As Catholics we cherish and respect life. At the same time we know that suffering and death are inevitable. We do not seek suffering nor stand immobile before it. We seek to alleviate suffering in all its manifestations, especially the suffering of the dying process.

When life becomes terribly burdensome, frustrating, and seemingly pointless, we do not intend or induce the death of others, nor do we ourselves ask to be killed. On the other hand, neither do we cling fearfully to life and struggle frantically against death no matter what the costs. While assisted suicide and euthanasia are morally unacceptable, we may refuse life-prolonging procedures which are insufficiently beneficial or excessively burdensome.

• Dying patients deserve loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain and other symptoms so they can live with dignity until the time of natural death.
  
  
• Patients should be kept as free of pain as possible. Medicines capable of alleviating or suppressing pain may be given to a dying person even if this therapy may indirectly shorten the person's life, so long as the intent is not to hasten death. To forgo extraordinary or disproportionate means is not the equivalent of suicide or euthanasia; it rather expresses acceptance of the human condition in the face of death.
  
  
• Depending on the person's condition, disproportionate means might include ventilators, CPR, surgery, dialysis and the use of antibodies. Artificially administered nutrition and hydration may also be considered disproportionate means for those in a persistent vegetative state.

A decision to discontinue such measures should be made in light of a careful assessment of the burdens and benefits of nutrition and hydration for the individual patient and his or her family and community. Artificially administered nutrition and hydration may be withdrawn if they offer no medically reasonable hope of sustaining life or pose excessive risks or burdens.


• The means of treatment must be objectively proportionate to the prospects for improvement. If there are no prospects for improvement, there is no moral obligation to sustain or prolong life. Medical treatment is excessively burdensome if it is "too painful, too damaging to the patient's bodily self and functioning, too psychologically repugnant to the patient, too restrictive of the patient's liberty and preferred activities, too suppressive of the patient's mental life or too expensive."
  
  
• Prolonging life simply because physiological function can be prolonged long after cognitive-affective function ceases irreparably is not a sufficient reason to continue therapy.
  
  
• Proportionate means are those that in the judgment of the patient offer a reasonable hope of benefit and do not entail an excessive burden or impose excessive expense on the family or the community.
  
  

The goal of our life is to respond to God's transforming love by making a gift of ourselves to God in return. As we die and entrust ourselves into God's hands we make this gift. Death then is the doorway to eternal life. On the one hand it is to be fought against that we might live life to the full. On the other hand, when death is inevitable we can welcome it in the words of St. Francis of Assisi:

"Praise be my Lord for our sister, the death of the body,
from whom no one escapes.
Woe to the one who dies in mortal sin.
Blessed are those who die in Thy most holy will,
for the second death shall have no power to do them harm."

The prayer of St. Ignatius expresses this same truth:

"Take, Lord, receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
all that I have and possess.
You have given it all to me.
To you, O Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours,
dispose of it wholly according to your will.
Give me Your love and Your grace,
that is enough for me."