I Do Not Wish to Deceive
Sasanov, Catherine
I do not wish to deceive: Letter from Gemma Galgani to Msgr. Volpi, 1899 But what tears I spent on a china doll's shattering, the loss of a hat. When she died, I'd saved nothing, not even one...
...Catherine Sasanov from Reassembling the Bodily Relics of St...
...Other sources that have lent support to this approach are Pius XII's 1957 affirmation that life, health, and all temporal activities are subordinate to spiritual ends...
...We now turn our attention to your central argument that nutrition/hydration is not a "medical act," but rather "normal care...
...Even now, if I turn my head, I hear the Lord saying again and again, Monsignor, come see the blood coins Christ minted in my hands, tell me: Are they counterfeit or not...
...It was there I held all my accounts—Mother said, You are never to touch them to buy something for yourself Suffering's the currency that counts...
...We believe that making this argument will be challenging...
...Each of these entails invasiveness, risks, and limitations on usefulness, as well as such medical expertise as anesthesiology, surgery, radiology, dietary, and general nursing...
...Finally, we would like to make one comment on your use of sources...
...That is, it is "basic care," and hence "ordinary and proportionate," " and obligatory, when it maintains life by sustaining adequate nutrition and hydration...
...You may find you want to nuance your argument to include only some forms of artificial administration as "basic care...
...Another challenge to this argument will stem from the tradition's usual understanding of ordinary and proportion-ate care as referring not to the ability of some intervention to achieve its purpose, but to its ability to offer what McFadden called "the sound hope of providing benefit" by doing so...
...But Jesus is merciful...
...The Declaration makes this same point stating, "it is also permitted to interrupt these means where the results fall short of expectations," not simply because they fail to achieve their purpose or are burdensome (emphases ours...
...The Declaration speaks of "techniques" and "remedies," not the "medical act/natural means" distinction you propose...
...and the Declaration's own affirmation that a person's "moral resources," his or her ability to cope with illness and its treatment, must be considered as part of the moral analysis...
...When she died, I'd saved nothing, not even one sorrow, to buy-off the few sins mama forgot to confess...
...If she burns bright in Purgatory that is my fault...
...Kelly maintained that the clinical certainty should be "reasonable," not absolute, in determining what constitutes "ordinary care...
...We suggest, first, that it may be helpful for you to describe in detail the different methods of meeting nutritional needs artificially, such as hyperalimentation, nasal-gastric tube, peg or J-tube, or IV...
...Your project will need to show how this new designation better serves a tradition that has not heretofore recognized the need for it...
...As a child, I knew grief as a bank in the business of salvation...
...One also thinks of Pope John Paul II's 1992 discussion of "therapeutic tyranny," which cautioned against condemning a patient "to an artificially prolonged agony...
...Gemma Galgani ically very rare, particularly after three months for nontraumatic injury, such as drug use, and after one year for traumatic injury, such as a car accident...
...We would also call your attention to the language traditionally employed in such discussions...
...You describe it as "a natural means of preserving life" when it is capable of achieving its own proper finality of providing nourishment—when it achieves its purpose...
...Your thesis is not that there is an obligation to provide normal care, which this reference would support, but that "normal care" includes artificially administered nutrition and hydration...
...Your final project will therefore need to include a thorough analysis of the work of Aquinas and Alphonsus Liguori in this regard...
...In one place you write, quoting the Declaration, that "there is an obligation to provide the 'normal care due to the sick in such cases.'" But citing "normal care" as obligatory is curious...
...The Declaration does not address this Commonweal I I June 18, 2004...
Vol. 131 • June 2004 • No. 12
