In just a few days, from 16 to 17 November, the newly reformed Pontifical Academy for Life will host a conference in Rome on the topic of “End-of-Life Questions.” (Nota Bene: the event is already closed.) One of the announced speeches’ title is: “Euthanasia in the Netherlands: Balancing autonomy and compassion.” As this title indicates, the message of this new Vatican event might well be more heterodox than loyal Catholics would desire. The World Medical Association is co-hosting this event. Significantly, the Pontifical Academy for Life itself has not yet advertised this upcoming conference on its website.
As the World Medical Association has announced, however, the Rome conference is meant to be a meeting of both proponents and critics of euthanasia:
The conference at the Vatican is being held jointly by the WMA [World Medical Association], the German Medical Association and the Pontificia Academia pro Vita. Dr. Frank Ulrich Montgomery, vice chair of the WMA, said the two-day event would include speakers from countries that support legislation on euthanasia and others that oppose physician participation in such practices. They will include leading medical professionals, legal authorities, experts in palliative care and medical ethics, theological scholars and philosophers. They will debate the different policies on these issues, explore patient rights and treatment limitations, and consider public opinion regarding end-of-life questions.
It is highly questionable for a Vatican conference to give such scope to supporters of euthanasia. As Giuseppe Nardi, the well-informed Vatican specialist at Katholisches.info, reported on 13 November, there will be speakers present who are supporting either euthanasia or the killing of the unborn. (The Italian Catholic website La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana has also reported on this serious matter.)
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia will open the conference. (Pope Francis himself will send a message to the audience.) Paglia will be followed by, among other speakers, René Héman, who is the President of the Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG). Héman is a strong defender of euthanasia, as is the Royal Dutch Medical Association itself. On the KNMG website, one can easily find their pro-euthanasia position. Two representatives of the KNMG published an article [PDF link] by the World Medical Journal [scroll down to ‘publications’ on this page to see the link in context] last month with the title of Héman’s announced speech: “Euthanasia in the Netherlands: Balancing autonomy and compassion.” Even though this article is authored by other people, it is meant to be a preparation for this Rome event. The article promotes and defends the practice of euthanasia.
It seems the World Medical Association, which is at this point still publicly opposed to euthanasia, is in the process of reassessing its own current stand. Thus the Rome conference, as well as other additional events being held internationally. Therefore, the Vatican appears poised to give a platform to a deeply controversial discussion, and in so doing, may well give considerable attention to supporters of euthanasia.
René Héman, who will speak at the Rome conference, is not alone in his support of end-of-life clinics. In addition to other speakers such as Anne de La Tour, Stefano Semplici, and Heidi Stensmyren, the conference will also feature a speaker who is a member of Planned Parenthood. Dr. Yvonne Gilli, a member of the Green Party in Switzerland, will speak about “Assisted Suicide in Switzerland: Practice and Challenges.” Gilli is the President of the Council of the Swiss organization Sexual Health Switzerland (Sexuelle Gesundheit Schweiz) which is a member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
Another speaker, Professor Ralf Jox, of the Institute of Ethics, History and Theory of Medicine in Munich, is a medical doctor who also supports, according to Nardi, the idea of assisting people in their wish to die. He collaborated with colleagues in 2014 to bring about a law in Germany with that intention. He then said: “Anyone who is serious about protecting life must put in place rules for responsible assisted suicide.”
La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana also comments upon this new Vatican event, speaking of certain “diabolical positions” that will be presented, saying, as well, that “a great confusion is being fostered” concerning certain fundamental principles “that have to be defended without any compromise.”
In light of this upcoming conference as organized by the re-organized and reformed Pontifical Academy for Life (PAL) (which now has a defender of abortion as one of its members), the recently announced foundation of the new John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family (JAHLF) — founded by former PAL life member Professor Josef Seifert — appears all the more necessary as a counterbalancing force.
UPDATE: OnePeterFive was able to unofficially obtain the program of this Euthanasia Conference in Rome. We herewith post it as a whole:
_________________________________________________________
WMA European Region Meeting on End-of-Life Questions
16-17 November 2017
Aula Vecchia del Sinodo, Vatican
Foreword
Welcome to the World Medical Association’s European Region Meeting on End-of-Life Questions, jointly organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life, the World Medical Association and the German Medical Association.
Many countries around the world have increasingly faced crucial policy debates about euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide and end-of-life issues in recent years. Life-saving improvements in medical technology and increasing life expectancy have brought these issues to the fore in the global medical profession, its representative organizations, and consequently the World Medical Association (WMA).
Given the range of approaches to these issues embraced by some of the 114 member organizations of the WMA, it is only natural for end-of-life questions to be actively explored and analyzed in the development of policy papers, as well as in the context of the WMA’s annual in-person meetings.
To build upon these vibrant discussions and lay bare the current state of debate in various parts of the world, the WMA, prompted by its Medical Ethics Committee, initiated a series of regional conferences to be held in cities on nearly all continents, including Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, and now, the Vatican City for the European region.
Here in this two-day conference in the historic Aula Vecchia del Sinodo, we will hear from medical professionals, legal authorities, experts in palliative care and medical ethics, theological scholars and philosophers who will share their insights on a broad spectrum of opinions on end-of-life issues from a uniquely European perspective.
In the spirit of openness, respect and exchange, we welcome you, the audience, to contribute your voice to this dialogue on one of the most deeply personal issues faced by medical professionals worldwide.
Prof. Dr Frank Ulrich Montgomery
President
German Medical Association
Msgr. Renzo Pegoraro
Chancellor
Pontifical Academy for Life
Day 1 – Thursday, 16 November 2017
08:15 Doors open for registration and admission – please arrive early to pass through security
Chair: Dr Ramin Parsa-Parsi, Head of the Department for International Affairs, German Medical Association
Chair: Dr Matilde Leonardi, Scientific Director, Coma Research Centre, Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan
09:00 – 09:45 Welcome
WMA: Dr Yoshitake Yokokura, President, World Medical Association
GMA: Prof. Dr Frank Ulrich Montgomery, President, German Medical Association
Message from Pope Francis, delivered by one of his delegates
PAV: Archbishop Msgr. Vincenzo Paglia, President, Pontifical Academy for Life
09:45 – 11:00 I. Setting the stage: Three perspectives on end-of-life questions
End-of-life questions: Perspectives from the global medical profession
Prof. Dr Frank Ulrich Montgomery, President, German Medical Association; Vice-Chair, World Medical Association
Euthanasia in the Netherlands: Balancing autonomy and compassion
Dr René Héman, Chairman, Royal Dutch Medical Association
Assisted suicide in Switzerland: Practice and challenges
Dr Yvonne Gilli, Board Member, Swiss Medical Association
Immediate questions (to be continued in plenary panel discussion on Friday in session VIII)
11:00 – 11:30 Coffee break
11:30 – 13:00 II. Theological approaches
Suffering at the end of life. Christian references and their use.
Prof. Marie-Jo Thiel, Director, European Centre for Teaching and Research in Ethics, and Professor of Ethics and Moral Theology, University of Strasbourg
End-of-life questions from the Jewish perspective
Dr Riccardo Di Segni, Rabbino Capo, Comunità Ebraica di Roma
Ethical evaluation of end-of-life questions from the Islamic perspective
Prof. Dr Ilhan Ilkilic, Professor and chair of the Department of History of Medicine and Ethics, Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine
An Orthodox perspective on suffering at the end of life
Dr Daniela Mosoiu, Director for Education and National Development, Hospice “Casa Sperantei”
Discussion
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
Chair: Dr Andrew Dearden, Treasurer and Council Member, British Medical Association
Chair: Prof. Dr Carlos Centeno, Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Clínica Universidad de Navarra
14:00 – 14:45 III. Delineating euthanasia and PAS in the systems of Common and Roman Law
Euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide and the common law
Prof. John Keown, Professor of Christian Ethics, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University
Euthanasia and PAS
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Volker Lipp, Professor of Civil Law, Civil Procedure, Medical Law and Comparative Law, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen; Member of GMA’s Central Ethics Committee
Discussion
14:45 – 15:00 IV. Guide on the decision-making process regarding medical treatment in end-of-life situations
Guide on the decision-making process regarding medical treatment in end-of-life situations
Dr Laurence Lwoff, Head of Bioethics Unit, Human Rights Directorate, Council of Europe
15:00 – 15:30 Coffee break
15:30 – 17:00 V. Compassionate use and conscientious objection
Is medical assistance in dying a platitudinous medical treatment?
Prof. Dr Leonid Eidelman, President, Israeli Medical Association
Conscientious objections in end-of-life care
Prof. Chris Gastmans, Professor of Medical Ethics, University of Leuven
Medical compassion at the end of life
Prof. Pablo Requena, MD, STD, Professor of Moral Theology, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Delegate of the Vatican Medical Association to the WMA
Discussion
17:00 Closing
18:15 Tour of Vatican Museum (Meet at Sant’ Anne Gate), followed by Gala Dinner in the Vatican Museum
Day 2 – Friday, 17 November 2017
Chair: Dr Heidi Stensmyren, President, Swedish Medical Association
Chair: Prof. Stefano Semplici, Past Chair, UNESCO International Bioethics Committee
9:00 – 9:15 Welcome and recap of first day
Dr Otmar Kloiber, Secretary General, World Medical Association
9:15 – 10:15 VI. Is there a right to determine one’s own death?
Is there a right to determine one’s own death? – The ethical perspective(s)
Prof. Dr Urban Wiesing, Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Tuebingen
Right to live, right to die?
Prof. Dr Christiane Druml, Chairperson of the Austrian Bioethics Commission and UNESCO Chair of Bioethics at the Medical University of Vienna
On rights and risks: The case against physician assisted suicide and killing on demand
Prof. Dr Stephan Sahm, Director Medical Clinic I, Ketteler Hospital, Offenbach, Professor, Institute for History and Ethics in Medicine, Frankfurt University
Immediate questions (to be continued in plenary panel discussion in the afternoon in session
VIII)
10:15 – 11:00 VII. Treatment limitations vs. euthanasia. End stage decisions about medication, feeding and terminal sedation
Sedation, nutrition, hydratation at the end of life: How to decide?
Dr Anne de la Tour, President of the French Society of Palliative Care, Argenteuil
As in all other clinical situations: Choose effective treatment with minimal risks
Dr Gunnar Eckerdal, Dept. of Oncology, Sahlgrenska University Hospital
Discussion
11:00 – 11:30 Coffee break
Day 2 – Friday, 17 November 2017 [afternoon]
11:30 – 13:00 VIII. Dealing with public and published opinions
A patient’s perspective – First notes
Dr Marco Greco, President, European Patients’ Forum
The Finnish experience of the public debate
Dr Heikki Pälve, Past CEO, Finnish Medical Association
End-of-life and public discourse in democratic society
Prof. Ralf J. Jox, Institute for Ethics, History and Theory of Medicine, University of Munich; Geriatric Palliative Care, University Hospital Lausanne
Portraying assisted suicide and euthanasia
Baroness Ilora Finlay, Professor of Palliative Medicine, Cardiff University; Crossbench Peer, House of Lords
Discussion
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
Chair: Dr Ardis Hoven, Chair of Council, World Medical Association
Chair: Prof. John Keown, Professor of Christian Ethics, Kennedy Institute of Ethics
14:00 – 15:30 IX. Is there a need to change policy? – Plenary panel discussion
Panelists:
Dr Yvonne Gilli, Board Member, Swiss Medical Association
Dr Matilde Leonardi, Scientific Director, Coma Research Centre, Istituto Neurologico Carlo Best, Milan
Prof. Dr Urban Wiesing, Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Tuebingen
Prof. Dr Stephan Sahm, Director Medical Clinic I, Ketteler Hospital, Offenbach, Professor,
Institute for History and Ethics in Medicine, Frankfurt University
Dr René Héman, Chairman, Royal Dutch Medical Association
Prof. Dr Frank Ulrich Montgomery, President, German Medical Association
15:30 Closing remarks
Archbishop Msgr. Vincenzo Paglia, President, Pontifical Academy for Life
15:35 Coffee and farewell
Please see here also now a link to the program on the WMA website.
The post has been updated, with an added link and additional information on the event.
Dr. Maike Hickson, born and raised in Germany, studied History and French Literature at the University of Hannover and lived for several years in Switzerland where she wrote her doctoral dissertation. She is married to Dr. Robert Hickson, and they have been blessed with two beautiful children. She is a happy housewife who likes to write articles when time permits.
Her articles have appeared in American and European journals such as Catholicism.org, LifeSiteNews, The Wanderer, Culture Wars, Catholic Family News, Christian Order, Apropos, and Zeit-Fragen.
All hail the mission of the New Church: Dialogue with all non believers with the purpose of converting the Church to their atheistic positions.
Yes father, with each new (daily) step, they makes it clear, what their main goal is,- the New church.
The anti-church, who belongs and should work for their (New) world.
Is it not too obvious actually? Who they really are and what they are really doing.
Your heart must be breaking for our beloved Holland
You can’t even imagine,… neither I can express it with the words…
Yes, I agree. It’s almost laughable that they take themselves so seriously. Like this is really an issue that needs to be discussed and decided on. It’s such a problem in society. We need to figure it out!!
It would be laughable if it wasn’t such a horror.
I wonder, Father, if the practice of euthanasia will be adopted for the elderly and mentally unstable of Vatican City?
Well said, Father.
A Pope who hailed abortionist Emma Bonino (who boasted of carrying out 10k illegal abortions) as ‘one of Italy’s forgetting greats’ and convinced leftist is unlikely to strongly oppose abortion and Euthanasia, in spite of published statements upholding Church teaching. PF seems to be a polar opposite of JP2, let alone any Popes before the Robber Council.
Question: What is going on in Belgium with the Brothers who are killing mentally ill patients in the name of compassion?
Does anyone know of the status?
They were summoned to Rome and it seems the story went dead on another Catholic website.
I would very much appreciate any information.
Here, on Caholic Herald, two days ago:
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/09/12/belgian-brothers-of-charity-defy-vatican-over-euthanasia/
See also this news from yesterday, from the neighbor country who is another extreme in leading people into DEATH, instead of taking care of and assuring welfare for its inhabitants:
https://www.mercatornet.com/careful/view/demand-for-euthanasia-surges-in-the-netherlands/20702
Hitler would have been jealous! His ‘clinics’ were called just barracks of death.
Thank you very much Ivan.
I suspected things have not changed much in Belgium. The Netherlands is of little to surprise.
Francis, who knows how to carry a ” big stick”, seems to have forgotten about the most vulnerable, hasn’t he?
You’re welcome cs,
And no. I don’t believe PF forget anything. He is doing everything expressly and purposely.
The same counts for all his deliberate omission.
So we can say, he expressly avoid to even think about all of them.
As he does the same about the persecuted Christians in the middle East.
Not just for once, but for many years!
Then they will thump their chests saying that they don’t have a death penalty but the kill you in the womb and kill you because you’re burdensome.
Diabolical
Did they postpone the Global Warming conference; “Destroying the Planet: if you disagree you are evil.” ?
-Snarkiness aside, the Euthanasia conference title displays an ‘open mindedness’ to an EVIL subject that should be barred entry to the Vatican grounds. Period.
— Yet, Global Warming is primarily a secular economic matter (dominion/care aside) that is not allowed challenge at the Vatican
This. Is. Upside. Down.
Imagine this scenario: It’s May 1939 and Pope Pius XII convokes a conference at the Vatican concerning the Jewish question then hotly debated across Europe. It’s a closed meeting, but Pius decides to include among the guests Henry Ford and Fr. Charles Coughlin from the United States, Alfred Rosenberg and Julius Streicher from Germany, Charles Maurras and François de la Rocque from France, and Giuseppe Bottai and Giulio Cogni from Italy. What’s that? You say you cannot imagine such a bizarre scenario? That no decent Catholic of that time would have attended a conference that featured “guests” of this kind? Know what? I can’t imagine it either.
Charles Coughlin does not belong on that list.
“When we get through with the Jews in America, they’ll think the treatment they received in Germany was nothing.”
“Must the entire world go to war for 600,000 Jews in Germany who are neither American, nor French, nor English citizens, but citizens of Germany?” Both quotes are from Fr. Coughlin. One would be forgiven for thinking they sounded a tad anti-Semitic, and there are persistent rumors that Eugenio Pacelli himself worked behind the scenes during his 1936 American visit to silence the obstreperous radio priest. According to the online site Father Coughlin (http://www.fathercoughlin.org/index.html), “Joseph P. Kennedy, Roosevelt, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, and Bishop Francis Spellman continuously worked to get the Vatican to silence Coughlin. In 1936, Coughlin was ordered silent by the Vatican.”
I see no point in promoting a scenario which forces a weak analogy regarding our present difficulties
especially in light of the fact that it relates to an anti-Christian culture.
We have enough to contend with in 2017 without resorting to historical records that have a pandora’s
box, once opened.
Just Curious. Civil Law Wise, is Euthnasia Illegal ?
Hello Joseph. I just looked it up. It is ridiculously complicated because they divide it into three groups : 1. active euthanasia; 2. passive euthanasia; 3. assisted suicide.
As for 1, there are three countries in which it is legal : Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium.
But if we include 2 and 3, then seven more countries are added : Canada, Albania, Colombia, America*, Japan (under very restricted conditions), Switzerland**, Germany.
* Passive euthanasia is legal throughout America. Assisted suicide is legal in Vermont, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Montana.
** Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since the 1930s, but active euthanasia remains illegal. In Switzerland, doctors can prescribe a lethal dose of drugs, as long as the patient administers it. Many foreigners also travel to Switzerland for it. A physician need not be involved.
In too many inpatient hospices in America, the practice with some physicians and NPs is to hit them hard every hour with morphine and Ativan, give them no food, and voila, they go inexorably downhill in days to a merciful (?) death. It’s the “wink and a nod” approach.
Absolutely correct. Hospice “care” is a subject no one wants to talk about. My mother died in 2007 under this “care.” Extreme caution and vigilance are necessary if you have a loved one in this situation. (This was at-home hospice, not inpatient, by the way. In South Carolina.)
Been on Ativan. Nothing merciful about it. Lived in screaming fear. Fortunately not for long.
Perhaps the public rebuke of Cupich by USA bishops is in order for the wayward papacy of Bergoglio and the infamous Jesuits in the Vatican..
Make no mistake, Pope Francis is no faithful representative of Jesus Christ. And he should be embraced as such by the faithful.
I want to know what’s there to talk about? Is there a preferred criteria for getting rid of people? Rigorists, fundamentalists first?
You never know. Maybe the old cardinals first, the Resistance…
Every week practically there is something new. This is not my Church. I dearly want this papacy to end.
I feel the same way…
Reminds me of the third book in the C.S. Lewis’ trilogy “That Hideous Strength” where the NICE group has such a pleasant facade on the outside but is full of malicious designs on the inside.
To think that the top hierarchy of the Catholic church is acting as a venue for people with such anti-Christian views literally sends shivers up and down my spine.
“She was euthanized without consent (in the Netherlands). They decided.”
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.nl/2017/11/magreet-she-was-euthanized-without.html
Time to stock up on hand baskets.
But we must dialogue away Catholic truths because even though they know that euthanasia is wrong, they have discerned that following such a path is the best they can do, given the complexities of life. And that is all that God is asking of them.
That program made me physically ill to read it. The river of poison is just flowing into the Vatican. Wait….or is it flowing out?
Remember: They have the buildings but we have the Faith!
What would a Vatican conference be without inviting and honoring the champions of the culture of death………………………………………
In Belgium NOW, not in the future, a doctor can terminate an old person’s lifeeven if the family objects.
This is the power they seek and Francis thinks they are just wonderful people. What the heck is wrong with him???
Oh yeah, they’ll invite supporters of euthanasia and abortion to their conferences on “life” and “end of life” issues but will they invite those who deny global warming and climate change to their conferences on the environment? Pfffffff…………….pigs might fly. Just like they excluded those with a solid, traditional Catholic understanding of the family from the two “Synods on the Family”. Just like Francis refuses to answer the dubia. So much for “dialogue”, huh?
It’s always the same. “Openness”, “accompaniment”, “listening”, “dialogue”, etc, etc (add your own modernist buzzword here) are always one-way streets. These people are such lying hypocrites.
No True Catholic who loves God, abides in the Ten Commandments and the Two Golden Rules could ever gives a second thought with regards to Euthanasia! Anyone who is pro-Euthanasia is not follower of Jesus the Christ, Who died the most Horrific DEATH in the History of humankind with only one FOCUS, that was for the Salvation of HUAMN SOUILS, nothing else! He emptied HIMSELF completely out for the sake of our Eternal Happiness and, we are here playing with HIS WORDS! HE IS THE LOGO! He knows what HE HAS SAID! “Heaven will pass away, earth will pass away, but my Words will not pass away!” Never to fool around with the Author of LIFE! His Justice is no less than His Mercy!
Jesus was euthanised. He was murdered because He was an inconvience.