Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #219 : Contextualizing Near-Death Experiences

... we should generally prefer a natural explanation for a phenomenon, unless and until the evidence for a supernatural explanation becomes truly compelling or overwhelming.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJune 28, 2024Death and Dying, Science and Religion

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #218 : The Most Serious Miscalculation of All?

In considering our own death, we may entertain a strong wish that there be no more sufferings on the other side, especially when it comes to justifying our decision to engage in physician-assisted suicide. Simply having such a wish, however, does not actually make it so.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMay 23, 2024Death and Dying, End-of-Life Issues, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Imposing Our Beliefs, Suffering, Universal Morality

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 209 : Holding the Line on Brain Death

Even to be “slightly alive” is still to be alive. If the language of the UDDA ends up being changed to allow for a declaration of brain death even with continued hypothalamic functioning, individuals who are not-quite-dead will be treated as if they were already dead.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationFebruary 28, 2023Brain Death, Death and Dying, End-of-Life Issues, Organ Donation

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 206 : Did I Make the Right Choices as Dad was Dying?

We need to “lovingly support our family members through the dying process and to make careful and morally correct decisions on their behalf as they decline in health.”

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationNovember 30, 2022Death and Dying, End-of-Life Issues

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 199: Too Much Morphine?

Careful attention to pain management is of paramount importance in end-of-life care and supports both the patient and the family in a dignified way during the dying process.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJanuary 31, 2022Death and Dying, End-of-Life Issues, Pain Management-Palliative Care and Hospice, Proportionate and Disproportionate Means, Suffering

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 187 : The “Quality of Life” Error

Our focus should be on the benefits and burdens of a proposed medical intervention rather than on trying to impose our own conclusion that certain individuals no longer have enough value or meaning in their lives.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJanuary 29, 2021Caring for the Elderly and Infirm, Death and Dying, Disabilities and the Disabled, End-of-Life Issues, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Pain Management-Palliative Care and Hospice

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 177: Thinking Through the Rationing of Ventilators

When ventilators are in short supply, several key ethical principles can assist clinicians.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMarch 30, 2020COVID-19, Ventilators, Death and Dying, End-of-Life Issues, Proportionate and Disproportionate Means

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 176: A Hundred Love Letters

Each of our loving human gestures speaks volumes about the singular power of love to overcome fear, and to strengthen us in adversity.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationFebruary 28, 2020Death and Dying, Suffering, Caring for the Elderly and Infirm, Pain Management-Palliative Care and Hospice, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 173: Medicine and a Sense of the Sacred

We need to attend carefully to the graced realities we regularly handle lest we end up squandering or losing our sense of the sacred.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationNovember 30, 2019Abortion, Caring for the Elderly and Infirm, Death and Dying, Disabilities and the Disabled, Imposing Our Beliefs, Universal Morality, Sacraments, Medical Profession — Ethics and Pastoral-Spiritual, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 171: Palliative Sedation While Approaching Death

When we find ourselves nailed to our hospital bed, it can become an important personal moment for us to engage the possibility of a spiritual transformation opening before us.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationSeptember 30, 2019Caring for the Elderly and Infirm, Death and Dying, Pain Management-Palliative Care and Hospice, Proportionate and Disproportionate Means, Suffering, End-of-Life Issues

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 163: The Welcome Outreach of Perinatal Hospice

This approach seeks to set up a particular supportive environment in which all the members of the family can receive the child following delivery, hold and name the newborn, and fully acknowledge his or her brief but meaningful life.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJanuary 30, 2019Abortion, Death and Dying, Prenatal Testing, Pain Management-Palliative Care and Hospice, Disabilities and the Disabled, End-of-Life Issues, Pregnancy Complications

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 151: To Be or Not to Be - Parsing the Implications of Suicide

While ending our life may seem to offer an ‘escape valve’ for the serious pressures and sufferings we face, we do well to consider the real effects of this choice both in this life, and in the life to come.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJanuary 30, 2018Death and Dying, Pain Management-Palliative Care and Hospice, Suffering, End-of-Life Issues, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 149: Destroying My Freedom — in the Name of Freedom?

We can legitimately choose between apples and oranges, but not between milk and drain cleaner. If, in the name of autonomy, we were to ingest drain cleaner on purpose to make ourselves ill, we would actually undermine and surrender our personal autonomy.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationNovember 30, 2017Death and Dying, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 144: Can I Donate My Body to Science?

Although there are not any fundamental moral objections to donating our bodies to science, certain details of how the donation is carried out are important.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJune 30, 2017Banking of Sperm and Eggs, Death and Dying, Respect for the Remains of the Dead, Research Ethics, End-of-Life Issues, Organ Donation, Research

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 133: Cremains & Respect for the Human Body

Proper disposition and care of another’s body also manifests our Christian faith in the resurrection of that body on the Last Day.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJuly 30, 2016Respect for the Remains of the Dead, Death and Dying

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 130: On Aging Gracefully

Our later years can powerfully provoke us to come to terms with our destiny and with higher truths.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationApril 30, 2016Suffering, Caring for the Elderly and Infirm, Death and Dying, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 088: Talking Americans Down from the Assisted-Suicide Ledge

Suicide hotlines are open 24 hours a day because we seek to prevent as many deaths as we can. We treat as heroes those who walk along bridges or climb tall buildings and try to talk people down.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationOctober 30, 2012Suffering, Caring for the Elderly and Infirm, Death and Dying, Physician-Assisted Suicide

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 083: Powerlessness, or the Hidden Power in Our Suffering?

By spiritually embracing in God that specific path to death, our freedom is elevated to new heights; indeed, we “achieve control” in the most important way possible, through willed surrender and radical gift in our innermost depths.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMay 30, 2012Suffering, Death and Dying, End-of-Life Issues

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 074: Bringing Christ to the Clinic

The physician's boldness and unflagging concern for his patient played an important role in bringing Christ into a situation where His healing graces were needed, where even the priest alone probably could not have succeeded.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationAugust 30, 2011Medical Profession — Ethics and Pastoral-Spiritual, Caring for the Elderly and Infirm, Death and Dying, Sacraments, End-of-Life Issues

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 068: Working Through a Hard Death

…suffering can make us bitter or it can make us better, depending upon how we respond to it and use it to enter into deeper union with the Lord who suffered and died a hard death for us.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationFebruary 28, 2011Caring for the Elderly and Infirm, Death and Dying, Pain Management-Palliative Care and Hospice, End-of-Life Issues

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