Ministers consider end-of-life decisions
By LORETTA FULTON
Senior Staff Writer
One of the most powerful moments Father Fred Nawarskas experiences as a priest comes when he has no power left.
It comes during the moments before death as he administers the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Sometimes the recipient has been in a coma for a lengthy period of time with no signs of recognition.
But sometimes that same person will make the sign of the cross after Nawarskas finishes, much to the surprise and shock of the loved ones present.
Most often the patient will die soon afterward.
"It's almost like they're hanging on to the end," said Nawarskas, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church.
And Nawarskas, like most Christian ministers, believes people should hang on to the end, with no assistance from physicians in ending their lives.
That doesn't mean they are opposed to stopping "heroic measures" when a person obviously is not going to recover. Nawarskas often is called out in the middle of the night to administer the last rites to a patient who is being kept alive by artificial means.
The family has made the decision to stop life-support, and they want the priest to administer last rites.
"Then they usually disconnect the respirator right after that," Nawarskas said.
To Nawarskas and other ministers, that decision is totally different from physician-assisted suicide.
As minister of Highland Church of Christ, Mike Cope deals frequently with the spiritual aspects of death. As a member of the bioethics committee at Hendrick Medical Center, he has learned some things that help him in his ministry.
Cope has never been asked directly, either as a minister or member of the bioethics committee, about physician-assisted suicide. But he knows what his answer would be.
"I'd have real problems with that," Cope said, basing his opinion on his belief that God is the giver of life.
"The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away -- we really don't have the right to make that decision," Cope said.
And Cope is certain that people looking for a minister to agree with physician-assisted suicide would find the going rough.
"I'm pretty sure they would find a pretty consistent discouragement," he said.
But Cope and Nawarskas see a major distinction between "active and passive euthanasia."
The latter involves discontinuing life-support systems when it becomes obvious the patient is not going to recover. The two men are strong proponents of the latter.
"We would not want to force a family to keep someone alive with no hope for recovery," Nawarskas said.
As a member of the bioethics committee at Hendrick, Cope knows that the future will bring even more technological advances, which will also bring more decisions to be made.
As a minister, Cope enjoys the reflective aspect of serving on the committee. Members spend time contemplating the conflict between what is medically possible and what is ethical, something the public rarely has time for.
But that time of contemplating also makes him painfully aware of the conflict that will only deepen between technology and ethics.
"Modern technology is bittersweet," Cope said. "Our ethical reflections haven't kept up with our technological pace."
Loretta Fulton can be reached at 676-6778 or fultonl@abinews.com