Category Archives: Euthanasia

The pandemic is officially over: Georgetowns Crumbs & Whiskers cat cafe is reopening for business. Starting Saturday, June 26, patrons will be able to come grab a coffee and snuggle some kittens for the first time in over a year.

Up to 25 kittensall previously at risk of euthanasia and saved by rescue group Homeward Trailswill be around for cuddles at any given time. You can adopt any of them.

The original O Street location of Crumbs & Whiskers closed permanently during the pandemic. But this remaining Georgetown location will be open on weekdays (except Tuesday) from 11 AM to 7:30 PM, and Friday to Sunday from 11 AM to 8 PM. There is a cafe maximum of 16 people to facilitate social distancing, and mask wearing is required.

Crumbs & Whiskers, 3109 M St., NW.

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Assistant Editor

Jane is a Chicago transplant who now calls Cleveland Park her home. Before joining Washingtonian, she wrote for Smithsonian Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she studied journalism and opera.

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Sign of the Normal Times: DC's Cat Cafe Is Back - Washingtonian

SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD WE GOBy Lionel Shriver

When we meet them in their 50s, the Wilkinsons, Kay and Cyril, a married couple, she a nurse and he a doctor in Britains National Health Service, she a blowzy free spirit who likes her wine, he an earnest socialist intoxicated by his own virtue, are considering whether they should kill themselves. Not immediately, but in due time. They have their reasons.

Kays father, a victim of dementia, has just expired after a long decline. For Kay, her fathers infinite dotage was a demoralizing ordeal that grated on her senses its smells, its messes and seemed to take years off her own life. For Cyril, a man who tends to overthink things in a bloodless utilitarian way and is always alert to the interests of the collective, the drawn-out death of his father-in-law was proof that aged people linger too long on earth, consuming medical and social resources that are best devoted to younger folks.

And so, over drinks one night, Cyril proposes a plan that he hopes will save his wife and him not to mention the state a lot of bother. When they turn 80 (or rather when Kay turns 80, because she is a few months younger than he) they will down an overdose of sleeping pills that Cyril has already stashed in the refrigerator, 30 years ahead of time. Kay is skeptical of this plan at first, but after noticing one day that her mother has started to grow forgetful, she tells her husband: Im all in.

With the winding of this fatalistic clock, which requires only a few pages and transpires in the form of chipper banter reminiscent of a Nol Coward comedy, we find ourselves in the realm of the high-concept. We are reading a novel of issues, a thesis novel concerning euthanasia and medical rationing. Its not ripped from the headlines, perhaps, but neatly clipped from them, its manner quippy, satirical and arch, its characters capable of op-ed-style rants on the questions at hand, and on many others too. Current affairs such as the Brexit vote are the couples abiding interest, even more than their own children (or so it seems). For example, here is Cyril on the pandemic, which happens to strike in the novel as the Wilkinsons are approaching their long-contemplated last act:

Ive studied the data. That weedy, doom-mongering computer modeler at Imperial College London who predicted 510,000 British deaths without draconian intervention he has his head up his backside. The ponce may have Boris in his thrall, but Neil Ferguson has overestimated the lethality of the virus by at least an order of magnitude.

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When the End of Life Seems Endless - The New York Times

Unqualifiedly good news from the Hague: A United Nations court has denied an appeal from Ratko Mladic, the general who led the mass murder of Bosnians at Srebrenica, including women and children. Mladic wanted his conviction for genocide and war crimes overturned. He was instrumental in the prosecution of that horrible war, not just the slaughter at Srebrenica. Politico has the story.

Also at Politico, as President Joe Biden begins his first trip to Europe, riding a wave of goodwill, a look at those areas where Europe and the U.S. disagree. The challenge for the president is to turn the goodwill into concrete diplomatic results on these outstanding issues.

At her blog "Letters from an America," historian Heather Cox Richardson looks at the state of bipartisanship in the U.S. Senate, where Minority Leader Mitch McConnell continues to obstruct any and all measures he can, from voting rights to raising taxes on corporations. Richardson steps on her lede, however. Important as voting rights are, it is the Pro Publica publication of IRS files on some of America's richest citizens that provides Democrats with the key to reclaim populism for themselves, rid of its racist and nationalist overtones, and rather focus populist anger on the people who have been ripping off the rest of us for decades. Look for more on this soon.

From The New York Times, a reminder that we are not out of the woods yet with the COVID-19 virus: In parts of the country with low vaccination rates, the number of people being hospitalized with the virus is again on the rise. New variants continue to worry scientists. Businesses, large and small, should require employees and customers be vaccinated or continue to practice safety measures like social distancing and mask-wearing. The more stigma that attaches to not being vaccinated, the better.

From our friends down under,and the Spectator Australia, a look at the problems with a bill that would make voluntary euthanasia legal in Queensland. The idea of "voluntary" is more slippery than some people think and far more than euthanasia advocates will allow. The "throwaway culture" has won the debate about the unborn and now has its eyes trained on the elderly. Shame on all of us if we do not resist this pernicious assault on human dignity.

From The Washington Post, David Dushman, the last surviving soldier among the liberators of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 1945, has died. Dushman was Jewish and serving in the Soviet army. If you have been to the U.S. Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Washington, or to Auschwitz-Birkenau itself, then you know the horrors he met. Can you imagine what it was like to encounter them for the first time? Not knowing what to expect? Dushman said he was haunted all his life by what he witnessed. I hope the rest of us will also remain haunted all of our lives by what he saw.

Finally,at the blog Architecture of Cities, a look at some of the extraordinarily beautiful examples of Timurid architecture, named after the conqueror and emperor Timur, a 14th century Turkish-Mongol leader and emperor who founded a short-lived empire. The buildings are extraordinarily beautiful, adorned with exquisite blue tilework, Islamic calligraphy and geometric designs, and outfitted with monumental entrances and domes of great delicacy and engineering prowess.

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Links: Good news from the Hague and Joe Biden goes to Europe - National Catholic Reporter

By Matt Hadro

Washington D.C., Jun 7, 2021 / 20:01 pm

The U.S. bishops next week will deliberate and vote on whether to draft a teaching document on the Eucharist despite the recent request of some bishops to delay such a discussion.

At the bishops virtual spring meeting scheduled for June 16-18, one agenda item that has received scrutiny is consideration of Eucharistic consistency. The agenda item is a proposal to draft a formal statement on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church. The proposal comes from the bishops doctrine committee.

In a May 22 memo to the U.S. bishops, the president of the conference Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles explained that the proposal for such a document came from the doctrine committee. The committee followed the administrative procedures for securing an agenda item on the matter, he said.

Further, the proposed outline of the document reflects recent guidance from the Holy See, Archbishop Gomez said, referring to a May 7 letter from the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, to Gomez and, by extension, the U.S. bishops.

Gomez added that the focus of this proposed teaching document is on how best to help people to understand the beauty and mystery of the Eucharist as the center of their Christian lives.

The conference will not be voting on any final text of a document, but simply on whether to begin drafting a document, he said. If the bishops approve the motion, they will still have the opportunity to deliberate and amend the document when presented in final form at a future meeting.

In its proposal, the bishops doctrine committee explained the two-fold need for a teaching document on the Eucharist.

First, the bishops three-year strategic plan approved in November 2020 has a Eucharistic title, Created Anew by the Body and Blood of Christ, Source of Our Healing and Hope. Second, a special working group of the bishops convened in the aftermath of Joe Bidens election to the presidency recommended a teaching document on Eucharistic consistency.

That term has its roots in the 2007 closing document of the Aparecida conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops a document which then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio had a hand in developing. Used in the document, the term refers to the need for Catholic leaders and legislators to defend life and the family against grave evils such as abortion and euthanasia.

Making specific reference to legislators, heads of government, and health professionals, the document states, We must adhere to eucharistic coherence, that is, be conscious that they cannot receive holy communion and at the same time act with deeds or words against the commandments, particularly when abortion, euthanasia, and other grave crimes against life and family are encouraged.

Although individual U.S. bishops have talked about the matter of Communion for pro-abortion politicians in recent months given that President Biden is Catholic and supports taxpayer-funded abortion the bishops Eucharistic document would be addressed to all Catholics.

In light of recent surveys, it is clear that there is a lack of understanding among many Catholics about the nature and meaning of the Eucharist, the doctrine committees proposal stated.

In 2019, a Pew Research report found that fewer than one-third of Catholics (31%) surveyed believed in the Real Presence, and more than two-thirds (69%) believed the Eucharist to be merely a symbol. Several bishops at the time, citing the survey, emphasized the need for catechesis on the Eucharist.

A proposed outline of the Eucharistic document reveals a comprehensive catechesis on the Eucharist, covering both the sacrament itself and how Catholics must live in accord with the Commandments in their daily lives.

The outline covers teachings such as the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, a recovery of understanding the Eucharist as sacrifice, the importance of Sunday as a day of obligation, the need for beautiful liturgies, Catholics living as a Eucharistic people in daily life, the Eucharist as a call to conversion, and the importance of practicing the works of mercy.

The third part of the document also includes a section on Eucharistic consistency, and the nature of eucharistic communion and the problem of serious sin. It cites the teaching of St. Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

Some bishops had recently moved to delay the discussion on the Eucharist, citing a Vatican letter to argue against a virtual discussion of such a serious topic.

Archbishop Gomez had written to the Vatican in March, informing them of the plans for the spring meeting. On May 7, Cardinal Ladaria responded to Gomez, addressing the topic of Communion for public officials who support permissive legislation on grave evils such as abortion.

If the bishops were to issue any national policy on Communion in these situations, he said, they would first need serene dialogue among themselves to ensure unity on Church teaching. Then individual bishops should dialogue with the Catholic politicians in their jurisdictions, to better understand their positions and their comprehension of Catholic teaching.

Only after that, he said, should the bishops discern how best to move forward on the matter. Any action they take should ensure consensus, respect the authority of individual bishops in their own dioceses, be framed within the broader context of general worthiness to receive Communion among all Catholics, and must not appear to list abortion or euthanasia as the only grave moral issues, he said.

After the Vatican sent its letter to the bishops, Cardinal Blas Cupich of Chicago led a letter by some bishops to Gomez, asking that the planned discussion on the Eucharist be delayed. The gravity of the issue necessitated an in-person discourse, Cupich argued, and should first be addressed by provinces or regional groups of bishops before the entire conference deliberated on it.

Gomez, in his May 22 memo, said that the discussion will take place as planned at next weeks meeting. Such a motion is in line with the administrative procedures of the conference and the requests in Cardinal Ladarias letter, he said.

Excerpt from:

'Eucharistic consistency': What the US bishops will discuss at their meeting next week - The Catholic Telegraph

In 2020, more people than ever died due to euthanasia in the Netherlands.

According to statistics of the official Regional Euthanasia Review Committees (RTE in Dutch), a total number of 6,938 asked for euthanasia (which includes both termination of life on request and assisted suicide) and died through the medical procedure legalized two decades ago.

The figure is not only the highest since the law was passed in 2002, but also represents a sharp 9 per centincrease since 2019.

According to the RTE, around 5,000 of the patients who asked for euthanasia suffered of cancer and a vast majority were elderly people.

Speaking to Dutch newspaper Trouw, the president of RTE said, the figures fit in with a larger development More and more generations see euthanasia as a solution to unbearable suffering.In other words, the thought that euthanasia is an option in the case of hopeless suffering is very reassuring.

This shift in the thinking of the population is confirmed by the statistics. Euthanasia has been continually on the rise with the only exception of 2018. According to the last published annual report published on RTEs website, slightly more men than women (52 per centto 48 per cent) ask for euthanasia in the Netherlands, and - after cancer - neurological diseases and cardiovascular disorders are the second and third illnesses suffered by those who begin the euthanasia procedure. Mental disorders represent just over 1 per centof the cases.

According to the official statistics, people aged 70-79 represent one-third of the euthanasia requesters, followed by those aged 80-89 (one-fourth) and 60-69 (one-fifth). No minors aged 12-17 died by euthanasia in 2019.

In 2020, a total number of 162,000 people died in the Netherlands, 15,000 more than expected, mainly because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Euthanasia deaths represented 4.3 per centof the total number.

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This story originally appeared at Evangelical Focus and is republished here with permission.

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Euthanasia represented 4% of deaths in the Netherlands last year - CHVN Radio

Dear Editor,

In his article ACT sidelined in the euthanasia debate (CW, 27/5), Gary Humphries seems conflicted. On the one hand he suggests there is a right kind of euthanasia by saying that there are serious dangers if the wrong kind of euthanasia is legislated. He then goes on to explain what some of those dangers are: extending the time at which euthanasia might be considered: e.g. in the Victorian legislation states candidates must have less than six months to live, while the Queensland legislation is looking at less than 12 months to live. This, he acknowledges, is a serious slippery slope. Then there is the not always benign influence of families on those who are considering euthanasia.

I would like to ask Gary what he considers a right kind of euthanasia? Experience in The Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and the US suggests there is no such thing. As far as euthanasia supporters are concerned, safeguards are just there to be got around. I suggest Gary and all your readers find and read Paul Kellys article State-sanctioned death exposes the Wests moral decay, published in The Weekend Australian of 29-30 May.

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Letter to the editor: what is the right kind of euthanasia? - Canberra Weekly

BISHOP Timothy Harris continues to speak out publicly to persuade Queensland politicians supporting euthanasia they are making a grave mistake.

In a Letter to the Editor published by the Townsville Bulletin, the Bishop of Townsville pleaded with Queensland MPs supporting the move to legalise euthanasia to reconsider.

I say to members of parliament advocating for voluntary assisted suicide STOP and think again, Bishop Harris wrote.

Let us have a good long, hard look at ourselves before we go to where we have not gone before.

He said he continued to hold the strong view that no good whatsoever will come if these laws are passed.

Indeed, society will never be the same again, he said.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk introduced a bill to Parliament on May 25 to legalise euthanasia.

The Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill was referred to the Health and Safety Committee for a 12-week consultation.

In his letter to the Townsville Bulletin, Bishop Harris said he thought a civilised society was against suicide and wished to do everything possible to eradicate it.

But no, it seems we wish to offer people the option of taking their precious lives, he wrote.

We can do better than this race to the bottom.

We can create an environment of accompaniment from the beginning of a terminal illness to the end.

Society must not abandon anyone, especially the most vulnerable.

Palliative care creates an environment conducive to caring and compassionate actions that can lead to someone dying well.

Bishop Harris said some of the horror stories offered by euthanasia advocates about people dying in terrible pain were years old.

Palliative care has advanced in its effectiveness and will do so even more if adequate funding from governments can be achieved, he said.

People are frightened into supporting voluntary assisted dying because they are led to believe they have no other alternative.

Proponents of VAD should therefore hang their heads in shame and demand of their governments a standard of palliative care that mitigates against a rush to a regime that sanctions death.

Bishop Harris said legalising euthanasia would be a step too far.

No one needs to suffer unbearably, but a concerted effort to ease this suffering with a world-class palliative care system will at least challenge the view that VAD is the answer, he said.

Suicide is suicide and it is a tragic consequence of a society that has failed its people.

It leaves in its wake a kind of individual and community paralysis that seems to be placed in the too-hard basket.

How have we got to this stage?

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'Society will never be the same' Queensland bishop warns against abandoning vulnerable people to euthanasia - Catholic Leader

Sarah Wootton, CEO of Dignity in Dying, on the right, in this 2017 picture with Noel Conway, who unsuccessful sought the right to an assisted death.PA/Alamy

According to Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, formerly known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, the current law on assisted dying does not work, and it is time for the UK to grasp this nettle. Notably, since 2014 there have been several attempts to grasp the nettle none of which have managed to uproot it: two bills, various parliamentary debates, and a number of court cases all have failed to change the law. Woottons comment refers to two new challenges to the existing situation in the UK: the Jersey Assisted Dying Citizens Jury meeting in March 2021 and the private bill put forward in the House of Lords in May 2021 by Baroness Meacher, chair of Dignity in Dying. Grasping the nettle may be an encouragement to be bold and do something difficult. But often stinging nettles are best left alone, especially when pulling them up causes harm.

In English law the Suicide Act 1961 decriminalised suicide. However, assisting suicide is still a crime and the discretion to prosecute lies with the Crown Prosecution Service, with added guidance issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions in 2010. Jersey does not have a law against assisting suicide and so the situation in Jersey appears ambiguous, hence the recent independent panel set up to discuss the issue. To be clear, in English law suicide has been decriminalised: in 1961 it was recognised that survivors of suicide attempts needed help not potential imprisonment. This does not make suicide legal, still less a right.

Challenges to English law have been further fuelled by examples of countries which have already enacted assisted dying and euthanasia legislation. However, before we go grasping nettles it may be useful to see what we can glean from some of the experiences in these countries. Giving evidence to the Jersey Jury meeting, Robert Prestons data from Oregon showed that 94 per cent of requests gave being less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable as the reason for seeking assisted dying.

In evidence on Canadas Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), Trudo Lemmens, professor of law at Toronto University cited data pointing to the sense of being a burden, loneliness, inadequate palliative care, and lack of disability support as major factors in 82 per cent of requests for assisted dying. Moreover, in Canada where assisted dying was initially available only to the terminally ill, the rights rhetoric had encouraged the expansion of assisted dying provision outside of an end-of-life context such that people with disabilities may be fast tracked for death.

Michael Talibard and Tom Binet, representatives of the pro-assisted dying group End of Life Choices, argued that assisted dying should not be tied to a prognosis of six months to live because this was difficult to predict and anyway the choice for assisted dying depended on patients who find their lives unbearable.

Presenting evidence at a different forum, to the Quebec committee on the evolution of the Canadian legislation, Irene Tuffrey-Wijne, professor of Intellectual Disability and Palliative Care at Londons Kinston and St Georges University, detailed cases in the Netherlands where clinicians decided that certain patients were suffering unbearably and there was no prospect of improvement in their condition, thus making them eligible for euthanasia. Clinicians described the normal patterns of autism and learning disability as intolerable suffering. Certainly, in these cases people had asked for euthanasia yet the criteria applied for eligibility was not related to illness, terminal or otherwise, and persistent requests were interpreted as capacity rather than being challenged as possibly inability to appreciate the significance of the information or to weigh up the alternatives. Instead, their condition was regarded as untreatable because the person would not be able to cope with treatment; suffering and difficulties in coping were put down to the intellectual disability so that, in effect, having a learning disability was enough to warrant euthanasia or assisted dying. Moreover, countries such as Belgium accept that polypathology, a collection of minor medical problems, satisfies the criteria for terminal illness.

We already know about the blights on the lives of people with learning disabilities: an increased sense of loneliness, lack of support, stigma, discrimination, hate and mate crime, inequalities in all areas of life, being treated as unproductive and a burden, valued less than other people, subject to inappropriate and negative value-laden decisions by some healthcare professionals. We already know that even before the pandemic, inequalities in healthcare have led to high levels of premature deaths and preventable comorbid health conditions. Covid-19 has put a spotlight onto some of these inequalities as the NHS has identified some factors that make admitting people with learning disabilities and autism to hospital for treatment problematic and so less desirable, and it remains unclear how the NHS will prioritise in its growing waiting list for treatment for non-covid related illnesses.

The current law against assisted suicide tries to protect vulnerable people and in doing so it witnesses to the dignity of people with disabilities who, like all human beings, are deserving of societys care, attention, and protection. The proposed assisted dying legislation, even with its apparent restrictions, normalises suicide as a solution to feeling unproductive or a burden or dependent or in need of care. When urging people to grasp nettles, think about who you will sting.

Dr Pia Matthews is a Senior Lecturer St Marys University.

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Grasping the nettle of assisted dying will sting people with disabilities - The Tablet

Present-day society has developed a disturbing ambivalence to suicide on the one hand, abhorring it as a tragedy and calling for preventative measures; on the other, promoting it by the legalisation of euthanasia. Gary Furnell, whose work for a funeral director has exposed him to the frequency of suicides, especially of young men, looks to G.K. Chestertons wisdom as he wrestles with the philosophical and religious changes that have led to these ambivalent attitudes.

One of the sad surprises that confronted me as an undertakers assistantworking with the police at the start of the coronial processwas the frequency of suicide, especially male suicide.

Men typically use surer methods of suicide: hanging, gunshot, jumping from buildings and cliffs, and exsanguination by deeply cutting multiple blood vessels. Women more often choose to overdose on medicines; a few will hang themselves.

Whatever the method, the tragic truth is that suicide may be much more common than we think. The expectation of mental health experts has been that it would increase as a result of the social isolation of Covid-19 lockdowns.

Without question, attitudes to suicide reflect the frequently bi-polar nature of our society. In our state parliaments, assisted-suicide proponents push for euthanasia to be legalised, or if its already legal made more widely available, while the same parliamentssometimes the same politicianslament the frequency of suicide and demand more action (i.e., spending more taxpayers money, never their own) to address the sad scourge.

The mixed message appears to be this: killing yourself with professional assistance in a dedicated facility is a liberal, brave choice; killing yourself alone at home (or elsewhere) is a desperate and ignoble tragedy.

This inconsistency results from the absence of a commonly accepted philosophy or religion. If G.K. Chesterton, in the early years of the 20th century, correctly identified modernity, not as a new idea or the development of an idea, but the abandonment of an ideathe idea of Western Christendom, and with it the meaning and hope it gave to human life and deaththen we in post-modern times are seeing the acceleration of this abandonment, and the dissolution of the meaning and hope that had been infused by the idea of Western Christendom.

Chesterton also noted that Christianitys supernatural explanation of everything had been rejected by many people, but no natural explanation had arisen to take its place.

He understood that we live in a confused and confusing time, and that its confused to promote and lament suicide at the same time, as many would-be leaders in our society are doing. Logic and consistency are neglected in many debates about end-of-life issues. As Chesterton put it:

The best reason for the revival of philosophy is that unless a man has a philosophy certain horrible things will happen to him. He will be practical; he will be progressive; he will cultivate efficiency; he will trust in evolution; he will do the work that lies nearest; he will devote himself to deeds, not words. Thus struck down by blow after blow of blind stupidity and random fate, he will stagger on to a miserable death with no comfort but a series of catchwords; such as those I have catalogued above.

Those things are simply substitutes for thoughts. In some cases they are the tags and tail-ends of somebody elses thinking. That means that a man who refuses to have his own philosophy will not even have the advantages of a brute beast, and be left to his own instincts. He will only have the used-up scraps of somebody elses philosophy; which the beasts do not have to inherit; hence their happiness. Men have always one of two things: either a complete and conscious philosophy or the unconscious acceptance of the broken bits of some incomplete and shattered and often discredited philosophy. (The Revival of Philosophy Why? The Common Man, 1950)

Last year, at a graveside service at which I was an attendant, the new-age celebrant and the funeral director lamentedwhile waiting for the family to arrivethe old-fashioned Catholic policy that forbade suicides being buried in consecrated ground.

How heartless it seemed! And yet Catholicism has the virtue of at least being unambiguous about suicide, regarding it objectively as a mortal sin; a rejection of the goodness, hope and sovereignty of God. Further, it ignores the commandment to love oneself. It negates the possibility of the person attaining spiritual maturity, and fulfilling their life-long vocation.

Obviously, pastoral sensitivity is required and we are reminded by the Scriptures not to judge anything before its time, and that the Lord know those that are His. It is God who passes the ultimate judgment on our lives; we may be wiser in our judgments to give the sufferingnow deceasedindividual the benefit of any doubt, while giving due care and attention to those people hurt, angry or confused by a friend or family members suicide.

Nonetheless, a difficult question remains. When the Christianised culture presented an unambiguous belief about suicide, that it was a terrible denial of life, would people contemplating such a step have been deterred in some instances and encouraged to look for other ways of coping with their extreme distress?

In his novel The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky defined Christian love in a way that appealed to people as different as Dorothy Day and Flannery OConnor: Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.

Love is not just compassionate and helpful and this conviction of a harsh and dreadful love ratified and reinforced the taboo by denying to those who had committed suicide the right to be buried in consecrated graveyards, in the hope that anyone tempted, in the midst of despair, might fight their moment of weakness, and constrain their harmful emotions.

Chesterton wrote that most suicides result when people lose sight of all the goodness, beauty and wonder of the world, and focus instead on their own present bad feelings.

Certainly Chestertons judgment was offered in a different era from our own. The euthanasia movement has introduced a newly positive attitude to suicide, which challenges in the deepest and most poignant way our judgment of the value of life and death.

And yet, Chesterton is right, especially about many young peoples suicides. If only theyd waited until the grief over a cheating boyfriend or girlfriend had passed; if only theyd allowed time to provide perspective on the shame of an embarrassing episode at high school; if only theyd sorted out access arrangements so they could see their children.

Tribulations will pass, however hard this may be to realise at the time. A concert of voices and consistent teaching that suicide was wrong would have saved many lives. They wont get this unequivocal teaching from society. The Church at least must maintain its historic teaching about suicide if it wants to save some lives.

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, a reverent man blest with acuity, observed a link between a persons spirit and their emotions. He said that if a person neglects their spirit, it continues to demand attention, but its demands are expressed negatively through anger, depression or a generalised anxiety.

Obviously, when Darwin, Freud, Marx and contemporary scientism have declared human spirituality a delusion, or proclaimed its irrelevance, and many people have accepted this perspective, then anxiety, anger and depression resulting from mans repressed and denied spirit will dominate many of those same lives.

Chesterton, speaking again about the need for a logical, consistent philosophy that would guide us in a good, life-enriching direction, also said:

Religion might approximately be defined as the power which makes us joyful about the things that matter. Fashionable frivolity might, with a parallel propriety, be defined as the power which makes us sad about the things that do not matter. (The Frivolous Man, The Common Man, 1950).

This article appeared in the quarterly newsletter of the Australian Chesterton Society, The Defendant (Autumn 2021). It has been republished with permission. A longer version appears in the June 12 edition ofNews Weekly, the magazine of the National Civic Council, and may be read onlinehere.

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Lamenting suicide while promoting assisted suicide: where's the logic in that? MercatorNet - MercatorNet

TheTo the Rescuegame has partnered with thePetfinder Foundation in order to help support real-world animal shelters around the country.

To the Rescueis a simulation video game developed by Little Rock Games and published by Freedom Games, coming to PC and Mac via Steam, as well as the Nintendo Switch, sometime in fall 2021, and will retail for $19.99.

Twenty percent of the proceeds from each sale will go to the Petfinder Foundation, which describes itself as a public charity assisting animal shelters and rescue groups to prevent the euthanasia of adoptable pets.

Players will manage an animal shelters resources, aiming to find homes for adoptable dogs and build a solid reputation within their community.

When we chose the charity partner for our game we wanted to make sure our donation would have the biggest impact possible, Olivia Dunlap, co-founder of Little Rock Games, said in a press release. Were proud to partner with the Petfinder Foundation and are overjoyed thatTo The Rescue!will have a tangible impact both raising awareness of animal shelters and helping fund their amazing efforts.

Dunlap was also one of the lead developers of the game, which combines hand-drawn animation with real-world problems like overcrowding and managing medical issues, in addition to the headaches that come with fundraising, asshe explained in an interviewwith Dog ODayrecently.

On the other hand, you also get to play with puppies and help them find foster homes, in addition to knowing you found them the perfect family, so theres a good balance between the frustrations of the daily grind and the warm fuzzy moments.

The Petfinder Foundation was established in 2003 and has given more than $20 million to in need across the US, Canada and Mexico.

Hopefully more pet-themed video game news will be revealed during the E3 convention, which will take place from Saturday, June 12 to Tuesday, June 15.

For more information about the game, see the Freedom GamesandLittle Rock Games websites for more information. For more news, opinions and reviews about video games in general, be sure to check out our FanSided Network sister siteApp Trigger for the latest.

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To the Rescue game partners with Petfinder Foundation - Dog of the Day