Some notes from the talk.....
We cannot accept organs if a person has been kept on life-support. That person is still alive when the organs were harvested. One cannot kill a person for organs.
And, here is clarity on brain death.
http://www.sensustraditionis.org/webaudio/Braindeath.mp3
If you listen, you must say a decade of the rosary for him.
The soul is the form of the body. There is no physical organ which is the principal of unity in the body. The soul is the integrating principal of unity in the body. The soul causes growth.
The Pius XII quotation is really important. Listen and re-listen.
When there is doubt of fact, you do not act. This is a rule of the Church.
If there is a doubt of fact, you are not allowed to act.
In doubt of law, we know what the law is, as God's Law states no murder.
We also know we cannot take someone's life, which is murder.
Death occurs when the soul leaves the body.
As to how medical knowledge becomes concrete and can become the rule for action, is the question of morality.
As long as all five faculties are functioning, the person is still alive. If one faculty is working, the person is still alive. The brain is only one faculty.
If the brain dies, most likely all the rest of the organs will stop functioning soon.
It does not matter what organ shuts down, the person is still alive.
The principal of unity....the soul is the rule for life not the body.
We kill people, we murder people in America and Europe daily.
As long as other faculties are working, but the brain is not, the person is still alive.
There is no such thing as "brain death" alone.
Brain death is not death....but what is to be taken under consideration would be the necessity of extraordinary means.
One has to have moral certitude.
One cannot be morally certain of anyone on life support is dead.
Catholics, pay attention.
If the person is alive, on life support, one cannot harvest the organs.
No.
Do not murder your parents, your aunts, your uncles, your children.
The unitive principal is the soul, not the brain. The soul as the form of the body is in the entire body.
The soul keeps the body alive and the doctors help the vital functions. The person is alive.
When all five faculties stop, the person is dead. In the past, the Church said a person could be anointed up to two hours after "death", because the soul might still be there.
The Church has guidelines as to when a person can be embalmed, btw.
Blessed John Paul II said the person has to be certainly dead before organ transplant.
Rigor mortis is a clear sign of death.
Review the five faculties which are controlled by the soul. And, if all or one is working, the person is still alive.
"Sleepers" are not dead. People actively think while they are in comas.
Here is a comment from one of the commentators which is excellent. She is a leader.:
The Church allows organ donation, but not when it brings about the death or disabling mutilation of the donor. The Church's teaching, coupled with the current state of medical science, rules out the donation of unpaired vital organs. Harvesting a heart or an entire liver that is good for transplanting brings about the death of the donor. It does not matter that the donor is probably going to die shortly anyway: it is not morally admissible to shorten one life in order to prolong another. If we could come up with a way to maintain the viability of unpaired vital organs after death, then it would be morally admissible to harvest them. Until then, it's not.
Remember that death is defined as the moment when the soul leaves the body. The fact that the brain has shut down does not mean the soul has left the body. To hold that the cessation of brain function, without regard to the presence of the soul, constitutes death, is an error
Remember that death is defined as the moment when the soul leaves the body. The fact that the brain has shut down does not mean the soul has left the body. To hold that the cessation of brain function, without regard to the presence of the soul, constitutes death, is an error
