Pope was 'minutes from death'

[emad]

IOL
07/02/2005 - 14:44:39

The Pope came within minutes of death when he was rushed to hospital last week, according to new reports.

Despite gasping for breath and feeling as though he was suffocating, he twice refused to go to hospital, medical staff told Catholic magazine Inside the Vatican.

“We caught him by a whisker,” one said. “If he had come in 10 minutes later, he would have been gone.”

Pope John Paul II’s top adviser first encouraged him to go to hospital when he began having trouble breathing, but the 84-year-old pontiff “decisively shook his head”, the magazine reports.

http://212.2.162.45/news/story.asp?j=132879084&p=y3z87979x&n=132879844

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Bridget Burke]

7. Not true. There are Catholic Hospices.

They offer end-of-life care that focuses on relieving pain & the other distressing symptoms that can occur at the end of life, but do not go to extraordinary lengths. And they offer non-medical assistance to the patient & family.

The Pope has been ready to go for some time, but he's a prisoner in the Vatican.

For the rest of us, "expressed wishes" are meaningless drivel. A Living Will & a Durable Power of Attorney are necessary legal documents--even for the young & healthy. Accidents happen.

[Name removed]

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[Itchinjim]

20. Both my mother and father had DNR orders.

Both died in a Catholic hospital. Somebody was paying attention.

[0007]

22. Glad to hear that some catholic hospitals do pay attention.

[4_Legs_Good]

19. Where the f*ck did you get that notion?

It's official Catholic doctrine that no life support is ever "required". Natural death is absolutely allowed, though euthinasia is not. The official teaching is "natural conception to natural death".

I don't know where this inane anti-Catholic BS comes from, but it truly makes me ill.

david

[hippiechick]

21. Ask the Schiavo family in Florida

n/t

[4_Legs_Good]

23. That's an insane power play, not a Catholic deal, I don't think...

And might I add, INSANE, utterly. It's a battle really about who has the legal authority to "pull the plug".

I had two relatives die in the last two years. Both were insanely devout Catholics as are my parents (who made some of the descions), and both were in the end, given Hospice care and died naturally. One was conciously taken off life support.

Granted Jeb is trying to blur the line between doctor assisted suicide and natural death, but I think this is far far more of a political deal than any kind of adherence to Catholic teaching. I think this is one of the many clever techniques that the right wing is using to usurp the "morality" discussion and beat the crap out of us with people who far more often believe in the Democratic ideology than that of the Radical Right.

As far as the parents go, I don't know if I could pull the plug on my son whom I love more than anything if I was devout enough to believe that some kinda miracle could happen. As a more science oriented (though still religious) type, brain death = death as far as I'm concerned, but I gotta admit it would be one hellova decision to make. Geesh, I have a hard enough time cutting down a tree in my back yard that's threatening to destroy my home!

david

[NickB79]

29. Jeb Bush is pushing that one

And Jeb aint no Catholic.

[Zebulon]

30. Re: And Jeb aint no Catholic

Actually, Jeb is Catholic.

[4_Legs_Good]

31. This is true!

And I found it very surprising.

Apparently he converted in order to get Married to his "brown one" (ala Poppy) wife who is Catholic in the Church.

Weird, though, cuz you don't have to marry a Catholic to get married "in the Church".

david

[YellowRubberDuckie]

26. Thanks, 4LG...

I'll second that.
Duckie

[NewYorkerfromMass]

25. the guy couldn't BREATHE for Christ's sake

or for Pope's sake..... whatever... If you can't breathe it's a temporary condition easily remedied in hospital. (says I- annoyed ex-Catholic and asthmatic)

[saigon68]

2. Maybe they can keep him alive until he's a HUNDRED

Modern medicinE ==== ARTIFICIAL LIFE.

[Name removed]

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[NNN0LHI]

3. No! I just seen him yesterday on the TV

I thought I was watching a repeat of Weekend At Bernie's for a minute, No really. Someone had better be dragging that smoke machine out from wherever they keep it. I think its going to be needed very soon.

Don

[Meldread]

4. Is someone going to hell for this?

Quote from the article:
"The reports contradict the official word from the Vatican, where spokesmen have maintained the frail Pope simply suffered a bout of the flu."

Doesn't the 6th Commandment state that you shouldn't lie or give false testimony? Does this mean that someone is going to go to hell for lying about the Pope's condition?

Someone should raise this question to his aids. :evilgrin:

[NNN0LHI]

6. I think them Commandments are just for us common folks n/t

[Meldread]

12. Oh, yeah. I forgot.

That's why they want to put them in public places, so us lay-folk don't forget. Because, you know... us common folk aren't all that smart and can easily forget things.

[Acryliccalico]

9. Hypocrites

can always justify themselves.:kick:

[Richardo]

11. For Catholics, 'don't lie' is the 8th commandment...

Go figure.

As info, here's the Catholic line-up for the Ten Commandments:

I. Thou shalt not have other gods besides Me
II. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain
III. Remember to keep holy the Lord’s day
IV. Honor thy father and thy mother
V. Thou shalt not murder
VI. Thou shalt not commit adultery
VII. Thou shalt not steal
VIII. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
IX. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife
X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods

[dad]

18. -

Interesting that #8 only covers a very specific kind of lie! hmm

[4_Legs_Good]

24. Yes, it actually covers lies that cause direct harm to other people

[JVS]

14. That would be the 8th

#6 is adultery

[emad]

15. Something about do not commit humbuggery somewhere in

Moses's unexpurgated version?..................

[PaganPreacher]

16. No, because the aides told the truth.

The Vatican reported that the Pope had been hospitalized for influenza, and laryngospasm (spasms of the voicebox, causing coughing fits that can choke the patient to death). This reporter made the mistake of reading "influenza" or "flu" as "a touch of the flu."

But, really, what is "flu?"

Well, it is nothing to sneeze at.

It is influenza, which kills thousands of American men, woman, and children every year.

It is the family of viruses that was responsible for the deaths of 20-40 million people on every inhabited continent on Earth during World War One. In October 1918 alone, 195,000 Americans died of influenza.

It is a primary agent of viral pneumonia,a major killer of elderly people.

We often use the term "the flu" to describe simple respiratory infections, or to describe viral dysenteries of various forms, but those are misnomers.

Because of its high transmittability, and high mortality in risk groups, influenza vaccinations are very important.

The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

[XNASA]

8. Ah....what's everyone so bothered about....

The dude is definitely going to heaven.

[Gman]

10. Lighten up

there are some of us here that are Catholic and despite JPII's shortcomings as to what we would like to see from the Church (and I agree there are many), he does have a lot of good qualities that all Catholics admire.

[flordehinojos]

13. DON'T LEAVE US POPE...IN THIS BUSH INFESTED WORLD WE NEED SOMETHING/SOME 1

TO REMIND US OF GOODNESS, KINDNESS, TRUTHFULNESS, HOPE, FORGIVENESS, PEACE, RECONCILIATION. YOU HAVE STOOD AS A SYMBOL OF THAT FOR SO MANY YEARS ... A NEW POPE WOULD PROBABLY TOO... BUT IN THIS BUSH INFESTED WORLD, YOU ALREADY ARE A SYMBOL, AND YOUR IMAGE PROVIDES US WITH THE CONTINUITY/STABILITY THIS WORLD IS NEEDING.

plese don't leave us ..... not yet (but if you have to, if you are being called...please, please, please make sure that heaven gets to know that georgie boy ain't playing by any rules of goodness, kindness, forgivenness, charity ... and that the world really needed you and those virtues that your presence have come to symbolize).

[Name removed]

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[YellowRubberDuckie]

27. Way to turn a simple thread about the pope into a Catholic Bashing...

Thread. Very predictable.
Duckie

[Iceman]

32. sometimes you just have to forgive.

[Bridget Burke]

33. Boringly predictable, in fact.

[Name removed]

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