Caveziel chats with reporters:
Caviezel said that he sees Christ’s message as a balance between grace and truth, while in American Catholicism the accent is often on grace alone.
“If you have just grace, which we have a lot in the Catholic church in the United States, that means we have a ‘happy Jesus,’” he said. “You see him without any nails in his hand, no more suffering. Sleep with Suzy on Friday, Catherine on Saturday, go to church on Sunday, and the blood washes it all. You wouldn’t do this to your best friend, so why would you do it to your Lord and Savior?”
Despite the obvious sincerity of his Catholicism, Caviezel said he resents the way the press fastens on it.
“I am proud to be Catholic,” he said. “But I’m also an actor. They write, ‘devout Catholic Jim Caviezel.’ Fine, but that’s not how they speak about other artists. They don’t say, ‘devout Scientologist Tom Cruise,’ or ‘devout Jewish man who speaks about his Jewish faith Adam Sandler.’ They’re not consistent. For me, they say ‘religious zealot.’ ”
That conference on the vegetative state:
Fr. Norman Ford from the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics in Melbourne, Australia, sparked debate by arguing in favor of withdrawal of care under some circumstances.
“Failure to give due regard to the clinical reality of permanently unconscious patients shows a lack of respect for them,” Ford said. “The patient should not be subjected to the ontological indignity of being sustained by medically assisted nutrition and hydration for years of unconscious life.”
Fr. Gerald Gleeson of the Catholic Institute of Sydney, Australia, agreed that food and water can be removed if it becomes “futile, burdensome, not beneficial to patient, and is prolonging death.”
These arguments were challenged by other participants.
A French physician who works with persistently unresponsive patients challenged Ford, asking how he knows that these patients don’t feel pain. In any event, she asked, why starve people to death over two weeks? If the aim is to end their life, why not be honest and simply put them to death by lethal injection? In other words, why not admit that what you’re really talking about is euthanasia?
Also, a link to an interview ith Pell.
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