“Our once great western Christian civilization is dying. If this matters to followers of Jesus Christ, then we must set aside our denominational differences and work together to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost. Evangelicals and Catholics must stand together to re-establish that former Christian culture and moral consensus. We have the numbers and the organization but the question is this: Do we have the will to win this present spiritual battle for Jesus Christ against secularism? Will we prayerfully and cooperatively work toward a new Christian spiritual revival ― or will we choose to hunker down in our churches and denominationalisms and watch everything sink into the spiritual and moral abyss of a New Dark Age?” - Mark Davis Pickup

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

GOD WORKS THROUGH WEAKNESS TO BRING STRENGTH TO HIS PEOPLE

 It was five years ago. The memory is still in my mind.I entered my room to discover my five-year-old grandson looking up at a large crucifix on the wall above my bed. He turned and asked if that really happened. "Yes it did," I replied.
"Did Jesus die?" he asked, turning back to look at the crucifix.
"Yes, he did." I said. "But that's not the end of it. He rose from the grave and that gives hope to everyone who believes in Jesus."
"Why?"
"Because it showed us that death is not the end. It only begins a new life." My little fellow looked intently again at the crucifix. I was reminded of C.S. Lewis' comment in his book The Problem of Pain:
"From our own childhood we remember that before our elders thought us capable of 'understanding' anything, we already had spiritual experiences as pure and momentous as any we have undergone since . . . "From Christianity itself we learn that there is a level - in the long run the only level of importance on which the learned and the adult have no advantage over the simple and the child."
Was my small grandson having such an experience? I don't know but I dared not speak or stir in case he was. Only he and God knew.
My little guy turned around to face me with a happy little smile and climbed on my lap. We slowly left the bedroom and went down the hallway in my electric wheelchair to the kitchen for "wunch."
What am I saying?
There are sacred moments that surprise us all; they come without warning or prompting; they simply visit, then vanish, leaving us with peaceful joy or bliss that is beyond our ability to express or describe.
These experiences are more frequent in early childhood then become rarer as we age and cynicism or doubts jade us and separate us from the divine.
SURRENDER TO CHRIST
My experience with degenerative disability unexpectedly opened a door again to such experiences. It only began to happen after I stopped fighting disease and surrendered to Christ.
It was a long journey from the initial bitterness at becoming chronically ill and disabled to a watershed point of finally being able to truly pray our Lord's words, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done."
After all the clever Christian apologetics are stated and doctrinal positions clearly delineated, we must still bow in humble repentance, surrender and submit our lives to God through the sacrifice of Christ at Calvary. It is something even children are capable of doing.
Long ago I ceased to discount the prayers of children. Before I converted to Catholicism I attended an evangelical church.
One day I was approached by a youth ministry leader. He shared with me that the Friday
night teen group was having a "problem" with a member who had Down's syndrome. She insisted on coming to the youth group and in devotional time would pray long, long prayers that bothered the rest of the teens. They were uncomfortable with her attendance and her praying.
He asked me what could be done? I don't think he liked my answer.
"Has it occurred to you that her prayers may be more intense and her communion with God more paradisal than any prayers the rest of us pray?"
I reminded the youth leader that the disciples tried to turn away children but Jesus welcomed and blessed them. I reminded him that Jesus said whatever we do to "the least of these" we do to him.
He sheepishly looked at his shoes then responded, "I hadn't thought about it like that. Perhaps the problem is with us not her."
WE ALL BELONG
We must hold up the simple and the child as indispensable members of Church life.
St. Paul addressed this in 1 Corinthians 12 when he spoke of the Church as many members of one body: "Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body that we consider less honourable we surround with greater honour, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety."
Why are the weaker members more necessary and the parts less honourable deserving greater honour? It's partly because the weak call the strong to a higher standard of love and care. The less honourable members need understanding and acceptance from the more honourable.

God works through human weakness and brings strength to his people.

[Click on image below or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_FtEzxu5J8 for Hillsong Kids, You Are My All In All, 4:00]

Monday, June 27, 2016

CANADA'S NATIONAL BROADCASTER GETS IT WRONG (AGAIN)


Well, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is at it
again, promoting medical killing (a.k.a., assisted suicide). They reported that a legal challenge has been started by disabled British Columbia resident Julia Lamb (25), in concert with the pro-assisted suicide British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA). The original story said the the challenged has been launched against Canada's new assisted suicide law because it is only for terminal conditions. Wrong! 

Even Canada's tax funded national broadcaster must have known it was wrong and later revised the story. But on the morning of June 27th 2016, the original story appeared with the following text which I copied and pasted below:

"A B.C. woman with spinal muscular atrophy is joining the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association to challenge the federal government's new assisted dying legislation.
Julia Lamb, 25, of Chilliwack, B.C., launched the challenge with the BCCLA in Vancouver on Monday morning.
She said that if her condition worsens, she could find herself trapped in physical and mental suffering for years and even decades.
"If my suffering becomes intolerable, I would like to be able to make a final choice about how much suffering to endure," Lamb said.
The lawsuit challenges the new assisted dying law, which only allows medically assisted dying for Canadians with terminal illness. It does not permit assistance in dying for those who are suffering with no immediate end in sight. [EMPHASIS ADDED]
"This legislation is clearly unconstitutional. It deliberately excludes a class of Canadians – those who are suffering with no immediate end in sight. How can we turn away and ignore their pleas?" said Grace Pastine, litigation director for the BCCLA.

New legislation was ordered by court

The Liberal government's controversial assisted dying legislation was approved on June 17, after passing a vote in the Senate earlier that day.
It was spurred by a 2015 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that struck down the ban on physician-assisted dying on the grounds that it violated Canadians' Charter rights.
But the legislation was criticized in part because it was limited to those facing a "reasonably foreseeable" death.
Critics say that excludes people with a non-terminal illness, including Kay Carter, who launched the original court challenge with the BCCLA before her death.
"The new legislation will have the perverse effect of forcing seriously ill Canadians to resort to violent methods or the 'back alley,'" said Pastine. "People will find ways to end lives that have become unbearable, even if that means choosing a violent, risky death. No one should be forced to make that cruel choice."
The government said it was operating under a compressed timeframe to meet a June 6 deadline imposed by the Supreme Court of Canada and promised there will be further study and amendments could come down the road.
Spinal muscular atrophy is a progressive neurodegenerative diseasecharacterized by loss of motor neurons and progressive muscle wasting, often leading to early death.
The story was false. The law does not limit assisted suicide to the terminally ill.

Let's look at what Bill C14, actually say, not what CBC falsely presents. C14's criteria for assisted is that a person's must have a "grievous and irremediable medical condition". They have a grievous and irremediable condition if (a) they have a serious and incurable illnesses, disease or disability; (b) they are in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capacity; (c) that illness, disease or disability or that of decline causes them enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerant to them and cannot be relieved under conditions that they consider acceptable. (d) their natural death has become reasonably foreseeable, ..." 

Do you see the word "terminal"? No. What does reasonably foreseeable actually mean anyway? Everyone's death can be reasonably foreseen! Most people will only live for 79.6 years. That's reasonably foreseen. The term is so vague as to be meaningless. Reasonably foreseeable is a judgement call.

The legislation has lots of autonomy but it does not state assisted suicide is limited to terminal conditions as the CBC article falsely reported. (Psst! The CBC knows that.) They later revised the story. (See below.) 

Merchants of death strategy

Let me speculate about what is actually happening with the case out of Chilliwack. Pro-assisted suicide groups like the BC Civil Liberty Association want to mount a series of legal challenges that will ultimately strike down or weaken the assisted suicide legislation. Their goal is to bring a case, yet to be determined, to the Supreme Court to hopefully strike down C14. (And with the current crop of Justices they may well do that.) Part of the strategy will be to try and ensure the environment around restrictions on assisted suicide will be so toxic -- courtesy of the merchants of death like the BC Civil Liberties folks and the death with dignity crowd stirring the pot -- that no Parliament will want to touch the issue. There will be no law. That's the goal of assisted suicide proponents. They are using the abortion template for a replay of the Canadian Supreme Court abortion decision in 1988. History really does repeat itself.

As I said earlier, while I was writing this blog entry this morning, the CBC revised the story. Now the story has the title "Assisted dying legislation faces new legal challenge: B.C. Civil Liberties Association to contest new law limiting right to to those nearing death." Link to the updated article can be seen here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bccla-assisted-dying-legislation-1.3654220

See how the story changed? Perhaps even the CBC saw how false their original rendition was and decided to revise. A bias too blatant? 

Mark


Saturday, June 25, 2016

CHRISTIAN EUTHANASIA FREE ZONES



Photo taken in 2006 while I
addressed Mother Teresa
House for the terminally,
Lansing, Michigan
Ten years ago I gave a keynote address to a fundraising banquet for Mother Teresa House for the terminally ill located in Lansing Michigan. (I have long feared North America would embrace euthanasia and assisted suicide of the sick and disabled.) My fears were well founded.

We need 'Mother Teresa Houses' across Canada -- euthanasia free zones. 

I am referring to a network of places that relieve suffering without eliminating the sufferer. Places faithful to Catholic teaching over morally corrupt laws and policies for assisted suicide/euthanasia. 

I am referring to Catholic hospices where medical killing (or referral to doctors willing to kill) does not ever happen even if threatened by government or professional medical organizations that pressure them to kill suicidal sick and disabled people.  

I am referring to courageous and resolute non-compliance with Canada's new euthanasia regime. 

We have come to the point where civil disobedience is the only legitimate response of faithful Christian doctors, nurses and pharmacists: Human laws regarding abortion and euthanasia in Canada are in direct violation of God's law not to kill, dating back into antiquity.

Perhaps this is the hour for our greatest Christian witness for the sanctity of human life, the care and protection of every person, and for proper end of life care, under the lordship of Jesus Christ. -- Mark


Thursday, June 23, 2016

EVANGELICAL LEADER ENDORSES HILLARY CLINTON?

Deborah Fikes
The Washington congressional newspaper The Hill carried a story  "Evangelical leader says Trump is 'un-Christian', supports Clinton."  See http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/284315-evangelical-leader-says-trump-is-un-christian-endorses  LifeNews.com carried a similar story reporting that Deborah Fikes of the World Evangelical Alliance has thrown support behind pro-abortion Hillary Clinton. (See "Evangelical leader endorses pro-abortion Hillary Clinton: "We're praying for sister-Hillary"" at http://www.lifenews.com/2016/06/22/evangelical-leader-endorses-pro-abortion-hillary-clinton-were-praying-for-sister-hillary/)

Really?! When I read this account of a prominent evangelical leader supporting abortion extremist Hillary Clinton for President of the United States, I was stunned. "We're praying for sister Hillary"? Who is "we're"? The World Evangelical Alliance or just Deborah Fikes? If they are praying for sister-Hillary's salvation then I will joint in their prayers. If, however, they (whoever they is?) are praying that sister-Hillary to win the election, ... they won't have my prayers. American Christians must not support a candidate they know will open the bloodied flood gates wider for abortion. They may not support Donald Trump but they must not support Hillary Clinton -- if the sanctity of human life still has meaning to them. 

Deborah Fikes is showing accommodation with the age and culture of death. Christians must not follow her example. If they will not stand resolutely for the value of all human life, pray tell, what will they stand for? Anything less is accommodation.


Francis Schaeffer
I am reminded of words of the profound 20th Century evangelical theologian Dr. Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984). In his last book The Great Evangelical Disaster, he wrote:

"Here is the great evangelical disaster -- the failure of the evangelical world to stand for truth as truth. There is only one word for this -- namely accommodation: the evangelical church has accommodated the spirit of the age. ... this accommodation has been costly, first in destroying the power of the Scriptures to confront the spirit of the age; second, in allowing the further slide of our culture. ... It is my firm belief that when we stand before Jesus Christ, we will find that it has been the weakness and accommodation of the evangelical group on the issues of the day that has been largely responsible for the loss of the Christian ethos which has taken place in the area of culture in our own country over the last forty to sixty years." (pp. 37-38)

The great man wrote those words 32 years ago. He would be horrified to see where North America has gone.  No where has this accommodation with the spirit of the age been more profound than in biblical Christianity and Life issues.


Brian Stiller
And so this morning I wrote an urgent email to Brian Stiller, World Ambassador for the World Evangelical Alliance, asking for clarification about Fikes' comments. I am concerned about my evangelical brothers and sisters. This is the text of my email:


"Hi Brian – LifeNews .com is reporting that Deborah Fikes of World Evangelical Alliance is endorsing Hillary Clinton. See http://www.lifenews.com/2016/06/22/evangelical-leader-endorses-pro-abortion-hillary-clinton-were-praying-for-sister-hillary/ Is this true? I’m confused. I hope it’s a misunderstanding and that the World Evangelical Alliance is not supporting a pro-abortion extremist such as Hillary Clinton. If this is simply Deborah Fikes speaking as an individual, please have her to clarify that her opinion does not represent WEA. If her views do represent the World Evangelical Alliance then the evangelical world needs to know this dramatic departure from defending the sanctity of human life! You know what Clinton will do in this regard if elected. Millions more children will die before they ever see the light of day!

It is better to endorse no candidate than a bad one. Please clarify.
In Christ’s service, 
Mark Pickup
North American Christian advocate for Life
and disability issues"

I will post Brian Stiller's reply. If Deborah Fikes was speaking only for herself in her endorsement of Hillary Clinton, and the 'we' she refers to does not include the World Evangelical Alliance, that needs to be clarified. Without a retraction, her continued association with WEA needs to be reassessed -- for the sake of the Alliance's credibility. 

Mark



Tuesday, June 21, 2016

FAMILY A SOURCE OF PROTECTION, IDENTITY AND SECURITY

Family is the greatest support and protection for humanity -- particularly in a world where a tide of migration has involved an estimated 65 million displaced people. Governments are often the problem not the solution. 


It is the cohesion of  inter-generational families that can provide the only sense of stability in a dangerous world that seems ever so unstable and tenuous for the most vulnerable: Elders, children and particularly family members with disabilities. Governments will come and go. The family unit remains.

I mentioned families with elders, children and disabilities. I know
The embrace of a grandson
first-hand the critically important role family plays in the lives of children and those who live with disabilities. I have been seriously disabled with aggressive multiple sclerosis (MS) for more than half my lifetime. My greatest support has been my family spanning four generations. This family dynamic has been the single most important feature to me. While welcome and needed, government support in the form of health and home care, have played a secondary role. It is with the family unit that I have been protected, loved, encouraged and found my identity and sense of self-worth. This must not be discounted or overlooked. My family understands this: My daughter and her husband are in the throes of adopting a child from Haiti. 


The proper role of government is to support families -- not replace them. 

Monday, June 20, 2016

BENEVOLENT GLOBAL VILLAGE IS A MYTH

The architects of a new world order often speak of a global village. Hillary Clinton tells us that it takes a village to raise a child. Are they speaking of the same village?

If there is a benevolent global village then where is it and why is so much of humanity exiled from it? If the world is so "connected" — as we are continually being told by high-tech gurus and new-age visionaries — then why do so many people feel cut off from meaningful relationships?
                     
In Africa we find countless orphans whose parents died from AIDS, other diseases or war. They wander the parched landscape, yet never find this village that is apparently so global.

If it takes a village to raise a child, where is it when the world's unloved children so desperately need it? They cry out for love yet receive none. They cry out from hunger yet go to bed unfed. They shiver throughout the nights for want of a blanket but remain uncovered and in a huddle waiting for death from starvation and neglect resulting mostly from lack of love.

They need the love of a real family, not the empty promises of a mythical village.

The cruel reality is that the secular vision of a global village does not exist — except in the minds of comfortable, well-fed people, when they happen to feel benevolent or sentimental.

GLOBAL VILLAGE MYTH                         

The global village is a myth. It is a myth because the brotherhood of man is impossible without the Fatherhood of God. Human benevolence that depends on feelings is a cheap, unreliable benevolence.

Feelings are unstable: They change based upon our mood or who
we've been talking to, the amount of sleep we've had or even something as minor as indigestion. People can become uncharitable (or vicious) over another driver who cuts them off in traffic or is driving too slow.

Our Lord told us that evil comes out of the human heart (Matthew 15.19; Mark 7.21). The same mouth that is capable of blessing others is also capable of cursing them. St. Paul said, "the sinful mind is hostile to God, It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do it" (Romans 8.7).

In the previous chapter of Romans, he said, "For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want." Even in a spiritual giant like St. Paul, his carnal nature reigned without the presence of Christ to set him free from his sinful nature. It's true for all humanity.

We readily accept a small measure of goodness in our dispositions but loathe to admit the badness. If you say to me, "You are such a kind, gracious and loving man," I will be inclined to feign humility and thank you in agreement. If, however, you accuse me of being harsh, callous or peevish, I'm apt to respond by blaming my bad behaviour on my disability, pain or a host of other excuses.

I probably will not take responsibility by saying, "You're right. I'm a nasty man. It's my deplorable nature." But if I were to be honest, that's exactly what I should say.

The Lord told Jeremiah that the human heart is desperately wicked. (I don't know about your heart, but mine certainly is.) Only through Christ am I capable of any lasting good.

Everyone needs a touch of God's love to cool and tame wicked thoughts of evil tendencies in their hearts - and subsequent actions (or inactions). Only through God's grace can human hearts change. Once this happens and we begin to live for Christ rather than ourselves, great things can happen.

COMPASSION BLOSSOMS

As our love for Christ deepens and matures, we will naturally begin to ache with compassion for other people, because Christ dwells in us and his heart aches with compassion for a lost and hurting world. This realization intensifies our desire to reflect Christ's love to those around us.

No longer must we rely on our own unstable and unreliable
benevolences based on feelings to serve other people. The Holy Spirit will convict us and keep a flame of compassion and commitment burning to continually serve our Lord.


The global village may not exist but I know the human family does and God is its Father. Let us go into the world to serve both.

Mark

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

CATHOLIC SOCIAL SERVICES: SOPHIA TALK ON ASSISTED SUICIDE

The Sophia Talks
Catholic Social Services (CSS) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, has embarked upon a series they call The Sophia Talks. Sophia Talks deal with various issues from a Catholic perspective. Below is the first such Sophia Talk (22 minutes) delivered by Rick Berube, Assistant Chaplain for CSS, April 2016.



CATHOLIC DISABILITY ADVOCATE INTERVIEW

This past spring, I was interviewed by Salt and Light TV, Canada’s Catholic television network. 
You can see the interview here http://saltandlighttv.org/catholicfocus/?f=end-of-life-human-life-matters

I am available speak in your diocese. Send an email to HumanLifeMatters@shaw.ca  

Mark 

(P.S. You can also read my recent keynote address to Catholic Social Services (Edmonton, Canada) here http://www.humanlifematters.org/2016/06/address-to-catholic-social-services.html )

Friday, June 10, 2016

WE MUST DECIDE WHAT WE WILL DO WITH THE TIME WE ARE GIVEN

I was recently speaking at a disability conference. Someone commented that I'm holding up extremely well after 32 years with MS that has been aggressive. I know, most people would be institutionalized or gone by now. There was a time when multiple sclerosis took me to the edge of quadriplegia; my situation was getting that serious! In fact, my neurologist put me on drastic, potentially life threatening therapy still in clinical study phase to try and prevent quadriplegia. Things were that dire. The therapy proved so toxic to me he stopped it early. Happily, the attack later subsided.

I am fortunate. The MS has not yet silenced me from speaking out on Life issues or confused moral clarity for me.


In whatever time I have left, I will continue to promote the equality, dignity and sanctity all human life from conception to natural death. North American society has abandoned its previous Christian moral consensus in favour of nihilism and narcissism. The foundations of the family have crumbled and marriage redefined. 


I wish I had not born into a time where unwanted or inconvenient children are killed before birth or suicidal sick and disabled people were not helped to kill themselves. (God help us in the dark and murderous future!) But there it is: I must respond to the situation I find myself in. Tolkein said it




Tuesday, June 7, 2016

ADDRESS TO CATHOLIC SOCIAL SERVICES RETREAT 2016

Below are speaking notes from a keynote address I gave on May 27th 2016 in Saint Albert, Alberta, to a retreat for senior managers of Catholic Social Services. -- Mark 

__________________


EMBRACING THE SANCTITY OF LIFE:
 Why all human life matters

Do you believe in universal human rights or only in certain human rights for certain people? Be careful how you answer that question.  To believe in universal human rights is a tall order. Universal human rights include everyone. After all that is what the word “Universal” means.

Universal adj. & n  • adj. 1. of, belonging to, or done etc. by all persons or things in the world or in the class concerned, allocable to all cases. 2. Logic (of a proposition) in which something is asserted of all of a class. • n. 1 Logic a universal proposition.  2 Philos a a term or concept of general application. b a nature or essence signified by a general term.                           
The Oxford Canadian Dictionary

Does every life human life have value or do only some lives have value? Are some lives matter more than other lives?  If so, Why? How gets to decide? Who gets to decides who gets to decide? Who is the final arbiter about which lives matter, have value and deserve protection and care? Perhaps you’re thinking, It is government or Supreme Courts? Are governments or Supreme Courts ever wrong?

I remember vividly in 1988 when the Canadian Supreme Court struck down Canada’s abortion. The next year and later in 1991 the Supreme Court declared the unborn child is not a person in law and the humanity of the preborn child irrelevant. Was this decision based upon scientific knowledge of life before birth?  No. Their arbitrary and oppressive decision was based upon ideology.  The simple fact is that human life begins when sperm fertilizes egg. This is not a philosophical or metaphysical contention: It has been plainly and clearly established by experimental evidence.  We’ve known this for many, many decades long before the law was struck down.

The world’s foremost authorities in genetics, medicine and biology have testified to this simple biological fact for years. They were willing to tell anyone who would listen. They appeared before governments in Canada and the United States – many under oath – testifying that human life begins with that spark of life we commonly call conception. You will see the quotes I have provided are old. It’s not that courts and governments did not know. They did not want to know the facts if they contradicted ideology supporting abortion.

This was not the first time Canada’s Supreme Court would make a morally wrong decision. In 1928, Canada’s Supreme Court declared that women were not legal persons.  Happily, five courageous women appealed that decision to the Privy Council in Britain. The oppressive and arbitrary decision was overturned on October 18th 1929.  

There have been times throughout history when governments and courts stripped certain groups of people of their personhood or refused to recognize there humanity.

There was a time when 1st nations people were not considered persons in order to take their land. There was a place and time when Jews were considered sub-human.  Such are critical defining moments when people who are called to be about God’s business and stand for what is right regardless of what any court or legislature or fashion may say.[1] 

There is a higher law that exists regardless of what man says. If that were not so then inalienable human rights could be taken away with a simple stroke of a legislative pen. Unless the idea of Inalienable and universal human rights are a hollow lie, there has to be a higher law that exists regardless of what politicians and corrupt judges say. It is critically important that Christians and other people of good will have a clear vision of what that is.

How you view the value of life will directly influence how you treat life.  You work for Catholic Social Services. Therefore, you work must reflect Catholic teaching.  At times that may run against the current of popular opinion or government policy.  

Your founder, Monsignor Bill Irwin operated that way.  Many years ago (it seems like an eternity now) I negotiated many federal government contracts with Father Bill for services of Catholic Social Services.  I knew that under his leadership, and his unwavering belief in the inherent value and dignity of all people, and his faith were what guided his behavior more than the fine points, addendums and schedules of any contract.  He always delivered more service than agreed to.

At a personal level, Fr. Bill was a good friend.  Our friendship was based upon our mutual commitment to the sanctity of human life. We often met for lunch, or he would come to my home for supper, and we would discuss ideas or problems in human service. Do you remember the loss of United Way funding when Catholic Social Services withdrew from their umbrella because of Planned Parenthood funding? Father Bill and I talked about his fear about the loss of funding.  God made up the difference from other sources.  

I remember back in the 1980s when AIDS has near the height of its public stigma, Fr. Bill talked with me over lunch about starting Kairos House.  He mentioned his concern that it might hurt CSS donations.  I asked him if he believed this was what he believed God wanted him to do. He said Yes, and he established Kairos House out on 149 Street. It still operates today.

Monsignor Bill also encouraged me in my pro-Life work. In 1997, at his recommendation, I received the inaugural Monsignor Bill Irwin Award for Ethical Excellence. When he was dying I was ushered into his hospital room to spend a few minutes alone with him. I thanked Father Bill for making the world a better place, for always seeing the image of God in every person. I thanked him for teaching me to look at people as made in the image of God.  I thanked Father Bill for being my mentor and friend.  Looking back, I only hope that in some small way I was a good friend to him.

I want you to carry Monsignor Bill Irwin’s perspective and understanding to your staff and volunteers.  Help them to see every person they serve as made in the image of God.  This fundamental spiritual truth is at the very foundation and essence of understanding the sanctity of human life. There is something sacred about every human life, regardless of their state, their circumstances, or what they have done.  

As you know, this is in keeping with Catholic teaching dating back to the 1st century. The concept of the sacredness of life goes back to the beginning human history. In the very first Chapter of the very first book of the Bible we read:

“Then God said, “Let us make mankind, in our likeness” (Genesis 1.26) and again in the next verse we read, “So God created humankind, in his image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (vrse 27) And immediate after God blesses them.

 
Do you notice that creation was not a solitary act. God speaks of “us” and “our image”. God speaks in plural. Who was he addressing?  He was speaking of the pre-incarnate Christ, the second member of the Trinity. The Apostle John tells this.  Speaking of Christ in the first chapter of his Gospel, John says:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of the world.” (John 1:1-5)

A few verses later the Apostle tells us, “and the Word (Christ) became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory.” (vrse 14) Why did Christ become flesh and live among us?  Divine love.

John quoted Jesus in the 3rd chapter of his Gospel “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (3.16) Salvation.

Pope John Paul II said they these words “express the very essence of Christian theology of salvation. Salvation means liberation from evil, … God gives his Son to “the world” to free man from evil, … . At the same time, the very word “gives” (“gave”) indicates this liberation must be achieved by the only-begotten Son through his suffering. And in this, love is manifested, the infinite love both of that only-begotten Son and of the Father who for this reason “gives” his Son. This is love for man, love for the “world”: it is salvific love.”[2]

What I’m trying to illustrate here in quoting Pope John Paul is not the salvation and eternal life Christ gained for humanity through faith (as pivotally important as that is!). I am using it as an example of the unfathomable divine love God has for humanity, His image bearers. Christ’s Incarnation, His life, Passion, crucifixion, death and resurrection are expressions of that love. 

In his 1995 Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae “The Gospel of Life” John Paul II began by saying “The Gospel of life is at the heart of Jesus message.” Two paragraphs later the Pontiff wrote “When he presents the heart of his redemptive mission, Jesus says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10.10). In truth, he is referring to that “new” and “eternal” which consists in communion with the Father, to which every person is freely called in the Son by the power of the Sanctifying Spirit.”[3] (the 3rd Member of the Trinity). Pope John Paul told us that it is precisely this life that Christ spoke of that all aspects and stages of human life realize their full significance.

At the center of Scripture and Catholic teaching is the foundational truth of God’s immense love for all humanity: The Creator for the created, the Sanctifier for the sanctified.

Humanity is called a fullness of life by sharing in the life of God which reveals dimensions that transcend their earthly existence. This is an exceedingly marvelous mystery of spiritual transformation we are all called to.[4]  But transformed to what?

The Apostle Paul told us, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, …[5] 

Elsewhere Paul says we are called to a holy purpose for which we were destined before time began and was revealed by Christ’s appearing.[6] That takes back to Genesis and God giving us His image.[7] That image develops by being conformed to image of Christ.  We are called to be perfect just as our Father in heaven is perfect.


The way of perfection is to do the will of God and to love Him with our whole being (which always works in concert with love for those around us). I am referring the Greatest commandment which Jesus identified as this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang the law and the prophets.”[8]


Paul tells us that love for our neighbour (humanity) is the fulfillment of the law.[9] The Catholic Church teaches that all Christians are called to fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of love and holiness.[10]  There is an underlying theme of salvation that invokes love and the natural dignity of human life.
The inward expression of this love toward God is a reflection and spiritual refining of his image within us. The outward expression toward other people of God’s love can encourage the natural human dignity that was naturally theirs from their beginning when life began and the image and likeness of God was endowed upon them. 
The dignity of the human person requires the pursuit of the common good. Everyone should be concerned to create and support institutions that improve the conditions of human life.[11]

The magisterium of the Catholic Church teaches that “society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority.[12]


The common good involves the lives of all from conception to natural death.  The common good must vigorously affirm the sanctity and inviolability of every human life and never affirms death. 


God is indeed the God of the living and the dead, but He takes no delight death. Death is the result of Original sin.  All that is Catholic must always uphold the value and inviolability of human. This begins when human life begins.  Human life must be respected, nurtured and protected from the moment of conception. From the first moment of its existence every a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.[13]


Procured Abortion is a moral evil.  This has always been the position of the Catholic Church. It has not changed for 2,000 years. It is unchangeable.[14]


As agents of the Catholic Church you must reflect the moral integrity of its teachings in this regard. The dignity of the human person is rooted in his or her creation in the image and likeness of God.[15]  Both mother and child are equal sharers in that image. 
God’s love envelopes them both. We are to reflect that love.  You must always create environments and supports that encourage people to reach their fullest potential in their circumstances and situations. Reaching one person’s fullest potential must never entail killing another life.


Now you will hearof oft touted refrain, “What about in cases of rape, incest or risk to the mother’s life?” Well first of all, taken together abortion for cases of rape, incest and risk to the mother’s life, put together only account for less than 5% of all abortions.  Abortions are performed for reasons of of the child being inconvenient or unwanted.  Now, let’s take those extreme cases one by one:

Rape: Will abortion take away the violence of the rape? No. I submit to you it only perpetuates violence.   In my 30 years speaking on Life issues across Canada and the U.S., I have encountered women who said that abortion only complicated and hampered their emotional healing.  It has nothing to do with justice. What kind of justice makes the child pay for the crime of its father? I have met many people who were the conceived through rape.  Should they not have been here?  Our response to rape must be compassion and the tender embrace in the collective arms of community for mother and child that including support for adoption services, if that is what the mother chooses.


The same applies to cases of incest. In terms of risk to the life of the mother, I have asked a number of medical experts about this. One was professor of obstetrics at a major Canadian university. He told me that with the exception of ectopic pregnancy, he could not think of one circumstance where abortion was the only solution to a medical problem.  Another OBGYN who worked at a high risk pregnancy clinic in New York City said something similar. They treat the mother’s condition until the baby can survive outside the womb then terminated the pregnancy with the goal to save mother and child.


To hold up the innate value of all human life in every state and stage from conception to natural death: It’s a pretty daunting task, but there you have it.  You are called to a profound respect of every human being with the guiding principle that “everyone should look upon his neighbour (without any exception) as ‘another self,’ bearing in mind his life and the means necessary for living with dignity.” This becomes more urgent and pressing when our neighbour is disadvantaged, in their circumstances. [16]


Then we encounter the incurably ill and disabled, the Church teaches they deserve our special respect. You must help the sick and disabled to live lives as normally as possible.[17] This may involve housing, education, recreation, employment assistance, respite services for families of profoundly disabled people in their care.


With regards to people in comatose states – that which is commonly referred to as persistent vegetative state, we are called to special care ministries. I detest the derogatory term describing people as vegetables or being in persistent vegetative. People are never vegetables any more than they are fruits: Those terms are meant to demean their humanity. And Pope John Paul II was also of the same opinion. In his 2004 address to the INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON “LIFE SUSTAINING TREATMENTS AND VEGETATIVE STATE, the Pontiff said the term “vegetative” is demeaning to a patient’s value and personal dignity. In a rebuke to the title of the conference he said,

“I feel the duty to reaffirm strongly that the intrinsic value and personal dignity of every human being do not change, no matter the concrete circumstances of his or her life. A man, even if seriously ill or disabled in the exercise of his highest functions, is and always will be a man, and he will never become a “vegetable” or an animal.” [Italics in the original.]


The Pope  told they conference emphatically that the comatose retain their full human dignity and must be treated as such. They have a right to basic health care that include nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc. The love gaze of our God continues to fall upon them. Caregiver must keep that in mind.


The pope said the administration of food and water – even if provided by artificial means – still represents ordinary care and not viewed as a medical act. Death by starvation and dehydration is euthanasia by omission.


Regarding euthanasia, the Church teaches that it is morally unacceptable. Our Catechism says:


“Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable. Thus an act of omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his creator.”[18]

This is very important to someone, like me, with a degenerative and incurable disease. I want to know that my care givers respect the dignity of my person, even if I have ceased to believe in my own natural human dignity.


Someone is probably thinking, surely in cases of excruciating uncontrolled pain! There is no reason to be in excruciating uncontrollable pain in the 21st Century. If you know someone dying in great pain, they don’t need suicide, they need a new doctor.


Dr. John Scott is a palliative care physician at the Ottawa Hospital. He has said,


“The World Health Organization has demonstrated that access to pain-relieving drugs, along with a simple educational program, can achieve relief in the vast majority of patients. Specialists in various parts of the world estimate these basic approaches can control 85 to 98 percent of cases. The remaining cases require more careful attention and use of multiple drugs and therapies to achieve complete relief.”[19] [emphasis added.]


Those words were written in 1995. How much more refined has pain relief medications and therapies become in the last 21 years? A great deal. In fact, a few weeks ago I had a conversation with Dr. Margaret Cottle, a palliative care specialist in Vancouver. She verified what Dr. Scott wrote and spoke about the latest dazzling advances in palliative medicine. People do not need to die in physical pain. But that is only one type of pain, isn’t it?
I have suffered physical, emotional and spiritual pain. It is my experience the worst suffering is emotional and spiritual. My physical symptoms were easiest to reach and treat.


Be careful of language.  Those who control language shape attitudes and set agendas.  Effective use of words that disguise evil can muddle good people’s power of thoughtful discernment. Hitler and Nazi officials knew this. They believed that they could manipulate public opinion by manipulating language with propaganda including euphemisms, name calling, fear and creating a bandwagon effect.

We must ask where do euphemisms come from and why they were coined? Euphemisms are intended to disguise something.

“Medical aid in dying” is meant to give an air of medical legitimacy killing the incurably ill whereas the word euthanasia still makes many people recoil. Cloak lethal injection of the sick with clever euphemisms … and it is still murder.

The phrase Death with dignity is designed to give the impression of compassion to euthanasia and assisted suicide.


Death with dignity is not achieved by injecting someone with poison when they are at their lowest point or starving or dehydrating them to death. That is abandonment not dignity. Let me tell you something about death with dignity: It is not an event rather the end of a process of having lived with dignity.


There is talk about quality of life, or the lack of it. But standards for quality of life change over time. When I was 25 years old, I was healthy and able-bodied, with an active family life. I had an upwardly mobile career that was just beginning to show promise for the future. If some clairvoyant told me back then that within a few years all that would be gone. I would be disabled, and ultimately be wheelchair-dependent, that my career would be over by the time I was thirty-eight, I would have said I don’t want it! There’s no quality of life in that! And yet today, at the age of sixty-three my life does have quality. What gives my life quality today is love: To love and be loved.


Mercy killing is not mercy. Providing pain relief is mercy. I’ve heard people say that we put a dog out of its misery, why not people. First of all, I’m not a dog. Secondly we wouldn’t tolerate a dog mean starved or dehydrated to death, yet we do that to people. The animal-man analogy is only used to justify killing.
The great Christian thinker, Malcolm Muggeridge, had this to say about mercy killing:


“Jesus healed the sick, raised Lazarus from the dead, gave back sanity to the deranged, but never did He practice, or include, killing as part of the mercy that occupied his heart. His true followers cannot but adopt the same attitude.”


This is a dangerous time for people like me. Our lives are being devalued with increasing acceptance of assisted suicide and euthanasia for the severely disabled and incurably ill.


I’m being told that killing myself is a right. According to numerous polls nearly 80% of my fellow Canadian citizens even agree with the idea of me being helped to kill myself if I become suicidal but am too disabled to do it by my own hand. Thanks to the Supreme Court that will soon be a reality.  At the same time, they also agree that healthy Canadians who become suicidal should get suicide prevention counselling.  In fact, in October of 2012, Parliament gave unanimous support to the idea of establishing a National Suicide Prevention Strategy. The current Prime Minister supported it, and yet here we are four years later and that the government under Justin Trudeau is about to legalize assisted suicide for people like me. (Incidentally, I meet all the criteria for assisted suicide under C-14, the bill they euphemistically call “Medically assisted dying”. Medically assisted dying is actually called palliative care not assisted suicide.


So under the new regime, healthy suicidal Canadians will receive suicide prevention counselling and people like me will get assisted suicide. Why the difference? Let me tell you bluntly say why Most Canadians think healthy and able-bodied people are worth more than sick and incurably ill people.


Quite frankly, our lives are often seen as unworthy of living.
That may be the way of the world, but it must not be the way of Christ’s followers. We are supposed to change society not society change us.


Society holds up personal autonomy and independence as the highest right. If you value community they are not the highest right. The idea of independent personal autonomy is diametrically opposed to the concept of interdependent community.  If I choose suicide (assisted or otherwise) it will not affect just me. It will affect my wife, children, and grandchildren. It will affect my doctor because I will ask her to cease being my healer and become my killer. It will affect my community, and it will affect my nation by further entrenching the notion there are some lives unworthy of living.  


Assisted suicide kills twice. It kills human connections of the suicidal person when others agree to help them kill themselves. The second death is the deed itself. (There is actually a third death. It is the death of conscience and humanity in the person who assists in the suicide.)


Assisted suicide is an affront to justice, hope and charity. It puts in peril vulnerable people who are yet to come.


No matter how sick I become I still have a responsibility to the Common Good of society. I have a right to expect the best palliative care available and those things that will foster life with dignity even at its end.


I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1984. I went from being a healthy and athletic man to what you see today. In the first ten years with MS, the disease was horrible and terrifying. I would go to bed at night not knowing what function I would wake up with or without and no guarantee lost function would return or how much if it did. Symptoms could last days, months and even years. It was like a terrifying roller coaster ride.

-        I would lose the use of my legs, or my right arm.
-        I would lose sensation and be unable to distinguish hot from cold or sharp from blunt.
-        My vision was affected and so was my hearing.
-        I would lose my ability to speak and be reduced to mumbling and drooling.
-        I would lose bowel or bladder function and dirty myself.
-        I had a crippling fatigue and I still do.

All of these attacks would come with no guarantee I would get back lost function. I went from being healthy, able-bodied and athletic to walking on a cane, two canes, then crutches, then a wheelchair or scooter. It was awful!


At about the 2-3 year point in my downhill slide with MS, my grief was so profound and unimaginable, my sorrow so deep, my heartache so sharp, that my judgment was clouded. If assisted suicide had been available in the mid-1980s, and if I not had been enveloped in the love of God and my wife, LaRee, I may have taken my life, at a low point. I am so glad now that did not happen. I would never have known my 5 grandchildren. (We never know what tomorrow may bring.) I needed to safely grieve with the freedom to cry out, and not be helped with a death wish I might have expressed at my lowest point.

I can tell you from personal experience: People need to grieve a loss. They need to know that there are people around them who will uncompromisingly hold up the value of their lives – even if they cease to believe in their own value. A person grieving catastrophic disability or incurable illnesses needs help to rediscover their natural human dignity when they have lost sight of it.


My journey through chronic illness and disability involved a re-discovery of the natural human dignity that is the possession of every human life beginning when they began.


An individual with a severe disability or incurable illness must ultimately turn to the spiritual aspect of life (in as much is cognitively possible) – if they are to discovery meaning of their anguish. It involves seriously internalizing the source of human dignity – that which sets humans apart from the rest of creation.

Humanity is not defined by knowledge or power. We do not get our worth by what we can do, our abilities or sentience; it comes from merely being.

For those of us who are severely disabled ― and are able to seek the revelation of God’s divine love ― we must be open to letting God use our pain, anguish and trials as a vehicle to spiritually mature us and transform us to be more like Christ. This is important because, as this transformation as begins to change us, we will discover our natural human dignity.

It was important for me to resist the temptation to become bitter, not focus on my predicament, and simply surrender again to that divine love of Christ.

Through my Redeemer’s outstretched arms on the cross, he invited me to unite my suffering with his suffering. Imagine that! I was invited into Christ’s redemptive suffering. He suffered in my place and here I was invited into His redemptive act. I was being called to relinquish to Christ ownership of my pain and understand that I truly poor in spirit. Jesus said “Blessed are the poor in spirit , for theirs is the kingdom of God. Understanding I was poor in spirit is a key for it marked a critical transition point in my acceptance of suffering and stop resisting what I could not control.; it required that a shift take place in my spiritual mindset in order to realize that in this earthly life it is more important to understand than to be understood. I was being called to set aside self-interest, and ego, and follow Christ with complete abandon. This is the absolute antithesis of my egotistical and self-absorbed nature. But Christ was calling me, in my sorrow and pain, to transcend beyond myself by uniting my suffering with His at the Cross (just he calls you to transcend yourself).

Our response to the suffering of Christ at Calvary removes the ultimate suffering which the loss of eternal life. He asks you and me to take up our cross and follow Him.

It is not easy to be willing to take up my cross but it is necessary, if truth means anything. Perhaps that is why our Lord said we must take up our cross daily. It requires a daily recommitment to bear up the weight of my cross and follow Him. But follow Him where? In my weakness I have been so irrationally afraid to take up my cross and following Christ because I feared it might lead me to a Golgotha! Yet the logic of divine love assures me I can rest in His tender embrace as a child of God. But I am unable to become a child of God without divine intervention; Saint John said this at the beginning of his Gospel: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1.12)
 
If I carry my cross of suffering in union with Christ’s redemptive suffering it does not lead to a Golgotha: It led to my realization that Christ can use human suffering to bring us closer to Him, if we will accept it.[20]

Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Roman 8.18.) Paul’s comment about the “glory that will be revealed in us” is a reference to the future resurrection of the body (v. 23) and the subsequent complete Christ-likeness which is the believer’s eternal glory.

It is a mystery to us because we cannot yet see the full picture in our present state. But we are assured that it is Jesus Christ who will transform our lowly body to be conformed to His glorious body. He is able to subdue all things to Himself.

He told us that we were saved for our certain hope of Resurrection of the body which we do not see but wait for with perseverance (8.23-25). Perhaps you may think “It’s too hard”. I know that fearful doubt of weakness – but Paul assured us that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness and even intercedes for us (verse 26). Christ’s redemptive suffering at the Cross and death is completed by the cosmic eloquence and beauty of the Resurrection. We are invited into that redemptive act for we will be like Christ. This is not theory. It is reality.

Suffering in unison with Christ helped me see Resurrection in a new light. My hope in, and anticipation of, the Resurrection helps me go through my dark days of humiliations, my agonies, my doubts and my fears. Throughout the ages Christ has opened his sufferings to humanity.

We can, through faith, discover that Christ’s redemptive suffering gives us insights and meaning in our own suffering.

I am convinced it what Saint Paul meant when he wrote,

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

A flood of hope rooted in divine love produces in the sufferer the marvelous realization that he is mysteriously being transformed for heaven. If we are open in our suffering to Christ’s love it will inevitable begin a spiritual transformation.


I have discovered that Christ grants a special grace that transcends my suffering. Suffering carries the capacity to strip aware all things unnecessary in life, leaving only that which is essential. Suffering taught me that at the center of existence rests a heartrending and beautiful mystery. Once that mystery is glimpsed, everything else becomes an irrelevance, a diversion. That mystery is the light of Christ. Many people throughout history have discovered this truth, including Saint Francis of Assisi, John Milton, John Donne, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and millions of ordinary people.

It is possible to experience an illumination that enables the sufferer to begin to comprehend the glorious, transforming liberty of the children of God, even though we are being physically destroyed. I think this is the liberty Saint Paul referred to in his second letter to the Corinthians:

“Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.  Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,  are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

People in dire and miserable physical circumstances can and have experienced shades of this liberty. In any human context they may not appear to experience liberty whatsoever!
But out of their wretched surroundings can come salvation and Joy.

It has been in my sickroom that I began to discover union with Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection. A great light began to push back the inky darkness of my defeat to reveal to me a renewed hope in Christ. My world gets smaller each year as my body slowly turns into a living carcass yet my hope in Christ grows.

Isn’t this the essence of what Paul said:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Christ’s truth can (and does) set people free, even today. He said:

If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

The truth is Jesus Christ. In Him there is hope. Our eternal hope lies with nowhere else.


And that brings me to the point of what I want to say. Our society has turned from its Christian heritage. That is why our moral foundations are crumbling before our eyes. We must bear witness to Christ. We must join together with other followers of Jesus Christ, arm in arm, and strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost.

Perhaps someone is thinking that people don’t want to hear about the hope of our Christian message. Perhaps not. But we still must take that message to the world around us whether in season or out of season. (see 2Timothy 4.2). It is better to lose in a cause of life that is right than win in a cause of killing, which is wrong.

We have a message of Divine love in Jesus Christ. If there is hope for us, it ultimately lies in Him. Let His love shine through what you do. Pray that you may always see the image of God in every person you meet and serve.




[1] See Acts 5.29.                                                                                           
[2] APOSTOLIC LETTER SALVIFICI DOLORIS OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF JOHN PAUL II TO THE BISHOPS, TO THE PRIESTS, TO THE RELIGIOUS  FAMILIES AND TO THE FAITHFUL OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE CHRISTIAN MEANING OF HUMAN SUFFERING, 11 February 1984, IV 14. 
[3] Encyclical Letter THE GOSPEL OF LIFE: Evangelium Vitae, 1995, Introduction, 1.
[4] CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, Nos. 2014-2015 Cf. 774.
[5] Roman 8.28-29.  Cp. CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, Nos. 2012.
[6] 2 Timothy 1.9. cf. Romans 16.25
[7] CCC. No 1700.
[8] Matthew 22.37-40. Cf. Leviticus 19.18.
[9] Romans 13.9-10. Cf. 1 Corinthians 13; Matthew 7.12.
[10] CCC. No.2013
[11] CCC. No. 1926.
[12] CCC. No. 1928.
[13] CCC. No. 2270                                                                    
[14] CCC. 2271.
[15] CCC. 1700, Cf. 356.
[16] CCC, 1931. Cf. 1973-1974.
[17] CCC. 2276.
[18] CCC. 2277.
[19] John Scott, “FEAR AND FALSE PROMISES: The Challenge of Pain in the Terminally Ill” in EUTHANASIA AND ASSISTED SUICIDE: The Current Debate, ed. Ian Gentles (Toronto: Stoddart Publishing, 1995) p.96.
[20] Much of this section was inspired by John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris, The Gospel of Suffering, written in 1984, the same year I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It has been a source of comfort and consolation to me.