Contrary to popular belief, the Catholic Church does not advocate prolonging life at any expense, according to Rev. James Fenstermaker, C.S.C., pastor of Holy Cross Parish, South Easton, Mass.
In the new issue of Pillars, which focuses on the intersection of faith and science, Fr. Fenstermaker explains Church teaching on end-of-life decisions.
“The question of what constitutes ordinary and extraordinary measures can often be confusing,” Fr. Fenstermaker said. “I read in my research for this column that the term ‘extraordinary measures’ was developed by Catholic theologians in the 16th century in an attempt to grapple with the bioethical implications of prolonging human life.”
Delve deeper into your faith, read Fr. Fenstermaker’s article, on pg. 11, and all the articles in thefall 2013 issue ofPillarsby visiting the publication section of our website. Or if you have Adobe, you candownload and save the pdf file from this page. You should then be able toopen the file in Adobe and view it as an interactive and flippable PDF version of the magazine.If you don’t have Adobe Reader,click hereto download it for free off of their website.
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