[Question:]{.underline} Some physicians use the text of Pope John Paul II’s Address to International Congress on Transplants, dated August 29, 2000 to justify “cadaveric” organ transplantation. Can we accept this?
[Answer:]{.underline} “Cadaveric” transplantation is a misnomer, and is used to describe the removal of organs from a person who has been declared brain dead, but who is being kept alive by artificial means.
Note that the Pope’s address is not a statement of the Church’s Magisterium, and that it makes no definitions or clear statements on Faith or morality. I will pass over the humanistic and naturalistic tone of this discourse, which speaks of the dignity of the human person, but not of the salvation of souls. I would, however, like to bring up the crucial statement in this document, which the Pope uses to justify his personal opinion that it is licit to harvest organs from brain dead people, who are being alive by artificial means, in order to treat medical conditions by transplantation. This statement is this: “the criterion adopted in more recent times for ascertaining the fact of death, namely the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity, if rigorously applied, does not seem to conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthropology.” (§5)
The Pope’s very hesitant statement is quite simply wrong. The Church teaches that reason can prove with certitude the spirituality and the immortality of the human soul (Ds 2766 and 2812). This means that the soul is not bound to any organ of the body, including the brain. The soul is not dead or absent just because the brain is incapable of functioning, short of a miracle. Death is in fact the separation of the soul from the body. As the Pope himself correctly points out, the precise moment of death “is an event which no scientific technique or empirical method can identify directly” (§4). It is for this reason that a priest can conditionally administer the sacrament of Extreme Unction for up to an hour after a person has been medically declared dead.
The Pope’s argument is that we can accept the neurological criteria of death have replaced the cardio-respiratory criteria, namely the cessation of heart and lung activity for a period of time beyond which it is no longer possible to revive them. It is true that the neurological criteria give the moral certitude that the person will die when the cardio-respiratory life support systems are removed. However, they give absolutely no certitude that the person is already dead, in the true sense of separation of soul and body. Moral certitude of this is only possible when corruption takes place, as sure proof that human life is no longer present in the corpse. However, as long as respiration and cardiac function are maintained, albeit artificially, the tissues and cells of the body will certainly stay alive and nourished, and the body remains one organism, with one being, that is to say one soul. Corruption is the only sure sign that the unity of the being is lost, and that consequently the immortal soul is separated from the body. Once corruption sets in and death is certain, it is certainly permissible to use organs for experimental and other uses, provided that there is a proportionally grave reason. However, since corruption involves a disintegration of the tissues and organs, they cannot then be used for transplantation purposes.
How can it be said that with certitude, that the human soul is no longer present in an apparently live body whose brain is dead? And if the human soul is in all probability present, how can the removal of organs necessary for life be justified? The moral certitude that the brain dead person will die in any case is irrelevant. He is presently, to all appearances and in all likelihood still alive, and the removal of organs necessary for life could be the direct cause of his death? Surely to be responsible for this is a sin against the fifth commandment. Surely man cannot claim this right to kill another person simply because of the benefit that could accrue to a third person. This is utilitarianism, considering man as a means to an end.
Consequently, the medical diagnosis of brain death can not be considered as giving the medical profession the right to declare a person as dead quite simply. Furthermore, it is not permissible to accept organs necessary for life, such as the heart, lung, or liver, removed from a person in such a state. It is consequently my opinion that the present day practice of “cadaveric” transplantation is immoral and illicit, and it is not permitted for a Catholic to authorize his or another’s donation or even to accept organs harvested in this way.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.