Question of the Day for Friday, October 3, 2008

Organ Donations?

Q. I am interested in finding out the Church’s stand on being an organ donor.

R.P., via email

A. Here’s a reply from TCA columnist Father Francis Hoffman, J.C.D.:

Actually, it has been a longstanding tradition for the faithful to donate organs to the Church. But those are pipe organs. And I think you are talking about the other kind!

As your question is stated, the answer is simple. It is fine, even praiseworthy, for you to donate a non-vital organ in order to help someone recover health. While you are alive, however, you cannot donate a vital organ such as your heart (which would of course result in your death), although you could donate the second kidney or part of your liver.

However, as this topic is discussed and debated today, there are many other considerations that our readers should know about.

First, the issue of organ transplants — and this is directly connected to organ donations — is addressed succinctly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2296. A couple of principles need to be kept in mind here:

(1) Organ donation is only acceptable if the donor has given his informed consent.

(2) You can donate a non-vital organ only while you are alive.
If the donor has died, all organs can be donated. But the current debate focuses on what constitutes death, and medical experts disagree about how to define “brain death” in particular.

I think the most prudent course of action is not to allow the “harvesting” of vital organs from a human body until brain activity, respiration and circulation have all ceased: no breathing, no heartbeat, no blood pressure and no brain activity.

Such a restrictive definition of death can cause a problem for those engaged in the organ-transplant business, as it is medically preferable to remove a vital organ from a body with a heartbeat, rather than from a dead body. However, caution and prudence should prevail, as there are documented cases of surgeons removing vital organs from accident victims before it was certain they were dead.

Question of the Day for Thursday, October 2, 2008

Is Purgatory Painful?

Q. Is purgatory painful?

 E.W., Madrid, Spain

A. Purgatory is the process after death in which someone who dies in friendship with God is purged of the consequences of sin. We don’t have many details of this process in Scripture. But texts that have traditionally been interpreted as allusions to purgatory sure make it sound as if it’s painful.

For example: “If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:15).

The Fathers and Doctors of the Church who have written about purgatory seem to be largely in agreement that it is extremely painful. St. Augustine said that purgatorial pain is more severe than anything we could possibly suffer in this life. Pope St. Gregory the Great and St. Bonaventure agreed. St. Thomas Aquinas also spoke of the pain of purgatory.

This common conclusion that purgatory involves suffering should not surprise us. After all, even in this life, the process we must endure to be purged of sin’s consequences is a painful one. Like metal with impurities, we must be put through a refiner’s fire. It hurts for the soul to be cauterized, but our healing requires it.

God uses adversity in this life to purify us. Purgatory is simply a continuation of that painful trial, presumably more intense and “concentrated.”

Nevertheless, we should take consolation in the teaching of the Italian mystic St. Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510), in her “Treatise on Purgatory.” She insisted that the souls in purgatory, though they suffer terribly, are more focused on God than they are on their own sufferings. So despite the pain, they also have marvelous joy.

Question of the Day for Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Absolution and Purgatory

Q. Say that absolution is given by a priest after a good confession of sins, and the person who made the confession says he will sin no more and intends to sin no more, and will try harder not to commit the same sins again. The person also immediately begins the penance.

What if this person were to be in an accident that would take his life immediately following his confession and absolution but before he completes his penance. Would he be subject to time in purgatory?

J.K., via email

A. Here’s a reply from TCA columnist Father Ray Ryland, Ph.D., J.D.:

At the outset we should note that “time” is not a category applicable to the experience of purgatory. When we die, we leave “time” behind and enter into eternity.

In the hypothetical situation you pose, the penitent’s receiving absolution would remove all guilt of his sins. It would reconcile him not only to the Father, but also to the community that has been harmed by his sins.

With regard to the person’s failure to complete his penance, the Catechism reminds us that “the confessor proposes the performance of certain acts of ‘satisfaction’ or ‘penance’ to be performed by the penitent in order to repair the harm caused by sin and to re-establish habits befitting a disciple of Christ” (no. 1494). A person’s failure (or even refusal) to carry out an assigned penance would detract from the sincerity of his repentance and cast doubt over the absolution he had received.

The failure of the hypothetical person to perform his penance was not his choice; he failed because of circumstances beyond his control. For him, then, the absolution is valid without the penance he would and should have carried out if he had the opportunity.

Nevertheless, absolution does not take away the punishment due to our sins. This reality is reflected in the Church’s definition of an indulgence. “An indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due for sins already forgiven as far as their guilt is concerned” (William T. Barry, C.SS.R., trans., “Enchiridion of Indulgences: Norms and Grants,” Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1969, p. 21; emphasis added).

Your hypothetical penitent would still be subject to purgation of the temporal punishment due to his sins. This fact should impress on us the importance, indeed urgency, of accepting the Church’s gift of indulgences.

To gain a plenary indulgence, which removes all punishment due to sins committed up to that time, there are four initial requirements. One must go to confession; share in the Eucharist; pray for the intention of the pope; and be free from all attachment to sin, even venial sin. It is also “necessary to perform the work to which the indulgence is attached” (Enchiridion, no. 26).

The following works required for a plenary indulgence receive special emphasis in the Enchiridion (no. 45): adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for a half hour or more; meditative reading of Sacred Scripture for a half hour or more; praying the Way of the Cross; praying the Rosary in a church or oratory, or in a family group, pious association or religious community.

If in addition to all your hypothetical penitent did, he had fulfilled the requirements for a plenary indulgence, and had then died soon thereafter, he would not have further cleansing to undergo in purgatory.

Question of the Day for Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Blessed Juan Nepomuseno Zegri y Moreno?

Q. Do you any information about Padre Juan Nepomuseno Zegrí y Moreno? I thought he was beatified, but I cannot find any information on his life on the Internet.

R.H., via email

A. Father Juan Nepomuseno Zegrí y Moreno (1831–1905) was Founder of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy.

He was born on October 11, 1831 in Granada, Spain. From childhood young Juan demonstrated a great love for Jesus and Mary and a sensitivity to the needs of the poor. In 1855 he was ordained a priest in the Cathedral of Granada and served parishes in that city.

Father Zegrí once said that his vocation was to be “like a good shepherd, going after the lost sheep; like a doctor, healing sick hearts wounded by faults and binding them with hope; like a father, who visibly provides for all of those who, suffering from abandonment, must drink from the bitter chalice and receive nourishment from the bread of tears.”

This tireless priest was kept busy with numerous responsibilities as a synodal judge, canon of the cathedral of Malaga, visitor of the religious orders, formator of the seminarians, and preacher of and royal chaplain to Her Majesty Queen Isabel II.

Wanting to found a religious congregation that would serve the most needy, in 1878 Father Zegrí established the Congregation. The sisters’ main charism was to practice all of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy for the benefit of the poor. Within only a few years, the Congregation was established in dioceses throughout Spain.

Father Zegrí died at Malaga, Spain, on March 17, 1905, and was beatified by Pope John Paul II on November 9, 2003.

 For more information, click here. 

The text of Pope John Paul’s homily at Father Zegrí’s beatification can be found here.

Question of the Day for Monday, September 29, 2008

What About Raphael?

Q . When I was recently talking with some Protestant friends about the archangels, they said they knew about Michael and Gabriel, but had never heard of Raphael. They insisted that Raphael is not in the Bible. Is that true?

 O.H., Nashville, Tenn.

A. Today we celebrate the Feast of the Archangels, including St. Raphael, St. Michael and St. Gabriel. Like Michael and Gabriel, Raphael is indeed in the Bible, but not in your Protestant friends’ Bible, because their Bible is missing some books.

Michael appears by name in the biblical books of Daniel (10:13, 21: 12:1), Jude (9) and Revelation (12:7). Gabriel appears by name in the books of Daniel (8:16; 9:21) and Luke (1:19, 26). Protestants have these books in their Bible. But Raphael, whose name means “God heals,” appears throughout the Old Testament book called Tobit, which is not in Protestant Bibles.

 For more about why this and other books are missing from Protestant Bibles, see the TCA Question of the Day for August 7, 2008.