Physician-assisted suicides up once more in Oregon

Numbers of Oregonians requesting — and using — lethal prescriptions to kill themselves show a steady increase since the law was enacted in 1998. Oregon Public Health Division graph The latest “Death with Dignity” report shows a sharp spike in the number of Oregonians both requesting and using lethal medications. The number of those requesting the drugs increased from 155 to 218, and the number actually using the medications jumped from 105 to 132. The numbers this past year are nearly a ten-fold increase since 1998, when the law was enacted. That year, 24 individuals requested the drugs and 16 people actually used them. Oregon was the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, with 51.3 percent of voters passing Ballot Measure 16, “the Death with Dignity Act,” in 1994 despite the Archdiocese of Portland, the Diocese of Baker, and many other faiths educating and lobbying against its passage. The catechism of the Catholic Church states: 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 or 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. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.” (CCC 2277) In 1997, Oregonians got another chance to vote on the issue; however, 60 percent of voters rejected Ballot Measure 51, which would have repealed the Death with Dignity Act. Assisted suicide is illegal in most states, but legalization has spread to Washington, California and Vermont, and a handful of other states are considering legalizing the practice or are enmeshed in legal cases concerning its legality. Worldwide, assisted suicide is legal in a number of countries, including the Canadian province of Quebec, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Oregon returned to the national spotlight with the death of Brittany Maynard, the young California woman who was stricken with incurable brain cancer and moved to Oregon in order to end her life on Nov. 1, 2014. Last year, Canada’s Supreme Court legalized assisted suicide, paving the way for the government to introduce legislation legalizing the practice. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in response: “Suicide and euthanasia are contrary to the most profound natural inclination of each human being to live and preserve life.”

Female Doctor tells Pope to his Face: “Evil, in this world, comes from sin. Not from income disparity or “climate change”.

From the Remnant Newspaper and Lifesite News

Finally, after waiting in vain for bishops to confront the Pope regarding his inversion of priorities in Laudato Si, his deserving rebuke came from a female Romanian doctor at the Synod.

Sometimes in history, when men in the Church are too cowardly to do their duty, God shames them by calling a woman to do it for them. St. Joan of Arc and St. Catherine of Sienna come to mind. Her family having suffered persecution by the Communists, this Catholic woman was not intimidated at all by the presence of the Pope and told him precisely what all of us wish we could have. I only hope that this rebuke acts to convict him and all likeminded “progressive” prelates of the scandal their acts have inflicted on the Church and to start carrying out the purpose of their offices.

 Dr. Anca-Maria Cernea

As Lifesite News reports, Dr. Anca-Maria Cernea, Doctor at the Center for Diagnosis and Treatment-Victor Babes and President of the Association of Catholic Doctors of Bucharest (Romania) made the following speech to the Synod last Friday:

Your Holiness, Synod Fathers, Brothers and Sisters, I represent the Association of Catholic Doctors from Bucharest.

I am from the Romanian Greek Catholic Church.

My father was a Christian political leader, who was imprisoned by the communists for 17 years. My parents were engaged to marry, but their wedding took place 17 years later.

My mother waited all those years for my father, although she didn’t even know if he was still alive. They have been heroically faithful to God and to their engagement.

Their example shows that God’s grace can overcame terrible social circumstances and material poverty.

We, as Catholic doctors, defending life and family, can see this is, first of all, a spiritual battle.

Material poverty and consumerism are not the primary cause of the family crisis.

The primary cause of the sexual and cultural revolution is ideological. Our Lady of Fatima has said that Russia’s errors would spread all over the world.

It was first done under a violent form, classical Marxism, by killing tens of millions.

Now it’s being done mostly by cultural Marxism. There is continuity from Lenin’s sex revolution, through Gramsci and the Frankfurt school, to the current-day gay-rights and gender ideology.

Classical Marxism pretended to redesign society, through violent take-over of property.

Now the revolution goes deeper; it pretends to redefine family, sex identity and human nature.

This ideology calls itself progressive. But it is nothing else than the ancient serpent’s offer, for man to take control, to replace God, to arrange salvation here, in this world.

It’s an error of religious nature, it’s Gnosticism.

It’s the task of the shepherds to recognize it, and warn the flock against this danger.

“Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

The Church’s mission is to save souls. Evil, in this world, comes from sin. Not from income disparity or “climate change”. The solution is: Evangelization. Conversion.

Not an ever increasing government control. Not a world government. These are nowadays the main agents imposing cultural Marxism to our nations, under the form of population control, reproductive health, gay rights, gender education, and so on.

What the world needs nowadays is not limitation of freedom, but real freedom, liberation from sin. Salvation.

Our Church was suppressed by the soviet occupation. But none of our 12 bishops betrayed their communion with the Holy Father. Our Church survived thanks to our bishops’ determination and example in resisting prisons and terror.

Our bishops asked the community not to follow the world. Not to cooperate with the communists.

Now we need Rome to tell the world: “Repent of your sins and turn to God for the Kingdom of Heaven is near”.

Not only us, the Catholic laity, but also many Christian Orthodox are anxiously praying for this Synod. Because, as they say, if the Catholic Church gives in to the spirit of this world, it is going to be very difficult for all the other Christians to resist it.

Santa Rosa Bishop Robert Vasa says pope’s proclamation does not change church doctrine

MARTIN ESPINOZA

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | April 8, 2016

Santa Rosa Bishop Robert Vasa on Friday called Pope Francis’ landmark proclamation on marriage, sex and family life — titled “Amoris Laetitia,” Latin for “The Joy of Love” — an intriguing, engaging, and delightfully challenging expression of hope for married love. But he said it was no end-run around existing church doctrine on behavior that is “not consistent with the moral law.


The 264-page exhortation encourages church ministers to “accompany” those who are out of step with church teachings, such as unmarried couples living together, same-sex partners or divorced and remarried couples. But Francis does not in any way change church doctrine opposing such arrangements, Vasa noted.

“It does not change any doctrine,” he said. “Marriage is still very beautifully defined as permanent, faithful and directed to the generation and upbringing of children.”

In the case of divorced and remarried couples, Vasa said those who are reading the pope’s exhortation as an easy remedy around the lengthy and rigorous church annulment process are mistaken. “That marriage does not go away. It has its own intrinsic perpetual nature,” he said.

“That being said, the path forward is to accompany that couple, affirming what is good in their relationship, and the Holy Father makes this point,” he said, adding that perhaps for ministers there can be a focus on the new couple’s present fidelity to each other.

“We tend to focus on the infidelity to the other spouse — that is a reality,” he said. But the exhortation asks church leaders to “encourage them to be caring parents to the children of this marriage and or the children of a previous marriage.”

That pastoral path, he said, could lead those who have remarried after a divorce to present themselves to the church tribunal for consideration of an annulment, a process that deeply examines the marriage, from its courtship to its unraveling. It requires a finding that the marriage is “substantially defective,” not just the wishes of a couple that has fallen out of love or doesn’t want to be married, he said.

The pope’s exhortation — the product of two synods of bishops, one in 2014 and one in 2015 — makes it clear that Francis affirms that marriage is between a man and a woman, Vasa said. The great lengths that Francis goes to encourage compassion and empathy does not signify an “anything-goes mentality,” he said.

Vasa pointed to a paragraph of the exhortation, where Francis writes, “the Synod Fathers observed that, ‘as for proposals to place unions between homosexual persons on the same level as marriage, there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.’ ”

Vasa said that “nonetheless we have to strive to accompany everyone to see their own innate goodness and at the same time acknowledge that sometimes our behaviors are not consistent with the moral law.”

Vasa said the bulk of the document is likely to be criticized by more progressive Catholic Church voices.

“He’s not watering down the truth, he’s urging a compassionate education and catechesis on what the church teaches and why,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @renofish.