A Guide for Religious for End-of-Life Decision Making

Dear Editor,

Recently, my community, the “Fraternidad Misionera Verbum Dei,” ¹ has been engaging in a lively dialogue with its missionaries worldwide regarding end-of-life issues. To assist them, I produced a one-page document that hopes to summarize the main areas of concern. In it, the pertinent points are formulated for the religious, taking into consideration our vow of obedience that figures into end-of-life decisions. There are obviously some points for further reflection. One of our missionary sisters mentioned that perhaps we should choose burial over cremation, so that if we become candidates for future sainthood we can check if the body is still uncorrupted! Another wondered whether it would be appropriate for a consecrated person, having given their body to God during life, to give their body to science after death. There is clearly space for ongoing discussion.

What is presented in the following is a document that could be used (even as a basis) for end-of-life decision making. The salient features are the emphasis on the moral categories of proportionate/disproportionate (or ordinary/extraordinary) means and the importance of making the decision at the time rather than beforehand.

Many approaches to such decision making can fall into error if only future treatments are specified. A simple example would be that if I state “No assisted ventilation,” I may be envisaging a situation when I will be 99 years old, with widespread metastases and multiple organ failure. However, what happens when, after declaring this, tomorrow I fall over and sustain a closed head injury requiring two days of ventilation? Please put me on a ventilator!

To avoid such confusion, the Church in her wisdom as Mother, with the assistance of the medical sciences, gives us the very practical principles of proportionate/disproportionate means to be applied in the actual medical and moral situation.

I hereby present the proposed form (see Appendix) regarding the end-of-life for the Religious, and in this way open it up for further perusal and possible discussion. It is hoped that this form can assist religious orders to better live the dying process and, in doing so, continue to give witness to their love for Christ and fidelity to the Catholic Church and her teachings.

In Christ, the good Doctor.