Fr. Barnabas Powell welcomes back Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer and award winning author as well as a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism.

Reflections from St. John the Compassionate Mission about the Prodigal Son and Canada's Bill C-7.

Once a culture accepts the fundamental premise of euthanasia consciousness, there is no way to limit doctor-administered death to those who are already at the end of their lives.

What do euthanasia enthusiasts really want? To eliminate suffering of any kind by eliminating the sufferer.

Should a human life be ended just so we can harvest their organs for another person's use? It might be closer than you think!

Today on the program we feature a lecture by Fr. Stanley Harakas, the Archbishop Iakovos Professor of Orthodox Theology, Emeritus, at Holy Cross, given at the first annual Anne and Theodore Phillips Paschal Lecture Series in Chicago, Illinois.

The Dutch Euthanasia law permits euthanasia in patients with advanced dementia lacking decisional capacity based on advance euthanasia directives. Nevertheless, physicians encounter difficulties assessing the … Read the full article ›

The post A qualitative focus group study on legal experts’ views regarding euthanasia requests based on an advance euthanasia directive was curated by information for practice.

medlinkEuthanasia/medlink, often referred to as "mercy killing" or "assisted dying," is a highly debated ethical and legal issue concerning the deliberate

Top trainer Mike de Kock has warned of a “grim reality” featuring “loss of jobs and euthanasia” of significant parts of the horse population if the South African racing shutdown continues. On Tuesday, the South African government blocked plans for a resumption when it refused to allow the sport to take place under Lockdown Level […]

The post Trainer Mike de Kock Warns Of Mass Job Loss, Euthanasias In South Africa If Racing Shutdown Continues appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

A method and apparatus for euthanizing poultry by rapidly impacting the spinal column of the bird.

As the voluntary assisted dying debate rages in Western Australia, David Goodall's family is still processing the 104-year-old's decision to travel to Switzerland to end his life.

Western Australia moves significantly closer to legalising voluntary assisted dying with the State Government's euthanasia bill sailing through the Lower House of Parliament but it still faces a major hurdle.

Opponents of Western Australia's voluntary assisted dying bill are defeated in their attempt to put a final vote in State Parliament on hold until well into next year.

Twenty years ago, cats and dogs in RSPCA animal shelters had a good chance of being put down. Today, it's a different story.

More than two decades since Philip Nitschke set fire to the "disgusting, pathetic" bill overturning voluntary euthanasia in the Northern Territory, the region remains in a stranglehold, banned from even debating the issue.

With WA moving closer to legalising voluntary assisted dying, the debate is shining a light on the desperate need for better palliative care, particularly in regional areas.

CNA Staff, May 4, 2020 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has ordered 15 psychiatric hospitals in Belgium which belong to the Brothers of Charity to cease identifying as Catholic institutions after they allowed the euthanization of patients in 2017.

The hospitals are managed by a civil non-profit corporation with the same name as the Brothers of Charity religious congregation which owns them.

The CDF decision was communicated in a letter dated March 30, stating that "with deep sadness" the "psychiatric hospitals managed by the Provincialate of the Brothers of Charity association in Belgium will no longer be able to consider themselves Catholic institutions."

In a statement responding to the CDF's decision, the superior general of the Brothers of Charity, Br. René Stockman, said that "with a heavy heart" the religious congregation "must let go of its psychiatric centers in Belgium."

Br. Stockman pointed out that it is "painful" that the psychiatric centers of the Brothers of Charity in Belgium have lost their Catholic status, considering also that the brothers "were among the pioneers in the field of mental health care in Belgium."

At the same time, Stockman said he recognizes that "the congregation [the Brothers of Charity] has no choice but to remain faithful to the charism of charity, which cannot be reconciled with the practice of euthanasia on psychiatric patients."

The decision by the Vatican's doctrinal office ends three years of disputes between the Brothers of Charity and the corporation which manages their hospitals in Belgium.

In 2017, the board decided to allow euthanasia to be carried out in its hospitals in Belgium, where the euthanasia law is among the most broad.

At the time of the decision, the board of the corporation was composed of 15 members, with only three of them religious brothers of the congregation. 

Two of the three religious brothers among the board members, Luc Lemmens, 61, and Veron Raes, 57, supported the euthanasia decision. Their terms on the board ended at the end of September 2018 and were not renewed.

The religious congregation, especially Stockman, protested the decision, reiterating the Brothers of Charity's rejection of euthanasia in their hospitals.

The brothers appealed to the Vatican, which asked the psychiatric hospitals to change their protocol allowing euthanasia as “a medical act” under certain conditions.

The hospital management responded with a long statement in September 2017, in which it contested a lack of dialogue and maintained the hospital was "perfectly consistent" with Christian doctrine.

The CDF's direction that the hospitals must no longer identify as Catholic was communicated in a letter signed by CDF prefect Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer and secretary Archbishop Giacomo Morandi.

The letter retraced the developments of the story, recalling that the document allowing euthanasia in the brothers' hospitals "refers neither to God, nor to Holy Scripture, nor to the Christian vision of Man."

According to the letter, the CDF had spoken with the Brothers of Charity and had also informed Pope Francis of the gravity of the situation.

Other audiences had also taken place beginning June 2017, including with the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Secretariat of State, the representatives of the Brothers of Charity and the managing corporation, as well as representatives of the Belgian bishops' conference.

The Holy See also sent Bishop Jan Hendriks, auxiliary of Amsterdam, as an apostolic visitor, but he did not register any steps forward nor a desire to find "a viable solution that avoids any form of responsibility of the institution for euthanasia."

The request of the CDF to the Brothers of Charity and to the managing corporation was clear: “affirm in writing and in an unequivocal way their adherence to the principles of the sacredness of human life and the unacceptability of euthanasia, and, as a consequence, the absolute refusal to carry it out in the institutions they depend on."

The corporation "did not give assurance on these points."

The CDF therefore reiterated that "euthanasia remains an inadmissible act, even in extreme cases," and strengthened the statement by citing St. John Paul II's 1995 encyclical Evangelium vitae, and a Jan. 30 speech by Pope Francis to the CDF.

The CDF stressed that "Catholic teaching affirms the sacred value of human life," the "importance of caring for and accompanying the sick and disabled," as well as "the Christian value of suffering, the moral unacceptability of euthanasia" and "the impossibility of introducing this practice in Catholic hospitals, not even in extreme cases, as well as of collaborating in this regard with civil institutions."

The Brothers of Charity is a religious congregation of lay brothers founded in 1807 in Belgium, whose specialization is care for the sick and those with psychiatric diseases.

At the congregation's July 2018 general chapter the group stressed that the Brothers of Charity "believes in sacredness and absolute respect for every human life, from conception to natural death. The general chapter requires that each brother, associate member and others associated with the mission of the congregation adhere to the doctrine of the Catholic Church on ethical issues."

Title: Dog Food Recalled After Tests Find Euthanasia Drug
Category: Health News
Created: 4/29/2017 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 5/1/2017 12:00:00 AM

Nearly three quarters of the sample reported having been "humorously" accused of promoting death; for example, being called "Dr. Death," in a recent survey of palliative care medicine practitioners.

In 2002, Belgium legalized the intentional ending of life by a physician at the patient's explicit request. The government introduced safeguards to protect

Australia's state of Victoria on Wednesday became the first in the country to legalize euthanasia for the terminally ill as the law on voluntary assisted death (VAD) entered into force.

Interview with Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, author of Attitudes and Practices of Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide in the United States, Canada, and Europe