Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 18, 1995 TAG: 9511200076
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: B-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID BRIGGS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
- Romans 14:7-8.
They gave their lives to serve the poor, the sick and the outcast.
Now as they face their own mortality, women and men in religious orders are seeking to be models in dying as they were in living.
In a nation where many seek to hold on to life at all costs, while others fearful of medical technology that would rob them of dignity take their own lives, a joint task force of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is calling on its constituency to find a higher ground.
In the task force's guidelines, ill members are to be given truthful medical diagnoses, end-of-life decisions are to be shared by the dying person and the religious community, and the common good is to be considered in weighing whether to undertake costly procedures that offer little hope of success.
``The example of a member of a religious community who allows herself or himself simply to let go, without clinging to life at all costs, can be a powerful witness both to the sacredness of life and to the naturalness of death,'' the task force proclaims in its statement, ``A Vision of Life, Health, Sickness and Death for Religious.''
A generation-long decline in vocations that has increased the average age of religious orders and left them with fewer new members to help pay for the retirement costs of older nuns and priests leaves many communities facing the same issues of how to allocate scarce resources that are at the center of the national health-care debate.
The moral issues might be particularly difficult for religious orders, which often find it hard to spend on themselves funds that can be used to further their missions.
There is no simple way of resolving the tension, the task force states in its ``reflection paper.''
``Yet, by confronting this issue directly, religious communities provide an important witness to the larger society in respecting the dignity of persons while acknowledging the reality of limited resources,'' the paper says.
Perhaps the first way priests and nuns can be a counter-cultural witness is in their attitude toward death, the task force states.
A nation that idolizes youth and the body beautiful often attempts to deny the reality of death. And as medical technology advances, doctors and patients find it increasingly difficult to say ``no'' to any artificial prolonging of life, the task force says.
From a religious perspective, the task force states, life is a gift from God, and priests, nuns and brothers are called not only to maintain life, ``but also to return this gift in full freedom to God at the appropriate time.''
In practical terms, this first means being truthful with congregation members about the seriousness of their illness.
``It is unjust to maintain a sick member's false hope,'' according to the task force. ``Rather, communities are called upon to accompany their members during this final journey, enabling them to come to the point of acceptance.''
One example of this mutual concern should be joint decision-making about end-of-life questions such as when to discontinue extraordinary measures to preserve life.
But the task force also emphasizes that dying persons are not merely objects of ministry.
They build up the community through their prayers and presence, and help others confront their own limits and mortality, the task force said.
Bad health does not mean a lack of blessing, and the Christian belief in the death and resurrection of Christ ``reminds us that there is no place where God will not go to be with us,'' the reflection paper said.
In the end, suggests the theologian Karl Rahner, it is only in standing before ``that abyss of death which puts everything into question'' that the faithful experience the ``final and free abandonment of self in faith, hope and love'' into the mystery of God.
by CNB