Catholic Hospitals

In your article “When Church and Medicine Clash” (Feb. 2), there is a serious misrepresentation of Catholic teaching and practice. In several places this article wrongly implies or states that Catholics are obliged to do everything possible to sustain life and must even limit pain medication if it would shorten the life of a dying person. This seriously misrepresents Catholic teaching and practice.

Catholic medical ethics has been reflecting on such questions for over four centuries and there is an unwavering tradition. Life is indeed seen as a sacred gift, but so too is death sacred. Catholic teaching says, for example, that medical treatment should be stopped when, in the judgment of the patient, it no longer offers the prospect of overall benefit. Catholic teaching explicitly urges appropriate management of pain, even if this requires amounts of medication that will predictably shorten a dying patient’s life. Catholic hospitals have tended to be leaders in U.S. health care in putting these principles into practice. Patients who want to have a voice in limiting treatment and to have their pain adequately managed should find Catholic hospitals to be strong allies on both of these counts.

JOHN W. GLASER, Director

Center for Health Care Ethics

St. Joseph Health System, Orange