What happens if the Pope were to fall into a coma or become brain-dead? What is the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on withdrawning life support from a comatose or brain-dead person? Who makes medical decisions for the Pope when he is unable to do so?
The Church’s teachings on life support are that you don’t have to go to “extraordinary lengths” to continue life past its normal limits. You could hook yourself up to all sorts of machines if you want to, but if you say “Fuck it. Just let me die,” then that’s OK. As for being brain dead, I think that you’re just dead as far as everyone is concerned.
But Church law has no provisions for dealing with a mentally incapacitated pope, and this might well become a problem.
Does this strike anyone as both sad and cruel?
Kinda reminds me of the Pope in the Hyperion/Endymion saga.
On the news (in France) last night I heard a ‘Vatican official’ say that “If God keeps him alive it is beacuse He still wants him as His Pope.” Which would seem to suggest that a live pope, even a mentally incapacitated one, is the Pope until he dies. But not sure how this would influence descisions about life support / resuscitation.
AFAIK, we only support keeping people alive when they’re in comas, not brain-death. People in comas can and do come back awake, so we believe it amount to killing them. technically, I think you don’t have to start taking care of them, but once you (or a hospital, really) do start, you have to continue. I could be gettin wrong, though.
Then the Fate of every Catholic on Earth lies in the hands of the first ventriliquist who can sneak into the room.
“Power! POWER! Putting words in the mouth of Charlie McCarthy was never like THIS!! BWA-HA-HA-HA-Haaaa!”
Good, we have moved past the point of solemnly considering the impending death of a great and good man and into the snarky jokes.
My scenario:
Pope lapses into coma
College of Cardinals meets and appoints an “interim” Pope (Pope II)
Pope (I) recovers and excommunicates the College for trying to supplant him.
Pope I appoints new College and dies
New College chooses Pope (III).
Pope II denies the validity of election of Pope III, and decamps to Avignon with his College.
Pope III stays in Rome with *his * College.
But then, I am a traditionalist.
Maybe the Pope is a metaphor for the Catholic Church? :rolleyes:
You might guess that I am not Catholic. :smack:
My mother spoke about this with a priest when my grandmother (her mother) was very ill. As far as I remember, it goes like this: If a person has very slim or no chance of recovery, then it is morally appropriate to turn off life support. (Brain dead, of course, is dead, and no one has ever come back from it.) If a person has a fair to good chance of recovery, then a Catholic is morally obligated to ask that life support be continued if it is available. Or to put it another way, “ordinary” measures are required, “extraordinary” measures are not. Exactly where the line is drawn must of necessity be a matter of conscience for each person, after conferring with the patient’s doctors.
As it happened, my grandmother died in her sleep, in her own bed. Sometimes I wonder if she had any control over it - when she was in the hospital she always complained about being homesick, and I believe the last thing she would have wanted was to spend her last days hooked up to machines in a strange place while her children struggled with the moral decision of when to let go…
Reno, your scenario sounds oddly familiar. Not that it isn’t a Great plot, mind you, but you might want to check around to see if anybody else has already written about a similar situation. I mean, come on, it’s such a far-fetched series of events that it could only happen in fiction, so if your version is too close then it would be seen as an obvious case of plagiarism. Moving the Holy See away from Rome? That would be, I don’t know, some sort of analog to the Babylonian captivity of Israel or something. Just not plausible, IMHO.
I read an article - I think it was on the BBC website but can’t bring it up - which said that previous Popes had dealt with this by leaving written instructions. The article stated that whether the current Pope had left similar instructions or not had not been revealed.
That said, Pope John Paul II is a truly good and great man, a key player in the fall of Communism, and I’m sure everyone here, regardless of religious conflicts, wishes him a speedy recovery.
Ooo! That gives me a great idea for a novel! A Harvard symbologist, see, meets a beautiful woman who has a clue about a consipiracy to cover up the existance of an anti-pope. They are hunted through Europe by a Jesuit (one of the Pope’s Ninja). They have to solve a series of puzzles and have sex. They finally find the proof hidden in a chapel in Avignon! Or maybe the Barnes&Noble in Cambridge.
Or would that be seen as an obvious case of plagiarism?
I think this possibility is more reminiscent of The Emperor in Warhammer 40K than anything else, myself. (The Emperor killed his rebellious son Horus in hand-to-hand combat, but was hurt so badly he was put on life support on the Golden Throne for more than 10,000 years. His psychic advisors “interpret” his will with varying degrees of accuracy and believability, depending on whose story you go by.)