United States Catholic Catechism for Adults

394 • Part III. Christian Morality: The Faith Lived

have taken their own lives” (CCC, no. 2283). The pastoral care of fam ily and friends of those who have taken their own lives is an important focus for the Church’s healing and compassionate ministry. Catholic moral tradition has always taught that we can discontinue medical procedures that are burdensome, extraordinary, and dispropor tionate to the outcome. However, respect for every human being demands the ordinary treatment of the dying by the provision of food, water, warmth, and hygiene. Ordinary treatment is always a moral requirement. There is also extraordinary treatment. The Church recognizes that some medical treatment may not provide benefits commensurate with the risks of certain medical procedures. Extraordinary medical treatment may not be morally required and can even cease in certain cases, depending on the benefits to the sick person and the burdens it will or may impose. For example, in instances when a person has been declared brain-dead, the patient can be disconnected from mechanical devices that sustain breath ing and the heart since there is little hope of the person’s recovery. The Death Penalty The Catechism of the Catholic Church points out that “a new under standing has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state” (no. 2267). Of primary significance, the Catechism speaks of the need to acknowledge the human dignity of all, even the guilty. “Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes” (no. 2267). In their statement, A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death , the U.S. bishops point out that the death penalty is an obstacle that hinders people from recognizing the dignity of human life. The use of the death penalty ought to be abandoned not only for what it does to those who are executed, but for what it does to all of society. . . . At a time when the sanctity of life is threat ened in many ways, taking life is not really a solution but may instead effectively undermine respect for life. In many ways the death penalty is about us: the actions taken in our name, the values which guide our lives, and the dignity that we accord to human life. Public policies that treat some lives as unworthy of protection, or that are perceived as vengeful, fracture the moral conviction that human life is sacred. (p. 14-15)