I’m As Catholic As the Next Girl.

If I’m reading that right, either the priest was wrong, or whoever interpreted what he said was wrong. If they’re trying to tell what she believed, and she was going to daily mass, it’s a pretty sure bet she believed the non-negotiable teachings.

I’m more interested to know who the directive was prepared by, since it seems like Volokh’s story says it was prepared by her children.

It looks like the judge is right— in so far as his statement goes. The Magisterium does have the right to state their teachings, and folks claiming to be following them while teaching otherwise do need to be watched for; that is a matter of separation of church and state– keeping the state from forcing a church to accept a teaching just because someone is claiming it in their name.

Reply

If she was going to Mass every day, while her adult child 1) had to ask a priest and 2) claims to have been told something that is not part of Catholic teaching, the judge’s point that folks improperly contesting the binding teachings is rather important to figuring out what she believed.

In plain English, it looks like the judge is saying: “When you’re trying to figure out what a religious person believed, make sure you’re listening to folks who are observing the same exact religion.”

It looks a lot like the usual thing that happens when someone is helpless and money is involved– one of the kids decides to put the helpless person out of the kid’s misery, makes shit up, the other kids say no.

From this quote:
Accordingly, the Court will set forth the basis of its findings and analysis in resolving the disputed care i.e. deprivation of artificial feeding, including its difficulties in finding the authoritative Catholic position. Additionally, the Court will define its limits, which are also the same limitations applicable to the co-guardians regarding their determination of other end of life issues, which may arise.

I’d say the SOB tried to claim that he was following Catholic teaching and that it wasn’t hard to find binding teachings.

That is, secular law trumps church law, and rests on the woman’s own wishes. Which in turn probably reflected sound teaching, given the woman’s apparent orthodoxy.

Exactly– the thing being that it has to actually be sound teaching, not someone contesting the Magisterium’s teaching authority. There aren’t a lot of religions with such a clear power structure, but I should hope that someone who’s a practicing follower of Thor isn’t left to the mercy of interpretations based on old Marvel comics!

I’m laughing a bit now, because on a second read-through it looks like Volokh is objecting to something the judge put in to prevent the issue of the courts interpreting religion, and I notice that a lot of what he’s quoting is from the judge’s quotes establishing that it is, in fact, a clear and rather important teaching.

Legal question: daughter and son wants control of mother, other 4 siblings object, daughter and/or son has established a “living will” that they say is in conflict with their devout mother’s beliefs.
The two’s defense: mom said she didn’t want to be fed artificially, and anyways there’s no clear Church teaching that says you can’t stop giving someone food and water.
Judge’s response: actually, there is a very clear teaching about that, here’s a sample. *massive thud of quotes and citations*

Reply

I was confused by the whole thing. It would appear that the correct analysis to determine the woman’s wishes would be to:
1. Determine if she made definitive statements one way or the other while lucid; and, barring that,
2. Determine if other things in her life (e.g. religion) would dictate to her what she would do. Therefore,
3. Determine if she’s a devout Catholic (i.e. following all of the teachings) or if she’s more of a Katholique (as we called them in college), or just run-of-the-mill Catholic. If it’s the first, then (and only if it’s the first!):
4. Determine what the Church says about end-of-life measures and assume she would follow those as she would follow its dictates about anything else.

If she’s not a super-devout Catholic, then you ignore the Church teachings, because she would have/may have done the same.

I think Prof. Volokh is worried that non-super-devout Catholics could have the Church law imposed on them when they wouldn’t want it, or something, but it seems like an exception was made here for a daily communicant, whose wishes would apparently be “What the Church says”.

Reply