Comments on: Tough pastoral issue looms from November

By: Pastoral dilemmas posed by legal euthanasia – Family Life International NZ

Pastoral dilemmas posed by legal euthanasia – Family Life International NZ — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 01:56:52 +0000

[…] this year, NZ Catholic published an article in which Bishop Patrick Dunn intimated the difficulty in discerning the appropriate pastoral […]

By: Joseph Potter

Joseph Potter — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 02:50:41 +0000

If we are to take a moralistic view of things I would go one step further. Obviously God intends for these people to be in a painful, debilitating condition and that we can construe from this that they are being punished. To that end, why give absolution to any person being punished by God. Just like Job, God is putting them through their paces. If they show faith and conciliation, they will be saved. It is not for us to intervene with pain medication and palliative care, interfering with God’s will.
If you think that charity will be recognized then at some point you are drawing a line, defining what is permissible and shaping the will of God to your own ends. God is everything or he is nothing. We are either here to suffer and be redeemed in the afterlife or we can make choices based on an evolving understanding on ethical behavior and accept that true mercy sometimes means giving a person the choice, when there is no reasonable hope, to be at peace.
No one will be forced to participate in this who is not willing. To think otherwise is simply a case of fearmongering.
JP (former Catholic – now atheist)

By: Ken Orr

Ken Orr — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 10:15:34 +0000

The last rites are for those souls who seek to have their sins forgiven and to be in a state of grace to receive Holy Communion. In the tragic circumstances where a person has resolved to have a doctor administer a lethal injection or assist in their suicide a priest could not give absolution or give Holy Communion. I believe that a priest would be limited to praying with the person that they would reject this intrinsic evil and seek to be reconciled with God. The Christian community should now be prayerfully asking itself why they have elected a Parliament which has imposed a culture of death on the nation with the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 and the End of Life Choice Act 2019. Those who are prepared to kill the unborn should not be trusted to govern the living.

By: Nigel Williamson.

Nigel Williamson. — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 09:24:47 +0000

Try telling it how it really is.
It is not “mercy killing”.
It is just as murderous as abortion,
and just as gutless.
Cold-blooded murder can lead on to
a Catholic malaise that already
is in a low point with priestly scandals.
The populist approach is good for democracy,
but the Catholic church is not a democracy.
The hidden detail is a persuasive in law who
can see a money grab in the making with a
relative who is so easily persuaded to give
up all hope and simply give in to the doctors
advice, which is spurious, to say the least in
this matter.
Strange how there is no mention in the article
to other atheistic tendencies that accompany
Euthanasia- abortion, drugs, and pornography,
all the cutting edge of Secular Humanism which
is a complete denial of any supernatural.
Are Catholics bending to an atheistic tendency
that arrives with the current NZ government?
Is it really a case of money talks?
And what does the local NZ moral theologian
think about it all?