Life Matters
"Catholic" Euthanasia--The Killing Continues
by Earl E. Appleby, Jr.
Our inaugural Vital Signs column citing "the incessant encroachment of ‘Catholic’ euthanasia,"
warned readers of Catholic hospitals that starve sick patients to death and of bishops and theologians who aid and abet such
medical murder
(Death of Conscience: Death of Man,
HLI Reports, September 1990).
We recalled that in December 1988, Human Life International President, Fr. Paul Marx, O.S.B., and 80 other
pro-life leaders dubbed by The Wanderer "a virtual pro-life Who's Who" joined CURE in writing Supreme Knight Virgil
Decant to protest K-of-C funding of the Pope John Center's 1989 bishops' conference in Dallas. The scandalous session provided
a platform for the infamous Fr. Kevin O'Rourke, O.P., and his associate Fr. Philip Boyle, O.P. Like his guru Fr. Boyle advocates
the elimination of the Nancy Cruzan's and Earl Appleby, Sr.'s, of this world via starvation and dehydration. Yet despite the
pro-life protest, the Pope John Center flew in bishops from Third World countries, where poor people starve, to learn the
benefits of starving sick people, alongside their counterparts in the increasingly American Catholic Church. And they did
so with monies from the coffers of the pseudo-pro-life K-of-C hierarchy in New Haven.
Now it is our sad duty to report that like the proverbial bad penny that keeps turning up, the notorious Pope
John Center is at it again, it being the promotion of euthanasia within and without the Catholic Church. And once more,
key players are members of the Dominican order which in American soil, at any rate, seems to cultivate anti-life priests the
way odorous environments sprout toadstools.
Consider Fr. Albert Moraczewski, producer of the Pope John Center's latest, anti-life video, "A Matter of
Life and Death," denounced by the American Life League's Judie Brown as "a travesty." Rita Marker of the International Anti-Euthanasia
Task Force has called his film "discriminatory and cruelly biased." Right on, Rita.
The Pope John Center's propaganda blitz, promoted with funds you may have foolishly dropped in the collection
basket for the Catholic Communications Campaign, presents two purportedly "Catholic" priests, an anti-life doctor and nurse,
and an allegedly "Catholic" sister, all of whom sanction starving to death defenseless euthanasia victims living in coma.
No wonder veteran pro-life journalist, Jim Kappus, has described it as "a full scale assault on dependent human life and naïve
Catholics grappling with life and death decisions."
As you may have guessed one of the pro-death priests is the Pope John Center's own deadly Dominican,
Fr. Albert Moraczewski. (The other fellow Dominican Fr. Kevin O'Rourke). But can you guess which order boasts Sister Death?
If you said Dominican, you might not be as dumb as Father Al is counting on. Sister Death is Sister Diana Bader of the
Catholic Health Association, the lobby for America's Catholic hospitals where "Catholic" euthanasia with a capital C
is fast becoming catholic euthanasia with a small c.
Inflating the cost of Nancy Cruzan's care to $200,000 a year, nearly double the hospital's estimate, Bader whines we must
not "impose costly, burdensome, and undignified treatment" on those living in coma.
Certainly not, Sister. Let's impose cheap and easy death by starvation. It's so dignified, as in "death-with-dignity,"
of course.
Meanwhile, Nancy lies decomposing in her premature grave, thanks to her parents and other disciples of the Dominican death-dealers,
Boyle, O'Rourke, Moraczewski, Bader, et al.
Dr. Joseph Stanton, of the Value of Life Committee, best summed up the Pope John Center video in a single if comprehensive
word—"awful." Reacting to critics like Joe and Rita, Fr. Al protests he tried "heroically to present a balanced viewpoint."
What next from these Dominican heroes of the Pope John Center? A "balanced viewpoint" on baby killing?
"Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful
self-destruction. . .are infamies indeed," proclaimed the Second Vatican Council, upholding centuries of Catholic affirmation
of the sanctity of life. Conscientious Catholics and committed pro-lifers have long called for the excommunication of prominent
Catholic advocates of the American abortion holocaust. Do our aged, infirm, and impaired victims of Catholic proponents of
genocidal euthanasia deserve any less?
As for those whose deeds are detailed here, we suspect that they will protest, as Fr. Boyle has done before,
that CURE is trying to stifle debate within the Catholic Church. It was Fr. Boyle, you will recall, who argued in favor of
the untimely demise of euthanasia victims at the bishops' conference in Dallas. In January 1989, Fr. Boyle informed the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch that he was "outraged by the charge that the priests support euthanasia, which is against the teaching
of the Catholic Church." In [1998], CURE remains outraged by the reality that Catholic bishops, theologians, priests, nuns,
doctors, nurses, ad nauseam perpetrate the sin of euthanasia, which not only violates the teaching of the Catholic
Church and of the Ten Commandments, but of Almighty God, the Creator of life.
HLI Reports, June 1991
