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Le blog de la Bergerie                         Sharing the faith . . . in English . . . et en français!    |
A recent headline in a San Francisco paper was about adding
a barrier to the Golden Gate Bridge to stop people from jumping to their death.
Every month, an average of one or two people commit suicide by jumping off the
bridge. The grieving families of those who have died in this way have testified
about their loss, their pain and their anguish.
Hearing about this makes most of us feel a cringe of sorrow inside ourselves.
We do not know the details of the suffering experienced by those who jumped
(and every story is a heart-wrenching story), but we all understand that they
were suffering and wish we could have stopped them. The barrier will cost around
$2 million and will take a couple of years to build.
As a devout and devoted Catholic, I hold life to be sacred-- a gift
from God. Thus, I can only presume that anyone who would make such
a decision as to jump off the Bridge must be greatly suffering in a state of
hopelessness and confusion, riddled with a sense of failure and viewing their
life as a mess. It is good for the City to take any additional precaution possible
to prevent such tragic events.
Within the last couple of weeks, a bill was introduced in Sacramento, called
"California Compassionate Choice Act"; it is about assisted suicide: procuring
deadly drugs for terminal patients who wish to end their lives. I hold this
bill to be ethically wrong. It is wrong to help anyone to commit suicide, whether
or not we know the details of their sufferings and whether or not we are witnessing
their hopelessness and their confusion, their sense of uselessness. Such requests
are actually a cry for help. What we need to do is to help
them with managing pain and help them cope with loneliness and fear. We need
to find ways to assist them in alleviating their sense of being a burden, of
feeling useless, of having no hope. Around terminally ill patients, we should
also invest millions of dollars to build a "virtual barrier" that will protect
them from any tragic move; it would be a good decision to spend the time and
resources needed to accomplish this as well.
In this particular issue, it looks like my stand on waiting for death to come
naturally is not as common as it used to be in the popular culture. There is
a definitive tendency to flirt with euthanasia lately.
Which bring us to this interesting paradox: If I am standing on the bridge and
see someone about to jump, and if I say, "Let me help you -- let me push you
over," I will be harshly judged (and rightly so) by most people - and I could
go to jail. But if the person somehow survives the fall (and a few of them have
done so), and if that person ends up as a quadriplegic in a hospital bed, begging
to end it all, then if I inject the person with a killing drug, it would be
considered a 'compassionate choice'?
O Lord, save us from our self-imposed confusion!
Help us see through wicked delusion and guide us in sorting out all the deceptions.
Faith is a wonderful guide in these difficult issues dealing with death. Our
wonderful Pope has very astutely defined all these issues as the struggle of
the culture of life vs. the culture of death. The wisdom of the Church is here
to help us along the way. We should also be able to articulate our positions
to the non-Christians around us and show them the truth of such positions, helping
them understand it is for the common good of society.
The "California Compassionate Choice" bill mentioned earlier is misleading and
we should say so. We need to point out that every request to commit suicide
is actually a cry for help; that euthanasia, assisted suicide, eugenics are
all slippery stones on the worst slippery slope one can imagine…. If killing
is justified in our consciences in some cases, it will eventually become easier
to justify it in more and more different cases.
First it's the sick that will go, but then also the handicapped, the weak, the
useless ones, the ugly ones, the unwanted ones…
We can never forget that getting
rid of the 'unwanted' ones was the basic premise of the whole Nazi
horrific program.
There is quite a stir right now regarding the "Million Dollar Baby"
movie and whether or not there is a message promoting assisted suicide tucked
into it. Without having seen the movie, but from reviews I have read, one can
only say that this movie seems not to promote the culture of life. I remember
the movie, "My Left Foot" of a few years back, and how one felt uplifted and
inspired at the end of it, because it helped us see beyond the physical limitations
of someone; it allowed us to grasp the core of greatness of that person. The
movie helped us see with the eyes of the heart and was very life-affirming.
John Paul II, who wrote extensively on the choices for life, is himself the
subject of debate right now in the media. Due to his great age, illness and
frailty, there is a growing consensus that he should resign. This way of looking
at it (this utilitarian world view where man is at the center of things rather
than God), however, is missing the main point: the Pontiff is not holding a
job which can be measured by what he does, but, rather, he is father to his
flock which is a completely different matter. A father is still a father even
when weak and sick because of who he is, not because of what he can do.
The media's concern with him is a positive thing in many ways: they care about
him, about his powerful presence, about the fact that he is known in every continent
and that the story of his life has been intertwined with our recent world history.
Thus, I'm not saying the media are getting it all wrong, but they often see
only part of the picture, and it is up to us to keep correcting this lack and
help point them in the right direction. The culture of death focuses on what
is useful or what is the easiest way out, or what works for "me" first and foremost.
But there is another approach that looks at the good of my neighbor as my own
good, and sees beyond the material -- holds every life to be precious.
That is true compassion.
John Paul II is a poigant exemple, right now, for all of us to
see, for the whole world to watch. The pictures of his illness and old age are
easily captured and passed around by our modern technology. But his endurance,
his patience and his peace are still able to shine through every report. As
Christians, we have an approach to suffering and death which is both puzzling
and startling to anyone else. (We don't always grasp it fully ourselves!) But
it is of utmost importance and our Pope is serving as a lightning rod for its
importance, right now, in the public square of our global village. He is pointing
us to what truly matters, he is asking for our own patience. He needs our prayers,
he is teaching us to "choose life" against all odds, to always reach out in
care and compassion rather than resorting to whatever can speed up the death
process.
So although it is difficult, we are a given quite a window of opportunity right
now to articulate and promote the culture of life, to spread the gospel of forgiveness
and love, and finally to "teach to observe all that He has commanded us"….
I wrote this in 2005 but, alas, the partisans of assisted suicide are still
pushing for their brutal public policies, here and abroad, in the US or Switzerland or other places,
for ever disguising their true motives and bringing death in their embrace.
Copyright ©2005 Michele Szekely