Lynch, John J.

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 23 | Number 3 Article 3August 1956Recent Papal Addresses to Cornea Donors andCongress of FertilityJohn J. LynchFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationLynch, John J. (1956) "Recent Papal Addresses to Cornea Donors and Congress of Fertility," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 23 : No. 3 ,Article 3.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol23/iss3/3moral ju t ification for therapeutic procedur s. A brief summary of a ll these ,,, ints may be helpful: I. Th~ ,,rinciple of totality is essentially 1 principle of subordi-nation of I- . :t to w hole. This sub-ordination exists in a physical body but nu in a s ociety; hence, the principle cannot be used to justify mutilations or risks for the good of society or of other per-sons. 2. In the case of a pregnant mother, both mother and child are distinct persons. Neither is sub-ordinated to the other; hence the principle of totality cann~t be used to justify the destruction of either life to save the other. The direct destruction of innocent life is never justifiable. 3. The generative power. as such, is not subordinated to the individual; hence, the principle of totality cannot be used to jus~ify direct sterilization or any similar procedure. 4. Operations on, or treatments of. a pregnant mother which ir · valve indirect harm to, or destrU< · tion of, her unborn child or indire, ' Joss of the child's life ( e.g.. r, · moval of cancerous pregna· t uterus, removal of disintegrati1 } pregnant tube) require the app -cation of the principle of the do hie effect. The principle of tota li Y is not in itself sufficient for t e solution of such problems. 5. Indirect sterilization ( e. ·· castration in the treatment of c; 1-cer, removal of diseased uterus Jr ovaries. etc.) requires the appli a -tion of the principle of totality to justify the mutilation ~nd the · P· plication of the principle of ne double effect to justify the fur t er effect of loss of fertility. 6. With the exception of .h.e foregoing cases, the moral ju~ ;fi-cation for all treatments usec. m the care of the sick is found in :he principle of totality. This. me. ns. practically speaking. that m te ms of the total welfare of the pal ent there is a proportionate reason for the use of the treatment. --~-~ --BILLINGS GOLD MEDAL AW ARD TO PRESIDENT OF E'.VANSVILLE CATHOLIC PHYSICIANS' GUILD 76 D W D Snively. Jr., president of the Evansville, Indiana, _Catholl ic r. · · · H 'ta! received t 1c Physicians' Guild, and associates at St. Marys_ . osp1 • A n· Billings gold medal award for their scientific exh~b,t . at thde Af.M.th~ ~~ St d . J Th annual Award 1s ma e or vention in Chicago unng une. e . The exhibit correlation of facts and for excellence of presentation. . . ub-concerned body fluids. Fluid Balance Handbook for Pract1t1~~r~ni~ely lished by Charles C. Thomas. Sprin~held. Ill., co-authored by and Dr. Michael J. Sweeney, is just off the press. LINACRE QUARTERLY RECENT PAPAL ADDRESSES to Cornea Donors and Congress of Fertility commentary by John J. Lynch, S.J. Professor of Moral Theology, Weston College, Weston, Mass. W ITHIN a single week dur-ing this past month of May, Pope Pius XII deliv ered two allocutions on medico-moral topics. The first was concerned principally with the question of corneal transplants; the second, addressed to participants in the Second World Congress of Fer-tility and Sterility, dealt with ar-tificial insemination and with one method of procuring seminal spe-cimens. namely, masturbation. As so often happens when papal pronouncements of this kind are made, both allocutions were promptly reported by the various Press services of this country. but With varying degrees of complete-ness and accuracy. Perhaps now that the original texts of those ad-dresses are available, it will b e P<>ssible to determine· somewhat lllore precisely what His Holiness actually had to say on several P<>ints which are of practical im-P<>rtance to modern doctors.1 One thing to keep in mind when aJlocutions such as these are pub-lished is that they surely will not contain anything sensational in the n ewspaper sense of the word, or even anything theologically novel. U sually when the Pope speaks by way of a llocution on such matters, his purpose is either to confirm with papal authority a doctrine w hich has been previous-ly taught by private theologians generally; or to call attention again to some point which the authoritative teaching Church has a lready declared to be so. Occa-sionally a debated issue may be de-cided one way or the other and a theological dispute thus finally settled. As far as the May allocu-tions are concerned, it seems quite safe to say that they are of the type which merely confirms or re-affirms established moral prin-ciples and conclusions. There ap-pears to have been no intention on the part of the Pope to resolve any theological dispute in such a way as to declare now as illicit any medical procedure which pre-v iously had been defended as morally permissible. In other words our revised Ethical and -~~eta Aposto/icae Sedis 48 ( 1956) , ·~7-07; 467-74. AUGUST, 1956 77 I/ Religious Directives for Catholic Hospitals still remains a depe~d-able g uic even in those medic~! a reas whll Pius XII traversed m these recL prono uncements. CORN ~AL TRANSPLANTS One of ,he most significant items in the first of these two allo-cutions is the Pope's express dec-laration t hat he was restricting his disc1.1ssion of organic transplanta-tion to one specific procedure, namely. to the removal of corneas from bodies of the recently de-ceased for the purpose of restor-ing sight to t he blind. "We re-strict Ourselves," said Piu~. at the beginn ing o f h is address, to the religious and moral aspects of the transplantation of the cornea, not between living individuals ( of that W e sha ll not speak today), but from the dead body to the living." This explicit limitation of the question is important for this rea-son. I t has for some time been a matter of disagreement among moralists w hether organic trans-plantation from one living human being to another can be reconciled with the moral principles govern-ing bodily mutilations.2 Without now going into the details of that dispute. it can be said by way of practical conclusion _that up to the time of this a llocution there had been sufficient theological author-ity behind the more favorable opinion to justify its use m cer-2For a discussion of this _dispute, cf. , Fr. Gerald Kelly's article which appear~ elsewhere in this issue of LtNACRE Q u.a.R_ TERLY. 78 tain circumstances. Now after th allocution it can safely be asserte that, since the Pope deliberate! chose not to intervene in the ma tcr on so opportune an occasio, he is w illing that the discussic continue among theologians. least for the t ime being, and th t he does not feel that there is _a -parent as yet eviden~e suff1c1e to decide the moral issue of_ c -ganic transplanta tion inter vr.vt ; . Therefore, no. 40 of our D m ·-tives remains still a valid no , n for problems of this sort: .. Ordinarily the "proporUonate go J -that justifies a d irectly mutilating pr< e dure must be the welfare of the pat nJ himself. H owever, such things as bl o d transfusions and skin g rafts are perm, e_ for the good of others. ~hethe~. us principle of " helping the ne,gh_bor . a ~ justify organic transpla ntation ,s no · d matter of discussion. Physicians are _a, e. to present practical cases for solut,o, ,f such cases exist. It is stil l. of course, possible t ,at at some later date papal f.ro-nouncement-either for or aga ,nst - w ill b e ma de on this phase of organic transplantation. But,. at the moment the question of .1ve donor transplants remains in s atu quo. Returning then to the problem which Pius chose to discuss. namely, corneal transplants pro-cured from cadavera. we note h'.s moral appraisal of this practice is merely confirmatory of the solu-tion which theologians had pred viously been giving: cons1dere objectively and merely as a sur-gical procedure, this type of ker~-toplasty meets with no moral o -jection , provided only that ce; tain precautions are observ\; The first such precaution refers LINACRE QUARTERLY an habitual attitude of mind whereby we remain constantly aware of the r elative dignity of a human cadaver. As the onetime abode of a spiritual and immorta l soul and as temple of the Holy Ghost. the human body - destined itself for resurrection and e ternal lffe-merits even in death a pro-portionate respect and reverence. Even in the ·legitimate uses to which a corpse may be put for the benefit of the living, no doctor should a llow himself to develop the exclusively clinical mentality which would regard a human ca-daver as no more than dead ani-mal tissue. it a positively virtuous th ing for one to specify before death that his body be used for legitimate medica l research and tra ining. Such a decision . however. is usu-ally not of obligation ; and His Holiness warns against any in-temperate form of propaganda in this r egard which would create the false notion that one is ordi-narily required in conscience so to dispose of h is body for the bene-fit of o thers. H e insists. too, that this right of choice is no less the prerogative of the poor than it is tha t of the wealthy or socia lly prominen t. Civil laws on this matter, he concludes. should be so· formulated as to guaran tee proper respect for the rights of all con-cerned while at the same time pro-viding for the legitimate require-ments of medical science. A fur ther proviso stipulated by His Holiness- one which is not unfamiliar either to theologia ns or. to physicians-is the matter of req-uisite consent. Apart from ex-ceptional cases. i t would usually Dot be permissible to remove cor-neas from a corpse, even for the Very laudable purpose of trans-plantation, without the consent of the next of kin ( or of others Whose right it might be to make proper disposition of a body) or contrary to the explicit refusal o f the deceased expressed before death. This condition, as the P ope laserts, is d ictated not only by the humane consideration w hich is due the bereaved; if is a lso a lllatter of strict right to be scrupu-lously respected. Granted t h ese precautions, however, it is clearly the teaching of Pius XII that the transplanta-tion of corneas from the dead to th, living is beyond moral re-Proach. M ore than that. he calls AucusT, 1956 The a llocution touches a lso up-on an incidental point which sometimes causes concern to doc-tors and laymen alike. ls it wrong to accept, or even to demand, fl-nancial recompense for bequeath-ing one's body for medica l pur-poses? The Pope's answer again confirms what theologians ordi-narily have taught: It is beyond doubt that grave abuses can occur if compensation is demanded; but it would be going too far to declare immoral every acceptance of recompense or every demand for one. The case is ana logous to that of blood transfusion: it is creditable for the donor to refuse recompense; it is not necessarily a fault to accept it. W hat the P ope is saying equi-valently is that there is nothing intrinsically immoral in accepting payment either for giving one's blood or for agreeing- tha t. ·one's 79 I' rl II ,, body a f:. ~r death should be used for mec! ca l purposes. Circum-stances .f an individual case could bt -;uch as to make this financial 'lsideration mercenary to the po, of sin. But the lone fact of mon ta ry recompense does not o f itsell in troduce a n element that is necessarily immoral. MALE FERTILITY TESTS One serious misrepresentation of the second May a llocution was the report carried in some news-papers that the Pope h ad con-demned any direct method of sem-,ina l sampling for the purpose of determining male fertility. T his simply was not so. The Pope's own words throughout this section of his address make it ab undantly clear that he was considering only one means of procuring seminal specimens, n ame l y, deliberate masturbation (" masturbatio dir-ecte procurata"). 3 This was the only practice, rela tive to male ferti lity tests, which t he a llocu-tion condemned. And in speak-ing as he did, the Pope was doing no more tha n r eiterating . most clearly and most emphatically. what theologians a nd the Church had a lways taught with regard to direct ma sturbation, that no pur-pose, however, laudable, can jus-tify this abuse of the sexual fac-ulty. 3This address, like the one which pre-ceded it, was delivered in French. H ow-ever, in this section dealing with semina l sampling, the Pope spoke in Latin ( the most common language of theologia ns), , presumably because he wished to a void even the remotest possibility of being misunderstood. · 80 Consequently there is no nee l to modify in any way the conch -sions which theologians had a -ready formulated on the matter , f seminal sampling for legitima i! medical research. Ethical and R ligious Directives explicitly state n. 29. The unnatural use of the x faculty ( e.g., masturbation) is never p r-mitted, even for a laudable purpose. n. 38. Ster ility tests involving the p )• curement of the male specimen by m s-turbation or unnatural intercourse re morally objectionable. And M edico-Moral Prob/e, s. II ( 14 - 17) distinguishes m st carefully between those concr te sampling procedures which , re morally permissible and th se which are not. ( Cf. a lso L INA< i E QUARTERLY, M ay, 1954, pp. 4-57.) ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION There is scarcely need of g ng into any grea t detail h ere as to •he Pope's remarks in this same a ,lo-cution on a rtificial inseminat;on. His moral judgment of this pi a c-tice was there expressed by re-peating verbatim words he 1ad addressed some seven years 190 to a group of doctors convene I in Rome: As regards artificial inseminatio n, there is not only reason for extreme res1..'rve. but it must be entirely rej ected . T o say this is not necessarily to proscribe the use of certain a rtificial means designed only to facilitate the natural act or to en· able that act, performed in a normal manner, to attain its end. The Pope was speaking then of so-called homologous insemina-tion ( there was never any doubt among theologians as to the irn-morality of donor insemination), and it is the common understand· L INACRE QUARTERLY ing of moralists that he thereby condemned a ny form of human fecundation which might be at-tempted altogether independently of natural conjugal relations. The full import of this pronouncement has been adequately expla ined by G erald Kelly, S.J.. both in the February, 1956 issue of L INACRE QUARTERLY and in Medico-Moral Problems, II. 17-22. E xcept to exp.atiate a t some length on the ethica l reasons underly ing his AUGUST , 1956 condemnation of artificia l insem-ination, H is H oliness added noth-ing to his teaching on the subject in his more recent allocu tion . H e d id, however. mention in passing - and for the first time, to my knowledge- a point that is theo-logic~lly indisputable, namely, that attempts at human artificia l insemination ' in vitro' ... must be rejected as immoral and absolute-ly illicit. .. 8 1 

Recent Papal Addresses to Cornea Donors and Congress of Fertility

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Recent Papal Addresses to Cornea Donors and Congress of Fertility

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