Diocese wraps up well-attended discussion sessions on Hawaii’s new physician-assisted suicide law
Father Mark Gantley leads a Feb. 12 discussion session on physician-assisted suicide at St. John Vianney Parish. (HCH photo | Anna Weaver)
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
After Hawaii’s physician-assisted suicide bill went into effect Jan. 1, the Diocese of Honolulu scheduled discussion sessions throughout the islands on the pastoral implications of the new law.
Around 700 people attended the nine meetings held between Jan. 3 and Feb. 12 in Honolulu, Pearl City, Kailua-Kona, Hilo, Koloa, Kaunakakai, Kahului and Kihei, and Kailua. The diocese’s judicial vicar Father Mark Gantley led the talks, often with the help of Hawaii Catholic Conference executive director Eva Andrade.
The targeted audience for the discussions were priests, deacons, parish staff, sick and homebound ministers, and those involved in funeral and bereavement ministry.
“You’re benefiting from this being my ninth session,” Father Gantley said to the group of just under 50 people who gathered in a meeting room at St. John Vianney Parish in Kailua on Feb. 12 for the final session.
“We’re really the underdog in this,” Father Gantley said in regards to the Catholic Church not having ample money and resources to fight physician-assisted suicide in the political arena. But he pointed out that any Catholic can minister to the dying.
“Even if you’re someone who is just bringing holy Communion to the sick,” he said, “you could have a role in combatting [assisted suicide].”
“Often it is just a matter of saying something such as, ‘Life is precious,’ and letting the words incubate within the person with the help of God’s grace,” he said. “It might convince them not to kill themselves; it might also result in the salvation of the person’s soul.”
In his interactive, 90-minute session, Father Gantley went over the “Instruction Regarding Sacraments and Funerals in Situations Involving Physician Assisted Suicide,” which Bishop Larry Silva released in November 2018.
Father Gantley took questions along the way. He shared information on the specifics of Hawaii’s “Our Care, Our Choice Act” (the name of Hawaii’s new law) and the actual process of physician-assisted suicide, both of which he said attendees at many sessions wanted to understand better.
The “Instruction” includes guidelines when someone seeking physician-assisted suicide wants confession, viaticum (final Communion), anointing of the sick, or prayers.
“Just the actions of giving the sacrament could be considered implicit approval” of assisted suicide, Father Gantley told attendees. “But our hope is that they allow God’s plan to take its course.”
The “Instruction” also goes over the celebration of Catholic funeral Masses and other rites for people who kill themselves via physician-assisted suicide (they should be granted except in very rare cases.)
Among those who attended the Feb. 12 session was Anne-Marie Adolfi, a parishioner and lay minister at St. John Vianney. “We have to know this information,” she said.
When her own mother was near death, she remembers her mother’s doctor reassuring the family about using pain medication to ease her cancer symptoms.
“We’re here to make her feel comfortable, not to kill her,” she recalls him saying.
Although the Catholic Church is against Hawaii’s physician-assisted suicide law, its passage is an avenue for those that minister to the dying to “address the fear of suffering” at the end of one’s life, said Jeannette Koijane, executive director of Kokua Mau, a statewide hospice and palliative care organization.
“It’s an opportunity to listen to each other,” Koijane said, “How do you care well for people?”
More to come
While the nine discussion sessions were aimed at a smaller audience, Father Gantley said that the diocese is working on a new Catholic Advance Healthcare Directive. The idea is to hold more sessions for priests and anyone interested in the topic.
“Our plan is to invite all parishioners, not just the elderly, to these sessions, get people talking about end of life decisions, and have people do their advance planning in accord with the plan of God,” Father Gantley said by email.
Those meetings would potentially touch upon Catholic moral teaching, end-of-life issues, how to discuss medical issues and end-of-life wishes with loved ones, and hospice and palliative care.
Sacred Hearts Father Ed Popish, the pastor of St. Ann in Kaneohe, attended the Feb. 12 session. He said that much of the session was an “updating and reinforcing” of what he already knew about assisted suicide. But the priest said he was glad to hear the diocese intends to open up future information sessions to a wider audience.
“I think we need to do more in helping people to understand what the church’s teaching is and finding mechanisms to support them,” Father Popish said. “Most of the things that would lead them to [physician-assisted suicide] could be solved without this particular option.”
Father Gantley said that the sessions showed him that “many people are carrying around unnecessary guilt” over the handling of a loved one’s last days, such as pain relief use or feeding tubes.
“In all nine sessions, when people talked about their own experiences of dealing with the death of their loved ones, none told a story where I had to tell them that they were wrong in the decision that they made,” he said via email. “They often are under the mistaken notion that the Catholic Church’s teachings are that a person must do everything possible in order to preserve their life.”
That’s one reason the diocese is working on its own Catholic Advance Healthcare Directive to help guide people in making end-of-life decisions in line with their Catholic faith.
