…that death is a part of life. NPR had a fantastic interview with a Catholic priest on the Terri Schiavo case and the dying process.

Michele Norris talks with Father John J. Paris, professor of bioethics at Boston College, about Catholic doctrine concerning the end of life. He discusses church teaching on the subject and a 2004 statement by the Pope on administering food and water to patients.

My favorite quote:

Let me tell you what I learned from my grandmother, a woman of enormous faith, who, when one of her elderly sisters was dying and she’d lost the ability to eat…my grandmother was feeding her little sips of soup. And if a doctor were to come in and propose we could put a little flexible rubber tube right down [my aunt's] nose and throat and feed her, she’d say “Glory be to God, have you lost your senses? The poor woman is dying. What is your tube going to do for that?” And then in her Irish manner, she’d tell them where to put that tube.

The question is, was my grandmother systematically starving her sisters to death out of ignorance or out of malice? The answer is neither. She was understanding that they’re dying, she was understanding as the Vatican declaration puts it “the human condition,” she was understanding that life itself is not an absolute good, and she as a faith-filled person said “God is calling her home,” and who are we to impede that?

You can hear the entire 4-minute interview here.

I can’t say with any authority or certainty that this is a precise parallel to the Terry Schiavo case. I can say that, as a person of faith, I believe that God did not create people to live forever, in any state. We will face innumerable bioethical concerns as medical technology continues to advance, and we must keep the normalcy of death in mind as we make these decisions.

Catholics seem to understand dying and have a balanced, compassionate view. If a person can no longer swallow the “cup of water” that Christ asked his followers to provide, surely we can do the next best thing and let the dying return to God in as much peace as possible. I do not think euthanasia should be an option, because it is a decisively unnatural act. But death itself is as natural as birth, and should be treated with dignity and not hatred.