Here’s hoping this is the smackdown of all smackdowns, and God bless the Brothers of Charity for appealing to Rome. It’s unclear in the article, but the video at this link shows that the three Brothers of Charity voted against killing people. I’m sure it’s likely a bit surreal to them that they got voted down on this, since their order, you know, runs the hospital!!!
LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) — What happens when a dozen laypeople, responsible for a Catholic hospital, betray the institution they represent? We are about to find out. The twelve lay members of the Brothers of Charity hospital group in Belgium have been summoned to Rome.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued the summons.
Now, a few years back, I would have had no doubt that a reprimand was coming, but these days I’m kind of wondering if this might instead turn into a job interview for The Pontifical Academy for Life, The Pontifical Academy of Science, or the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. I’m reasonably sure the brain trust that invited Paul Ehrlich and John Bongaarts (notorious population control advocates) to speak, or who got Nigel Biggar appointed to The Pontifical Academy for Life would L-O-V-E to get these twelve morons from the Catholic hospital in Belgium appointed somewhere in the Vatican. It’s getting so insane over there that I’ve gotten over being stupefied.
The Brothers of Charity are a monastic order which operates fifteen hospitals in Belgium. Their hospital board is comprised of 12 laypeople and three brothers. Last spring, the board voted to permit euthanasia of mentally ill patients in their hospitals. This is in direct opposition to the Church’s teaching that euthanasia is evil and impermissible.
Just to clarify, again, three Brothers actually voted against it and appealed to Rome for some help. Let’s hope they get a lifeline and not a noose.
The bishops of the Church in Belgium have also affirmed that Euthanasia is evil and cannot be allowed. The board does not seem to care what the Church teaches, and has issued a paper stating that “euthanasia” is the “therapeutic liberty” of doctors. In other words, doctors should be allowed to administer euthanasia without the hospital interfering.
Soooo many things wrong with this. Let’s remember: IT’S A CATHOLIC HOSPITAL!
If the position paper is accepted by the medical establishment at large, then euthanasia becomes a right, and doctors can practice it freely in any hospital.
Coming to hospitals worldwide. Sigh.
Euthanasia is the practice of killing people by medical means, with an emphasis on speed and painlessness. The practice is intended to end the lives of people who are suffering, usually the terminally ill. The practice has since spread to include children, as well as physically healthy people.
It’s all fun and games until someone’s trying to have you killed, and then it’s really way too late. Not only are they killing people left and right, they’re guilting them into it. In too many countries, patients aren’t even allowed to make the “choice”, coerced or not. I have to stop and point out that you are sadly mistaken if you think it’s not happening in the United States already. Please, make sure you have a durable power of attorney for healthcare, make sure that you have someone trustworthy in charge of your medical care if you are incapacitated, and NEVER sign a POLST, which is a toe-hold for the dissolution of your and your loved ones’ rights. Many good people are uneducated about the POLST. Please read here if you love your family.
There are several problems with euthanasia. The practice violates the Fifth Commandment, and is considered a grave sin against God. There are concerns that elderly people, as well as the sick, will be gently encouraged or pressured to avail themselves of euthanasia. People who are responsible for bearing the bulk of expenses or providing the majority of care may plot to have someone euthanized. It’s the same as murder, except it is legal under secular law. Once intended only for the terminally ill, the practice is spreading.
The slippery slope is very real.
The Church wants to understand the process by which the board arrived at their decision. It may offer a correction of their thinking and ask the board members to reconsider their position. If the board refuses to change its statement, then the Church will have to seek a different means of controlling its own hospital and protecting the people within.
This last statement is a little weird. The Church wants to understand how these people became so evil or haughty as to reject the moral authority of the Brothers of Charity??? It MAY offer a correction??? It may ask them to reconsider??? I hope that’s not the case, because the only thing the Church should do here is make an unequivocal statement that this is a grave evil and may NEVER happen. End. Of. Story.
One Mad Mom 
We are already in the Age of Heresy. Laity, priests, and nuns accept the gay agenda, contraception, abortion, and nonbelief such as no transubstantiation. We all know the list. While reaffirming the evil in this practice is vital, my question is what can the Church do if they say “NO!” and the Board says “YES!”? Can the Church remove the board? If in the end the Church is helpless to stop this evil we can add this to the list of heresies and apostasies. But, open rejection of Church teaching by a total Church Order is tantamount to another Lutheran proclamation. Perhaps this will lead to intersectionality of all the rejections, including colleges, all the orders of priests and nuns, cowardly theologians and Catholic media, etc. I’m probably putting too much into this one issue as a trigger, but I’d like to see the two sides coalesce into two distinct sides and get the fight on for the sake of our Church and the souls they are charged to lead to Heaven. Folks often say that the great splits in the past took centuries to build and the Church survived. Not quite correct. In each case souls were lost, and we now live in a time of instant worldwide communication. Centuries are reduced to decades, even years.
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Too many people in charge in Belgian hierarchy think like cino bishops such as Bonny ,dekesel and Daneels..They seem confused by Rc faith and morals sexual and otherwise. . I guess they and Belgium brd has not ” Received” the church teachings on.morals like Martin of America. Mgz. ,Ab Martin of Ireland and Belgian hierarchy have either.
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Good one, Mr. Ed of Ct. :^)
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An excellent essay, with just the right amount of snarkiness.
I think once a society decides that it is okay to kill one group of people because their existence would be costly or inconvenient, it gets easier and easier to expand the list of people who are expendable. In this particular case, I’m wondering how people who are mentally ill can give “informed consent.” Of course, in Belgium, children as young as three years old are permitted to request euthanasia. I can’t imagine a three-year-old child who understands the concept of death, but Belgium seems to be in a hurry to wipe its population off the face of the earth.
Your skepticism about what the Vatican will do is, in my opinion, justified. There are days I find myself wondering if the Catholic Church is still the Catholic Church I joined just three years ago. Most recently, a theologian who is a friend of Pope Francis declared that transubstantiation is “not dogma.” Though deeply unsettling, that idea makes the Church’s current love affair with Martin Luther a little easier to understand.
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There’s only so long that these position will be sustained, Thomas. It’s all cyclical. The Church has had good times and the Church has had bad times. I will just continue on with my little prayer I picked up along the way of “May God open their eyes or close them!”
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