Catholic Review: Church teaching gives clarity to end-of-life decisions

Maria Wiering has written an important news article to the Catholic Review. Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk spoke on “Ethical Decision Making in End-of-Life Situations” at St. Agnes in Catonsville March 27. Father Tad is well known for his work with the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) and spoke at length on "end-of-life issues." His presentation gives great advice for Catholics in pondering what is inevitable for all of us.

The Catholic Church identifies end-of-life measures as “proportionate” or “disproportionate,” based on the measure’s benefits and burdens. Proportionate measures are those a person is required to take, and disproportionate measures are those that are optional, or sometimes unethical. What measures are proportional or disproportional depend on the individual circumstance, Father Pacholczyk said.

He recommends using these terms instead of “ordinary” or “extraordinary” measures, he said, because “proportionate” and “disproportionate” are more exact and lead a decision-maker to ask “to what?” There’s no list of measures that are always “proportionate” or “disproportionate,” he said. Each measure needs to be evaluated based on the benefits and burdens they would offer to the particular situation.

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While some suggest living wills and other advanced directives are the answer to navigating these ethical issues, that isn’t always the case, Father Pacholczyk said.... It’s far better to assign someone to be a proxy – usually a spouse or family member – who understands one’s wishes and can make decisions if the person in need of care is incapacitated. If used, advanced directives could designate a proxy and defer to his or her decisions, or include a statement that a person wishes his or her health care to be in keeping with Catholic Church teaching, he said.

Father Pacholczyk also reminded his audience that they have the “power of the pen” and shouldn’t sign any end-of-life directives that seem “off-base” to them. He urged Catholics to look at the National Catholic Bioethics Center’s Catholic Guide to End-of-Life Decisions and the Maryland Catholic Conference’s guide “Comfort and Consolation: Care for the Sick and the Dying.” Both are available at the organizations’ websites, ncbcenter.org, and mdcathcon.org....

Read this important article here!