." [Crisis (February 1992): 38-40] This group of Jewish and Christian theologians, ethicists, philosophers, legal scholars, and others developed a public argument congruent with Callahan's reasoning. They conclude:
The advocates of physician-assisted suicide strongly contend that its legalization will not open the doors to abuse. Since the Netherlands has been tolerating voluntary euthanasia, the manner in which that policy has played out in practice has given rise to several studies. [Note: Euthanasia has now been legalized in the Netherlands.] Writing in the Atlantic Monthly (March 1997), Ezekiel Emanuel surveyed the Dutch experience with euthanasia to explore whether or not there might be a free-fall pattern from voluntary to involuntary "mercy killing." Would legally sanctioned voluntary euthanasia be a move placing the incompetent ---"the unconscious, the demented, the mentally ill, and children" --- at risk? (p.75) Dr. Emanuel's review of the practice in the Netherlands paints a surrealistic picture of a "slippery slope" already carved out on the national scene. He summarizes the results:
Scott B. Rae and Paul M. Cox provide a fuller treatment on this question in their Bioethics: A Christian Approach in a Pluralistic Age (1999). [See pages 248-252]. In a social context where sustained moral reflection is not an operative virtue, killing is a juggernaut unleashed on an unsuspecting society .Once again, Daniel Callahan has poignantly captured the long range implications of "private killing" when he writes:
Without a bright and clear line between "killing" and "allowing patients to die" the advance of "medicide" and its undesirable social impact, especially on the weak and vulnerable, will not be arrested. Assisted suicide is a technocrat's solution to the mystery of suffering and death. It is a "quick fix" that mistakenly attempts to solve human suffering by eliminating the one who suffers. The legal tradition of the West historically had located human freedom within limits. The legalization of abortion-on-demand has clearly eroded those restraints. Now, in end-of- life decisions, patient autonomy would also be elevated to an unrestricted dominion over human life. Again, independence from one another would trump over the innate interdependence correlative to the social nature of men and women. In the last analysis, the debate over assisted suicide places a radical philosophical and moral conflict in bold relief ---the question of what it means to be human. Exaggerated individualism which dominates so-called "rights talk" rests on a concept of the self defined by the pursuit of self-interest. Immunity from interference in the pursuit of self-interest overrides any competing claims of the community. The ideology of the atomistic, isolated individual is at odds with the biblical vision of a covenanted community. At the ideological level, the argument advocating assisted suicide postulates a "sovereign will" without an obligation to consider the question which is prior to choice, namely, what is the human good? "Compassion" is a sandy word when feeling or well-meaning motives serve as the only moral compasses. The moral wisdom of the Catholic tradition holds that compassion must be guided by intention, that is, the choice of means and end. Therefore, morality must take into account more than motive and undefined feelings. Nigel de S. Cameron has called the ethics of the "new compassion" of euthanasia that of "veterinary medicine." His words may sound polemical but they ring more true than the antiseptic rhetoric of "rational suicide." Reflection: John Paul II, The Gospel of Life (1995) "Suicide is always as morally objectionable as murder. The Church's tradition has always rejected it as a gravely evil choice. Even though a certain psychological, cultural and social conditioning may induce a person to carry out an action which so radically contradicts the innate inclination to life, thus lessening or removing subjective guilt, suicide, when viewed objectively, is a gravely immoral act. ...In its deepest reality, suicide represents a rejection of God's absolute sovereignty over life and death... "To concur with the intention of another person to commit suicide and to help in carrying it out through so-called "assisted suicide" means to cooperate in, and at times to be the actual perpetrator of, an injustice which can never be excused, even if it is requested. "... even when not motivated by a selfish refusal to be burdened with the life of someone who is suffering, euthanasia must be called a false mercy, and indeed a disturbing "perversion" of mercy. True "compassion" leads to sharing another's pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear. "... The height of arbitrariness and injustice is reached when certain people, such as physicians or legislators, arrogate to themselves the power to decide who ought to live and who ought to die. ...When man usurps this power, being enslaved by a foolish and selfish way of thinking, he inevitably uses it for injustice and death. Thus the life of the person who is weak is put into the hands of the one who is strong; in society the sense of justice is lost, and mutual trust, the basis of every authentic interpersonal relationship, is undermined at its root." [EV n.66]
Essay 2 --- From Cure to Care -"Hi-tech' vs. "Hi-touch” Medicine Messenger... May 20, 1994 [Revised August 14, 2002] The case of Dr. Kevorkian has dramatically brought a once unspeakable subject into the sensationalism of media attention ---assisted suicide. The legal proceedings at this juncture of the controversy have placed two conflicting visions of the human person and as well as value systems at the heart of the public policy agenda. The dignity of the human person, the meaning of freedom, the ethical character of the health care professions, and the role of law and morality are the issues at stake. The cultural context so predominately influenced by ethical relativism is defining the parameters of this public argument. Much of the debate about assisted suicide has already been rehearsed in the abortion controversy. The specter of the "right to privacy" appears once more in the political forum. Accordingly, a right to suicide sanctioned by a right to privacy represents the same ideology of Roe v. Wade but now being applied to end-of-life decisions. The incompatibility of that ideology with Catholic morality has been discussed in prior essays. However, the critique bears repeating here. A notion of absolute personal autonomy in decision making to the extent of disposing of one's own life strikes at the very heart of covenanted existence. But then growing public sympathy for assisted suicide is not simply a deduction from an abstract philosophical tenet. On the surface there are many fears which unwittingly motivate many men and women to have recourse to assisted suicide as a solution to the mystery of pain, suffering, and death. Some of those fears have been generated by the successes and the dilemmas of modern medical progress. People express fears about dying in pain. Many are troubled by the prospect of being trapped in medical technology at a point where treatment is non-beneficial or burdensome. Still others are disturbed about becoming an unnecessary burden to families or loved ones. Fear of isolation and abandonment and worry about the lack of resources are also factors impinging on dying in a modern institutional context. As a result, an argument against assisted suicide should also address the perceived "needs" and fears of patients which might pressure the terminally ill to support its legalization. First of all, to oppose assisted suicide does not mean condemning a patient to a life of unremitting pain. Pain management is an area that demands more effective approaches. Unfortunately, recent studies have attested to a general failure to manage pain effectively in spite of the availability of appropriate medical technology. Emotional and spiritual support plays an indispensable role in caring for persons who suffer. Secondly, people fear being trapped in a kind of "half-way" technology that neither improves a condition nor allows natural death to take its course. The traditional moral principles of burden and benefit in many instances have been eroded. The Catholic moral tradition has consistently upheld the legitimacy of making informed decisions about burdensome or non-beneficial treatments. Within this moral framework, an ethic emphasizing cure must be balanced with an ethic of care where appropriate. In a 1992 article in America, Sr. Catherine Moroney suggested the need for more "high-touch" medicine which entails "relief, comfort and companionship, including adjustment of treatment and medication to the sufferer's needs, not to a rigid institutional schedule." [See Catherine E. Mulroney, “Three Choices for Death,” America 167:17 (November 21, 1992): 401-403.] Thirdly, the fears concerning loneliness, isolation, or abandonment must be countered with realistic creation of support which allows caregivers and families to "company" the terminally ill. The hospice movement is an approach that can offer wise guidance for the ministry to the terminally ill. The Catholic bishops of Ohio issued a pastoral statement, "Pastoral Reflections: Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide," in October 1993. Their statement presented both cogent arguments against euthanasia along with an empathetic and sensitive analysis of the broader background of the issues. The document serves as a reminder of what must also be promoted in addition to moral opposition ---"care and compassion in the face of pain and suffering, intelligent use of ethical principles, including advance directives for health care decisions regarding medical treatment and stewardship." [Catholic Bishops of Ohio, “Pastoral Reflections: Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide,” Origins 25:21 (October 4, 1993): 373-378.] In a word, there should be promotion of better ways than the legalization of euthanasia or assisted suicide "to extend care and compassion to those facing death, ways that offer solace to those in pain and foster personal support and presence in the midst of suffering." Reflection: John Paul II, The Gospel of Life (1995) "In our service of charity, we must be inspired and distinguished by a specific attitude: we must care for the other as a person for whom God has made us responsible. As disciples of Jesus, we are called to become neighbors to everyone (cf. Lk 10: 29-37), and so show special favor to those who are poorer, most alone and most in need. In helping the hungry, the thirsty, the foreigner, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned ---as well as the child in the womb and the old person who is suffering or near death ---we have the opportunity to serve Jesus. ... “Where life is involved, the service of charity must be profoundly consistent. It cannot tolerate bias and discrimination, for life is sacred and inviolable at every stage and in every situation; it is an indivisible good .We need then to "show care" for all life and for the life of everyone. Indeed, at an even deeper level, we need to go to the very roots of life and love.”... [EV n.87]
Essay 3 --- A Distinction with a Difference Messenger ...February 21, 1997 [Revised August 14, 2002] "Doctors Must Not Kill" was the heading of an article printed in a 1988 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA April 8, 1988). It was a collaborative response by four noted physicians to a previous JAMA article narrating a case of physician-initiated "mercy-killing." The physicians, Willard Gaylin, M.D., Leon R. Kass, M.D., Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., and Mark Siegler, M.D., defended the ancient canon of medical ethics as old as the Hippocratic Oath ---"doctors must not kill." In their collective judgment, the anonymous case printed in JAMA ("It's Over Debbie," January 8, 1988) was a threat to the spiritual and ethical nature of the medical profession itself. For, the willful taking of a patient's life by a doctor places the very soul of medicine "on trial." "Doctors Must Not Kill" advocated a defense of the medical profession's moral center by calling for moral resistance to the growing pressures to tolerate euthanasia. Three years later, Dr. Leon Kass published "Why Doctors Must Not Kill" [Leon R. Kass, “Why Doctors Must Not Kill,” Commonweal 118:14 (August 9, 1991- Supplement): S8-12.]. Kass's Commonweal article focused on the California referendum to legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS). "Why Doctors Must Not Kill" was a more sustained thesis on the radical incompatibility of physician-assisted suicide with the moral obligations of medical practice as a healing profession. Dr. Kass, a highly respected physician-social philosopher, constructed a cogent humanistic argument which could ground ethical limits on "the dignity and mysterious power of human life itself." As in the earlier co-authored JAMA article, Dr. Kass defended the long-standing moral and legal difference between allowing a patient to die and intentionally killing a patient. In the first instance, medical treatment is withdrawn because of a grave burden or lack of benefit; dying is allowed to take its natural course. The second instance, however, has a different moral meaning. Aiming at death transforms the physician as healer into an agent of death. The patient will die because of the intervention of a lethal act. Dr. Kass writes: "... to bring nothingness is incompatible with serving wholeness: one cannot heal-- or comfort --by making nil. The healer cannot annihilate if he is to truly heal. The physician-euthanizer is a deadly contradiction." California's Initiative 119 was defeated at the ballot booth. But the movement to legalize physician-assisted suicide continues to have momentum. In 1996 two federal circuit courts invalidated laws prohibiting P AS in Washington and New York states. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed those decisions which had emanated from the Ninth and the Second Courts of Appeals. If those decisions had been upheld by the Supreme Court in its 1997 decision, the physician would have been legally sanctioned to provide lethal medical interventions as a "treatment option." The conflation of "letting die" with "causing death" exemplifies judicial activism at its worst. A judicial act would simply dismiss a distinction that preserved the soul of medicine for more than two millennia. In effect, the Ninth Circuit Court and the Second Circuit Court had declared that this distinction becomes one without a difference. The appellate courts had fused a patient's right to discontinue treatment with a right to be assisted in dying. In rejecting that logic, Dr. George Annas and Dr. Michael Grodin countered quite bluntly ---"refusing treatment is not the same as committing suicide." The Catholic moral tradition recognizes the distinction between ordinary (proportionate) means and extraordinary (disproportionate) means to preserve life. The concepts identify the difference between treatments that are judged morally obligatory or morally optional. From an ethical standpoint, it is one thing to assess a treatment as nonbeneficial or burdensome. It is quite another thing to assess a human life as useless or not worth living. The Catholic tradition views this moral conviction as basic and fundamental. The distinction between letting die and killing is a distinction with a difference! The contemporary controversy on P AS confirms an observation of Richard A. McCormick, S.J., in a more comprehensive context of values and death and dying issues: Who is sick? ... the patient or society? Reflection: John Paul II, The Gospel of Life (1995) "The doctrine on the necessary conformity of civil law with the moral law is in continuity with the whole tradition of the Church. ... "Now the first and most immediate application of this teaching concerns a human law which disregards the fundamental right and the source of all other rights which is the right to life, a right belonging to every individual. Consequently, laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual; they thus deny the equality of everyone before the law. ... "... Disregard for the right to life, precisely because it leads to the killing of the person whom society exists to serve, is what most directly conflicts with the possibility of achieving the common good. Consequently, a civil law authorizing abortion or euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law." ...[EV n. 72]
Essay 5 --Killing ...'The Death of Ethics' Commentary … November 8, 1998 [Revised and expanded, August 15, 2002] James T. Burtchaell has written a cameo of the thinking of the philosopher Peter Singer. He profiles the Australian ethicist as advocating animal rights but espousing an ethics with less conviction about the sanctity of human life. Singer reputedly would argue that in some cases "parents are more free to destroy their unwelcome unborn and newborn children than to kill their household pet." The news services had recently reported a controversy that began to brew over Princeton University's appointment of Singer to a professorship in bioethics. Some of his academic opinions cited constitute a crass assault on the sanctity of life of the most vulnerable members of society. According to reports, Singer has concluded that euthanasia of defective newborns is not always the equivalent of killing a human person. He contends that "(t)he line between a developed fetus and a newborn infant is not a crucial divide." That advocates for the disabled had objected to Singer's appointment should not be a shock. Perhaps such protest was a sign that William J. Bennett's recent monograph --- The Death of Outrage ---was a misnomer! Apparently not all Americans have unconditionally surrendered to the cause of "intellectual and moral disarmament.” In the summer of 2001, Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Center wrote a critique of Singer's thought, "Defending the Sanctity of Human Life," in Society. Rejecting Singer's contention, Callahan reasons that "(t)o say that newborn children have value if and only if their parents value them is to put them in the same category as a piece of disposable property."
Callahan defaults Singer for not recognizing that humanity's decision on how "it decides to value itself as a species" is crucial for the very welfare of the human race. As an example, Callahan points out that discontinuing treatment for a patient who is irreversibly unconscious does not assess that a life in that state has lost value. Rather, it is a sign that medical treatment "can no longer benefit that patient, that death has come." [Ibid. p. 19] In a second example, he explains why society should refuse killing a person who suffers. Against the advocates of euthanasia, Callahan looks upon that refusal as a conviction that "no doctor has the right to use his technical skills to end a life that another thinks has no longer any value (even if it is that person's life)." [Ibid. p.19] Scholarly hypotheses similar to Singer's lend credibility to Pope John Paul II's analysis in The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae, 1995) of the inroads of ethical relativism. (See EV n. 18; n. 20; n. 58; n. 70) Chapter III of the encyclical is entitled "You Shall Not Kill.” In this section, Pope John Paul II declares with high doctrinal authority the constant tradition of the Church on the absolute inviolability of innocent human life. Pope John Paul II declares: 'I confirm that the direct and voluntary taking of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral.” [EV n.57] After situating this moral doctrine in the natural moral law and in Scripture and Tradition, the Holy Father explains:
The biblical commandment “You shall not kill" is a moral absolute in reference to the taking of innocent human life. Pope John Paul II had already defended the concept of "intrinsically evil acts" in a prior encyclical The Splendor of Truth (Veritatis Splendor, 1993). In treating the negative precepts of the natural law, the encyclical stipulates that they are "universally valid" prohibitions and, without exception, forbid behavior which is incompatible "with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and communion with his neighbor." [VS n. 52] The encyclical later on moves to the specific treatment of the concept of intrinsic evil. [VS nn.79-82] The Gospel of Life defends the unconditional nature of the precept against the taking of innocent human life. This primary norm is then made concrete in two applications, namely, the prohibitions against abortion and euthanasia. The first moral truth at the core of the dignity of the human person categorizes abortion as a "particularly grave moral disorder.' [EV n. 61] The second application of the primary norm extends to end-of-life decisions: euthanasia is "a grave violation of the law of God." [EV n. 65] Pope John Paul II derives the grounds for these exceptionless moral norms from revelation and from reason. His mapping out of the meaning of the command "You shall not kill" is particularly insightful. That biblical command from the Old Testament is subsumed into the wider context of New Testament morality. It is treated from the perspective of Jesus' response to the paradigmatic question raised by the rich young man ---"Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" (Mt. 19:16) This gospel text was central as the foundational starting point of The Splendor of Truth. [VS nn.6-22] In The Gospel of Life the Holy Father comments that in Jesus' response ---"keep the commandments" ---the first precept quoted from the Decalogue by Jesus is ..."You shall not kill... “[EV n. 52; see also n. 41] God's commandment is "gospel,” joyful good news because in giving life to men and women God demands love, respect, and the promotion of life ---"the gift thus becomes a commandment, and the commandment is itself a gift.” (EV n.52) The inviolability of innocent human life "reverberates at the heart of the 'ten words' in the Sinai covenant" (Ex. 20:13; 23:7) and attains refinement in the New Testament's Sermon on the Mount. [EV n.40] Moreover, this prohibition is integrated with the fuller positive command to love one's neighbor. Jesus, the Gospel of life, has revealed in word and action "the positive requirements of the commandment regarding the inviolability of life." [EV n. 41] The Old Testament ethic protected the weak and the threatened ---the poor, the alien, the widow, and the orphan as well as the child in the womb. Jesus has disclosed these values in "all their breadth and depth." [EV n. 41] "You shall not kill" is a moral precept which obliges always and everywhere, without exception. Yet such negative absolutes, while stipulating the minimum, liberate human freedom to pursue the unlimited gamut of the human good." [EV n. 75] Negative precepts represent the "first stage of the journey towards freedom." [EV n.76] Conversely, ethical relativism by pronouncing everything as negotiable negates the right to life itself and brings "the death of true freedom." [EV n.20] Some Catholic moralists have defended the absoluteness of this norm on the grounds that intentional killing of innocent human beings tolls the death knell of the enterprise of ethics itself . In his Ethics Notebook (America July 19, 1997), John F. Kavanaugh, S.J., a Jesuit philosopher, espouses that intentional killing symbolizes such a radical attack on the human person that "it undercuts the ethical universe itself." "Killing persons" translated means "killing ethics." For, if the person is negotiable, then ethics itself is expendable! [Note: For a sustained and integrated argument on the inviolability of the person and the ethics of killing see Father Kavanaugh’s Who Count As Persons? Human Identity and the Ethics of Killing (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2001).] Timothy E. O'Connell, a moral theologian, has similarly upheld the intrinsic evil of killing innocent human beings. O'Connell concludes that a direct attack on the basic good of human life becomes an attack on the very meaning of morality .Such a violation in principle is tantamount to the rejection of the rights of all. When the subject of ethics is not reverenced as being endowed with inherent inalienable rights, then persons can be subordinated to a quantifiable utilitarian calculus over against other finite goods. Since the human person is transcendent and social, a person cannot be viewed as a means to an end, a mere object. Human life is an incommensurable good. In reality, the destruction of the subject of ethics marks the end of ethics. [Timothy E. O’Connell, Principles for a Catholic Morality (SanFrancisco: Harper & Row, 1990): 172; 193 ff.; 210.] The Gospel of Life calls for a concern for unconditional respect for human life as the foundation of a renewed society .That respect is the basis for creating a "new culture of life, the fruit of truth and of love." [EV n.77] Reflections: John Paul II, The Gospel of Life (1995) "... ‘I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?' (Gen 4:9) ...We cannot but think of today's tendency for people to refuse to accept responsibility for their brothers and sisters. Symptoms of this trend include the lack of solidarity towards society's weakest members --- such as the elderly, the infirm, immigrants, children ---and the indifference frequently found in relations between the world's peoples even when basic values such as survival, freedom and peace are involved.” … [EV n. 8] "...At another level, the roots of the contradiction between the solemn affirmation of human rights and their tragic denial in practice lies in a notion of freedom which exalts the isolated individual in an absolute way, and gives no place to solidarity, to openness to others and service of them. While it is true that the taking of life not yet born or in its final stages is sometimes marked by a mistaken sense of altruism and human compassion, it cannot be denied that such a culture of death, taken as a whole, betrays a completely individualistic concept of freedom, which ends up by becoming the freedom of 'the strong' against the weak who have no choice but to submit.”... [EV n. 19] "At the basis of all these tendencies lies the ethical relativism which characterizes much of the present-day culture. ..." "... Democracy cannot be idolized to the point of making it a substitute for morality or a panacea for immorality. …But the value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes. ..." "... The basis of these values cannot be provisional and changeable "majority" opinions, but only the acknowledgment of an objective moral law which, as the "natural law" written in the human heart, is the obligatory point of reference for civil law itself.”... [EV n. 70]
Essay 6 ---- Proclaiming the 'Gospel of life' Commentary … October 9, 1998 [Revised and expanded August 19, 2002] "Proclaiming the Gospel of Life with honesty and love" was the theme of the 1998 Respect Life Program drawn up by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities. The program is located within that privileged moment of the "eve of the third millennium." Its theme, "The Gospel of Life," is adopted from the lyrical Latin title of Pope John Paul II's eleventh encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, published in March of 1995. The Gospel of Life stands as a prophetic defense of the dignity of the person and the sacredness of human life. This encyclical is the capstone of Pope John Paul II's distinctive thought ---"prophetic humanism." For, in a special way, it sums up the central focus of the Holy Father's lifelong preaching, teaching, and writing that even antedates his becoming bishop of Rome in 1978 --- his courageous defense of the sacredness of the human person and advocacy of human rights. In a Newsweek review, Kenneth Woodward was on target when he called Evangelium Vitae the present pope's "signature statement." Pope John Paul II has been referred to as "the conscience of the world." In Witness to Hope (HarperCollins 1999), theologian George Weigel comments that the encyclical "broke new ground in historical analysis, doctrine, moral teaching, and the practical application of moral norms to the complexities of democratic politics." (Ibid.,756) Weigel interprets The Gospel of Life from the perspective of the Holy Father's global moral leadership. He observes:
Weigel has given an incisive title to the section of his study dealing with The Gospel of Life ---"The Gospel of Life and the Future of Freedom." [See EV nn.19-20; n. 58; n. 96] The Gospel of Life insists on the inseparable connection between freedom and truth. In season and out of season, Pope John Paul II has been the herald of the Johannine theme ---"You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (Jn. 8:32). [See Veritatis Splendor n.31; n. 54; n. 87] The truth about moral good and evil is "indicated by the 'divine law,’ the universal and objective norm of morality. " [VS n. 60] Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., contrasts John Paul II's philosophy of freedom with the secular value-free model. He writes:
Against all forms of ethical relativism ---situation ethics, utilitarianism, pragmatism, emotivism--- the Holy Father firmly stands as the evangelist of the liberating of a freedom gained from the transforming power of the Gospel, namely, that Jesus Christ has revealed "that the frank and open acceptance of the truth is the condition for authentic freedom ..." [VS n.87] The cornerstone of authentic freedom is identified with "(w)orship of God and the relationship with truth ...revealed in Jesus Christ." [Ibid.] The encyclical The Gospel of Life is four chapters in length with a key biblical passage or narrative anchoring each major section of the document. The text unfolds in the format of a biblically-based meditation interwoven with ethical analysis and reasoning. The encyclical masterfully structures a faith-filled exposition of the core moral beliefs of the Catholic tradition on life issues. It typifies the dynamic relationship between faith and reason which is distinctive of Catholic moral wisdom. Insofar as methodology is concerned, Pope John Paul II articulates a faith-ethic. While the natural law approach [v.g.,"human reason informed by faith reflecting on experience as a source of moral insight”] is integral to ethical analysis, faith plays an indispensable role in illumining the Christian moral vision. The centerpiece of this methodology lies in the configuration of themes, images, and stories which inspire and evoke reverence for life. Earlier, Pope John Paul II had addressed this interaction in The Splendor of Truth (1993). There he wrote:
In the Gospel of Life, the Holy Father reflects this unity when he writes: "... the Gospel of life includes everything that human experience and reason tell us about the value of human life, accepting it, purifying it, exalting it, and bringing it to fulfillment." (EV n.30) In this respect, the Church's witness to "this Gospel of life, which she has received from her Lord, has a profound and pervasive echo in the heart of every person --believer and non-believer alike ---because it marvelously fulfills all the heart's expectations while infinitely surpassing them." [EV n. 2] The biblical framework of the encyclical is Christological ---Jesus, "the Word of life" (Jn.1:1) is the definitive expression of the Gospel of life. The Gospel of life "consists in the proclamation of the very person of Jesus." [EV n. 29] In addition, the Gospel of life, revealed in the Old Testament as well as inscribed on the heart of every man and woman, "has echoed in every conscience 'from the beginning,' from the time of creation itself, in such a way that, despite the negative consequences of sin, it can be known in its essential traits by human reason." [EV n. 29; n.101] The biblical command ---"You shall not kill” ---is a case in point. A gospel ethic "gives spirit and shape to that commandment. The positive side of the commandment grounds the imperative to respect, love, and promote human fife. Moreover, "You shall not kill," knowable through the light of reason, resonates "in the moral conscience of everyone as an irrepressible echo of the original covenant of God the Creator with humankind." (EV n. 77) This genre of biblical meditation has been a hallmark of Pope John Paul II's theological writings. The noteworthy feature of The Gospel of Life is that the style of exposition integrates the distillation of the biblical roots of the Catholic moral tradition. In a sense, the style encapsulates the substance of the moral tradition. The tapestry of biblical texts and images has the power to evoke commitments of emotional depth in ways that might elude the abstract conceptual logic of discursive reason alone. [See especially Chapter II- "The Christian Message Concerning Life." (EV nn. 29-51)] There is a single overarching vision which holds the text together in coherent unity - the Christian message on the sacredness of human life. Life issues are at the heart of a Gospel ethic, for "in Jesus, the 'Word of life, God's eternal life is thus proclaimed and given." [EV n. 30] Furthermore, the encyclical presents such questions within a framework of what is now called "a consistent ethic of life.” [e.g. EV nn. 4, 5; n. 18; n. 86] A careful reading of the encyclical opens to a linkage of the major life issues with all threats to human fife, including the demands of social and economic justice. Regrettably, a brief overview of the encyclical is inadequate for reflecting the depth and the richness of The Gospel of Life. Yet it is hoped that an introduction to the key concepts and the methodology might facilitate further study and reflection. Chapter 1 of Evangelium Vitae is a telling critique of contemporary threats to human life. Its title ---"The Voice of Your Brother's Blood Cries to Me from the Ground" ---centers the Pope's analysis of the Genesis story of Cain's murder of his brother Abel. God's question to Cain ---"What have you done? ”--- confronts the modern crisis of culture. The 20th century has been a period marked by unprecedented massive assaults on the dignity of human life. Moreover, the advanced technologies of a postmodern world have created new threats to human dignity and rights, ranging from totalitarian regimes of government, systematic genocide, and advanced technology without a moral compass. In turn, Cain's response ---"Am I my brother's keeper?” ---symbolizes the denial of solidarity and reverence for life which stem from the divorce of human freedom from moral truth. As mentioned above, the relationship between freedom and moral truth continues to be the leitmotif of the thought of Pope John Paul II:
Relativism and subjectivism reign when license, "a freedom run amok," signals the dying of authentic human freedom. In speaking of the need for "the recovery of the necessary link between freedom and truth, the Holy Father does so in personal terms:
This ramification is not only addressed in an extended manner in The Splendor of Truth [EV nn. 95-101 J but also in On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum [Centesimus Annus 1991]. The latter, a social encyclical, analyzed this issue theologically in the historical context of the fall of the Marxist regime in 1989 in Eastern Europe. The Holy Father declares:
While Centesimus Annus studied the moral flaws of Marxism as a totalitarian system, it did confront the threats of "totalitarian democracy" looming on the political horizon in the Western democracies:
Evangelium Vitae pursued its line of social criticism from the standpoint of the right to life and its abrogation by "totalitarian democracy." The ethical relativism which justified the denial of the inalienable right to life by legislative action or by majority vote on a referendum, undermines the common good of society as such. As a result, since the fundamental right to life becomes negotiable, that right is "made subject to the will of the stronger part." The corollary of the denial of democracy's own principles slides society towards "a form of totalitarianism." [EV n. 20] The reality is stark: "... the value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes." [EV n. 70] With regard to the legalization of abortion and euthanasia, Pope John Paul II portrays this moral crisis in terms of a dramatic, almost apocalyptic, battle between the "culture of life" and the "culture of death:"
The Holy Father identified this "culture of death" with a structure of sin which wages a "war of the powerful against the weak," unleashing a "conspiracy against life." [EV n. 12] Although some critics have had reservations about the sweeping application of these images, such metaphors are the stuff of prophetic criticism. Evangelium Vitae exposes the dehumanizing cultural hegemony of ethical relativism as a root cause of the "culture of death.” [EV nn.19-20; n.70] ---Many men and women today find the discernment of moral right and wrong more and more difficult to judge.[EV n.11; n. 24]
The denial of the right to life is becoming more and more pervasive "at the more significant moments of existence: the moment of birth and the moment of death." [EV n. 18] Pope John Paul II adds a theological dimension to his interpretation. He names an eclipse of a sense of God as a root cause linked with a concomitant loss of the meaning of the human as a second root cause. Hence, the Holy Father is convinced that the central questions of this crisis within the democratic culture are ultimately religious. [EV nn.21-24} Therefore, a special urgency arises to hear the call to proclaim and to live the Gospel of life. That response will create a Gospel-inspired leaven to build up a culture of life and a renewal of society. Chapter IV of The Gospel of Life unfolds the praxis for instilling a new culture of human life. [EV nn.78-101] On balance, however, the Holy Father also discerns positive signs of initiatives toward greater reverence for human life. Although there can be no doubt that the negative indicators are of grave concern, the overall tone of The Gospel of Life is hopeful. Chapter I of The Gospel of Life sets forth a "reading of the signs of the times" which provides a much needed background for pro-life advocates. After all, abortion and euthanasia are complex and multifaceted issues. Consequently, any effective proclamation of the Gospel of life must be well grounded in the cultural and philosophical presuppositions underlying the "culture of death." That ethos is hostile to the "culture of life." Believers must share The Gospel of Life with all men and women, for it concerns the future of humanity ---"Life certainly has a sacred and religious value. ..(t)he value at stake is one which every human being can grasp by the light of reason; thus it necessarily concerns everyone." [EV n.101] Pro-life witness promotes the renewal of the common good of society ---"There can be no true democracy without a recognition of every person's dignity and without respect for his or her rights." [Ibid.] Thus may the "people of life" constantly grow in numbers and may a new culture of love and solidarity develop for the true good of the whole of human society .[EV n.101] God commands believers to walk the path of life --- “I have set before you today life and good, death and evil ... (Dt.30:15)
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