The Vatican's Pontifical Academy for
Life has published a lexicon on end-of-life care.
In a new booklet called 'Small lexicon on end of life', the
Pontifical Academy for Life reiterated its opposition to
euthanasia, its support for palliative care as well as
indicating there is "space to search for a mediation in
legislation".
Freedom always "implies the need to be responsible for life:
inextricably, in myself and in the other", wrote the president
of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Mons. Vincenzo Paglia, in
the booklet's introduction.
"A perspective which certainly does not coincide with an
individualistic concept which tends to reduce it to the
loneliness of absolute self-determination and which gives in to
the willpower of self-love, without concern for the
vulnerability to which it exposes the affection of others.
"We are all radically connected to one another", he wrote.
"We don't decide for ourselves in a void of connections", wrote
Mons. Paglia, "this is the way we humans live - until the end.
"In confronting the themes evoked by single words, this lexicon
takes into account the pluralistic and democratic context of
societies in which the debate takes place, especially when we
enter the juridical field.
"The different moral languages are far from incommunicable and
untranslatable, as some claim.
"The effort that everyone makes to understand the reasons of the
other and to accept dialogue with those who think differently
favours debate and at least partial sharing of the valid reasons
in favour of one choice or another choice", he noted.
"An open and respectful discussion leads to a public dialogue
that is also able to positively influence political decisions,
showing how mediations between different positions are not
necessarily destined to take on the lousy aspect of a
watered-down compromise or of a negotiation for an exchange of
political favours", he added.
Overall, the document reiterates a stark rejection of
euthanasia, as well as therapeutic obstinacy, the relaunch of
palliative care and "early dispositions of treatment", the
so-called biological will, the need to find, in democratic and
pluralistic societies, "a point of acceptable mediation between
different positions" on assisted suicide, and the possibility of
suspending nutrition and hydration for end-of-life patients.
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