Is the Pope's Refusal to Go to the Hospital Akin to Choosing to Die?

My questions are these: is the radical means, like feeding tubes, respirators and other "extraordinary" means to sustain life available at the Vatican?

Did he consciously choose not to go to the Hospital, where the means are available

If, as I suspect, the Pope's choice to stay at the Vatican apartment, is tantamount to his choosing to let go of life and die in dignity, at a time and place of his choosing.

Is this not the same thing as a lay person choosing to do the same by refusing "extraordinary" means and also letting go of life in the same way?

I am a Catholic, and I revere the Pope (although I disagree with some of his actions over his long reign), but isn't his impending death being conducted with the utmost of dignity especially as compared to Terri Shriavo's disgraceful three ring circus created by the Right Wing Politicians, Fundamentalists, and the press?

No doubt the Pope has better medical resources in his bedroom than you or I have in ours but still, he clearly has no intention of having heroic interventions being done to prolong his life.

The Pope will meet his maker surrounded by people he trusts in a place that he loves. He may even be able to look out over St. Peter's square and see the thousands of faithful assembled to pray on his behalf.

He may be trying to give a lesson to us all.

And the church allows one to refuse medical intervention when medical intervention is futile....


Here's a post I made in response to Cuban Liberal

I am a caregiver and have been for ten years to my 87-year-old mom. She has stage 3 colon cancer and is an amputee. She's alert and oriented, but certainly lacks the ability to care for herself. If I didn't prepare her meals and deliver them to her she would presumably starve. How is that different from the feeding tube? Physically challenged people are often dependent on others for their sustenance.


IMHO,your Catholic Church and my Baptist Church consider a feeding tube ordinary care because although it's an "artificial device"it's a replacement for what people do for helpless or vulnerable people in their care since time immemorial...

The reason ventilators, respirators, et etcetera are consider extraordinary care is because we can not breathe for one another or make another person's kidneys pump...

But we can provide nourishment for those who would starve without our intervention...

If you accept their moral framework it seems to me to be a perfectly valid distinction...

Peace

Brian

When medical intervention is futile it is no longer necessary....


Situation One...

An otherwise healthy man comes down with pneumonia and is put on a ventilator... After a short term on a ventilator physicians expect him to make a full recovery...

Most Catholics as well as most mainstream Jews, Christians, and Muslims would applaud that intervention...

Situation Two...

An eighty five year old man in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's Disease with stage 5 colon cancer ( two or more positive lymph nodes which have spread to other organs) contacts pneumonia... Putting him on a ventilator will only prolong his agony by weeks or months but not lead to meaningful recovery...

Most Catholics as well as mainstream Jews, Christians, and Muslims would say it is permissible to refuse a ventilator or heroic measures in that situation...

The Pope is clearly in Situation Two...