Pope can’t donate his organs

TNT Magazine
The Pope cannot donate his organs, The Vatican has decreed.

Though he’s a long-time signed-up organ donor, Pope Benedict XVi’s donor card became null and void the day he became head honcho of the Catholic church, his personal secretary revealed.

This is because the Pope's organs belong to the church and cannot be just plonked in some mere mortals, apparently.

The issue came up when a German doctor recently promoted organ donation using the Pope as an example. The pope signed up to the organ-donor program more than 30 years ago and carried a donor card for decades in his native Germany.

However the the Pope's secretary, Monsignor Georg Ganswein asked the doctor, in a letter, to desist from using Il Papa as an example.



"While it is true that the pope has an organ donor card, it is also true that, contrary to some public affirmations, the card issued in the 1970s became ipso facto invalid with Cardinal Ratzinger's election to the papacy," he explained.

The Pope has long been a supporter of organ donation which he described as an "act of love."

In 2008 he said: "tissue and organ transplants represent a great advance of medical science and are certainly a sign of hope for the many people who suffer from serious and sometimes critical medical conditions."

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario at Trillium Gift of Life Network NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today!
For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Head of UK Catholics gives Unqualified Endorsement of Organ Donation

Leaders in the Church of England and of the Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities were also canvassed and endorsed 'The Wall of Life' campaign to support organ donation.

By Hilary White LifeSiteNews.com

LONDON, June 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In the face of reported "uncertainty," British Catholics have been assured by their new Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, that donating organs is "a true act of generosity."

"I'm going to join the Register and encourage others to do the same," he said.

Nichols was canvassed by BBC News Religious Affairs Correspondent Robert Pigott, who reported this week that Britons are "unsure" what their various religious communities teach about organ donation.

The archbishop has put his support behind the Wall of Life*, an interactive campaign launched by National Health Services (NHS) Blood and Transplant. The campaign aims to promote awareness of and support for organ donation to boost the number of people joining the NHS Organ Donor Register.

Current organ transplant practices, however, have come under heavy criticism from some Catholic ethicists who say that under the widely employed "brain death" criteria, death is frequently actually brought about by the removal of vital organs from living patients.

Dr. Paul Byrne, a neonatologist and clinical professor of paediatrics who has written extensively on the danger of "brain death" criteria in organ transplantation, expressed his misgivings about Archbishop Nichols' endorsement of the National Health Service program. Dr. Byrne, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that he believes the archbishop has not given "sufficient reflection" to a statement by Pope Benedict in 2008 that "individual vital organs cannot be extracted except ex cadavere."

The pope told a Vatican conference on organ donation in November 2008, "The principal criteria of respect for the life of the donator must always prevail so that the extraction of organs be performed only in the case of his/her true death."

Dr. Byrne said, however, that "after true death, 'ex cadavere' vital organs cannot be transplanted," due to the speed with which they decay. This has led to the rise of "brain death" criteria, which Dr. Byrne says creates a false definition of death, so as to allow for the extraction of vital organs before they are rendered unusable by actual death.

At a conference in Rome in February, Dr. Byrne told LSN that one of the biggest obstacles in fighting for the rights of patients threatened with the untimely removal of their vital organs has been the uncritical endorsement of the practice by certain factions in the Catholic Church.

Leaders in the Church of England and of the Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities were also canvassed and endorsed 'The Wall of Life' campaign.

Despite the unqualified support for the program by the recently appointed archbishop of Westminster, Catholics who were looking for the official teaching of their Church might have been surprised to find a more cautious approach in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).

The CCC is careful to qualify the Church's endorsement of organ transplants, saying that while organ donation can be "a noble and meritorious act," it cannot even be regarded as "morally acceptable" if the donor does not give proper consent, or if the removal of organs causes his "disabling mutilation or death.

* Read more about the Wall of Life and the religious leaders endorsing organ donation at MedicalNewsToday.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Sign Your Donor Card & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network

NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org
Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today!
For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants. One tissue donor can help up to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Aid Clarifies Church's Teaching on Brain Death

From CBCP News:

VATICAN, Sept. 5, 2008-- There has been no change in Church teaching regarding the concept of "brain death" as a true criterion for death, though the criterion has to be applied correctly, reminded a Vatican spokesman. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, affirmed this in a statement Tuesday, which responded to a front page L'Osservatore Romano article on the topic of brain death and its validity.

Father Lombardi called the article, by Italian historian and journalist Lucetta Scaraffia, an "interesting and weighty contribution." But, he clarified that "it cannot be considered as the position of the magisterium of the Church."

Scaraffia's article suggested that the concept of brain death is undergoing new scrutiny, brought about, among other things, by cases in which pregnant women who are declared dead by virtue of the brain death criterion, are connected to machines to keep blood circulating and oxygen flowing until the baby can be delivered.

Her article noted that this year marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of a Harvard Medical School report that recommended using "brain death" as the criterion for ascertaining that death has occurred.

"The 40th anniversary of the new definition of brain death seems to be the occasion to re-open the discussion both at the scientific level as well as in the heart of the Catholic Church," suggested Scaraffia.

Sound anthropology

Father Lombardi explained that the Holy See's position may be consulted in Pope John Paul II's address of Aug. 29, 2000, to participants in the 18th International Congress of the Transplantation Society.

In that address, the Polish Pontiff noted that the "neurological criterion" for ascertaining death "consists in establishing, according to clearly determined parameters commonly held by the international scientific community, the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity -- in the cerebrum, cerebellum and brain stem. This is then considered the sign that the individual organism has lost its integrative capacity."

The Jesuit recalled how the Pope stated that "it can be said that the criterion adopted in more recent times for ascertaining the fact of death, namely the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity, if rigorously applied, does not seem to conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthropology."

And the spokesman mentioned the consequences drawn by John Paul II: "[A] health-worker professionally responsible for ascertaining death can use these criteria in each individual case as the basis for arriving at that degree of assurance in ethical judgment which moral teaching describes as 'moral certainty.'

"This moral certainty is considered the necessary and sufficient basis for an ethically correct course of action. Only where such certainty exists, and where informed consent has already been given by the donor or the donor's legitimate representatives, is it morally right to initiate the technical procedures required for the removal of organs for transplant." (Zenit)

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Sign Your Donor Card & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network
For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

Your generosity can save up to eight lives through organ donation and enhance another 50 through cornea and tissue donation