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CHRISTIAN MORALITY
Human Life and
the Roman Catholic Physician
by Luz G. Gabriel, M.D.
Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Gen 2:7).
And the Angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will
come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the Child to
be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). And Mary said, “Behold
I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the Angel
departed from her (Luke 1:38).
The Gospel of Life and the Threat to Human Life
“The Gospel of life is at the heart of Jesus’
message; it is to be preached to people of every race and culture” (no. 1). Thus
begins Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical Letter, Evangelium Vitae, published about three
years ago on the Feast of the Annunciation. It is a blinking red light, a radar signal
which bleeps about a bleak reality—the culture of death. This collusion against
individual human life, especially directed against the weak and defenseless, is spreading
like a cancer in society and is a deadly poison. Above all, it is a supreme dishonor to
God, the Creator of all life (no. 3).
There are two features of this anti-life militancy which are
unquestionably disturbing because they attest to the burgeoning moral disintegration of
modern culture. First of all, many civil governments and scientific disciplines have
abandoned their previous commitment to preserve human life. Politicians and elected
officials have developed mammoth blind spots where the life of the innocent unborn is
concerned; what was once criminal becomes legal. Men of science and technicians are just
as culpable; their hands too, drip with the blood shed from weapons and instruments which
they have efficiently developed and perfected, mainly for the slaughter of the preborn and
the nearly born.
The second aspect of the anti-life campaign points an accusing finger
to some medical doctors. To quote the Holy Father: “Even certain sectors of the
medical profession, which by its calling is directed to the defense and care of human
life, are increasingly willing to carry out these acts against the person. In this way,
the very nature of the medical profession is distorted and contradicted, and the dignity
of those who practice it is degraded” (no. 4).
Human Life is Sacred
What is the value of the life of the human person? The Gospel of Life
responds to this question: “The human person has an incomparable worth and the value
of his life is inestimable” (no. 2). Why is this so? Because the Old Testament
present the creation of man as the result of a special decision on the part of God, a
deliberation to establish a particular and specific bond between man and his Creator (no.
34).
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness” (Gen 1:26). To be created in the image and likeness of God means that one
has been designed and “produced” in view of an ever more perfect configuration.1
The human person is God’s masterpiece. His likeness to God lies in his intellect or
in the use of his reason which makes him capable of imitating God, emulating His virtues
and hungering for heavenly graces (no. 35). Moreover, man is precious in the eyes of God
because he was ransomed by the Blood of Christ; by thus contemplating the Precious Blood
of Christ, we recognize the dignity of every human being (no. 25).
The Psalmist asks:
What is man that Thou art mindful of him,
And the son of man that Thou dost care for him?
Yet Thou hast made him little less than God
And dost crown him with glory and honor.
Thou hast given him dominion over the works of Thy hands;
Thou hast put all things under his feet. (Psalm 8:4-6)
Man has thus been given an elevated status based on the intimate bond which unites him to God; therefore, a reflection of God Himself is evidenced in man (no. 34). Human life involves the creative action of God; and it remains forever in a special relationship with its Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning to its end; no one can claim for himself the right to destroy innocent human beings (no. 53).
Human Life: Basic Structure and Earliest Beginning
For Thou didst form my inward parts,
Thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thou knowest me right well;
My frame was not hidden from Thee,
When I was being made in secret,
Intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.
Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance;
In Thy book were written, everyone of them,
The days that were formed for me
When as yet there were none of them!
(Psalm 139:13,15-16)
The physician, as he probes into and pores over and
treats the human body, always marvels and is bedazzled by the human anatomy—so
awe-inspiring, bewildering and fascinating! Only a Divine Architect could have assembled
together trillions of cells in an artistic and mechanical harmony of strength and
resiliency, or dexterity and efficiency, of symmetry and balance, and of grace and power!
Yet, the human body started with a single cell.
What is a cell? The cell is the basic structural unit of all living
matter; it is usually microscopic, though some are big enough to be visible to the unaided
eye. Its infinitesimal size camouflages an unceasing dynamic and forcible whir of activity
inside, analogous to that of a minuscule factory, with its own storage, transport and
disposal systems. It is a beehive of metabolic transaction, of enzymes and substrates in
constant interaction. It contains the particles of life. It is abuzz with life!
Only Supreme Intelligence can be the Designer and Builder of such
intricate human blueprint and superb bodily construction. How else can one explain the
human tissues’ and hormones’ submission to the invisible but immutable
physicochemical laws?
How else can one account for the precise development into a living, bouncing baby of a
single fertilized egg?
If the fertilized egg or cell is laid out the complete biological blueprint, all the
DNA’s of that person’s entire life, what the late Templeton Prize winner and
French physician Jerome Lejeune called the “symphony of life,” just biding its
time to perform the whole orchestral score. Only God’s intervention is a sufficient
explanation for the procreation of a new human being.
This single fertilized egg marks the earliest existence of a new human
person; it is invisible to the unassisted human eye, but nonetheless alive and real.
Within twelve hours of its existence it commences to subdivide and to multiply in an
unstoppable progression towards the formation of body organs and systems. Quite early, at
only eight days old, it produces its own hormones and immune system that is distinct from
that of its mother. At three weeks, the cells start to differentiate into organs, bones
and muscles, etc. The early brain appears like a swelling at one end of the developing
embryo. Rudimentary eyes and heart are seen at the age of four and a half weeks. By the
thirteenth week, the eyes are well-formed.
The preceding paragraph is a brief summary of an article in a Life
magazine issue, with its cover caption: “The First Pictures Ever Of How Life
Begins.”2 The article referred to above is a pictorial essay entitled, “The
First Days of Creation”. Prefatory statements by Editors of Life call attention to
the following: (1) the earliest moments of human development made visible for the first
time, and (2) a single fertilized cell that will reproduce itself over and over again, and
if all goes well, may blossom into a human person.
There are seventeen pages of detailed and mind-boggling photographs
taken by Swedish photographer, Lennart Nilsson, and which are depicted as “the
culmination of his life’s work: a chronicle of human development from its first
second through its earliest hours and days.” There are many who say these: “a
picture is worth a thousand words” or “words can be inadequate”. These
clichés apply to this brilliant and magnificent pictorial opus, and so do the following
descriptive adjectives: provocative, staggering, spectacular and overpowering!
In his sensational work, Nilsson utilized complicated and sophisticated
equipment such as scanning electron microscopes that provides added depth and lucid
details, and fine endoscopes that can probe inside a woman’s womb.3
Human Life and Hippocrates
Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, was born on the Island of Cos, one
of the four schools of medicine in ancient Greece; the son of a physician, Hippocrates was
a distinguished and the outstanding medical practitioner and teacher in the Fifth Century
before the Birth of Christ (B.C.). His prestige was far-reaching and he numbered among his
prominent patients, rulers of Macedonia and Persia. Attributed to him are a collection of
diverse papers and books for physicians, medical students, and laymen; he wrote essays
regarding philosophical aspects of medicine plus research reports. He is notable for his
book on aphorisms, one of which is “Ars longa, vita brevis”, i.e. “art is
long, life is short.”4
During the Hippocratic epoch Greek medicine advanced considerably. The
significant contribution of Hippocrates was his stress on medical ethics; as a result, the
medical profession was held to a loftier standard of practice and doctors of medicine were
highly esteemed.5 The Hippocratic Oath, for centuries, was the staple of the medical
profession, with its forceful warning:
“Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain forever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I transgress it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.” In it is the phrase, “this oath and this indenture”; the latter, loosely, can connote the word contract or control.6 In summary, the Oath is a binding obligation for physicians not to harm or kill any human being, in all stages of development and in all circumstances.
The Hippocratic Oath, for years on end, was heeded by
the medical profession, and was its guiding light; its message was powerful and
authoritative: “If I transgress and forswear myself, may the opposite (i.e. lose my
reputation) befall me.”
However, in our culture of death, it is less prestigious for physicians to have a
high-principled stature; it is preferable for most of them to bask in the limelight and be
politically correct! This outrageous stance by the medical community is so prevalent so
much that the Hippocratic Oath has been discarded by medical schools in this country.
The jettisoning of this centuries-old code of medical ethics signifies that medical
practitioners are no longer honor-bound to:
1) “Help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never
with a view to injury and wrong-doing”;
2) “Not to administer poison to anybody when asked to, nor will I
suggest such a course”;
3) “Not to give a woman a pessary to cause abortion”;
4) “Abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially
from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free”.7
“Certain sectors of the medical profession are willing to carry
out attacks against the human person.” The Holy Father imputes this to
“Conscience darkened by widespread conditioning, finding it difficult to distinguish
between good and evil” (no. 4). He also alluded to public opinion which justifies
“therapeutic interventions,” a misleading phrase, which in reality, is a
euphemism for a disgraceful value-system that “accepts life only under certain
conditions and rejects it when it is affected by any limitation, handicap or illness”
(no. 14). However, to John Paul II, all is not darkness or negative; he does not paint
“a one-sided picture that can evoke discouragement” (no. 26), or pessimism and
cynicism. He adds that there is a constructive side as substantiated by “positive
signs at work in humanity’s present situation.” He extols individuals, centers
and groups in support of life and who aid others to triumph over destructive behavior and
to discover anew the meaning of life.
One such organization is the Catholic Medical Association (or CMA),
formerly the National Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Guilds. It is cognizant of
the undue pressure on Catholic nurses and doctors who are coerced into performing immoral
surgical and medical procedures and thus function in a hostile workplace. One of the
CMA’s goals is to make its voice heard on the conscience rights of Catholic
physicians; it advocates conscience clauses to disallow those kinds of intimidation. It
objected to a proposed plan of a national medical journal to prevent pro-life medical
students from admission to residency training programs in the specialty of maternal-fetal
medicine. In its 66th annual meeting held in Toledo, Ohio, November 13th-15th, 1997, the
members took the Oath of Hippocrates in a revised version as follows: “I will (1)
neither proscribe nor administer a lethal dose of medicine to a patient, even if asked;
(2) not counsel any such thing, nor perform an act of omission with intent to end a human
life; (3) maintain respect for human life from fertilization to natural death and reject
abortion that purposely takes a human life.”8
The Modernist’s Viewpoints on Human
Life
Questions are being asked by this encyclical, Evangelium Vitae: How did
such a situation come about? How can the value of life today undergo a kind of
“eclipse”? Why such attacks on human life at its greatest frailty? Why
manipulate inoffensive medical terms as a smoke screen for the offensive crimes of
abortion and physician-assisted suicide, and as a distraction from the vile fact of
innocent human beings deprived of the right to life (no. 11)? In its own response, the
Encyclical pinpoints a crisis of culture gravitating to a culture of death and, a broad
moral uncertainty contributing to a structure of sin (no. 12). Truly, our modern age is
baffled about the primacy of the human person; where human life is at stake, the world
submits to finite human reason but repudiate infinite Divine Wisdom. Thus, the plethora of
clashing beliefs and philosophies. And, as in those ancient days when Cain tried to cover
up his crime with a lie, current ideologies try to justify and disguise atrocious crimes
against human life (no. 8).
There are three popular contemporary viewpoints rampant in secular
centers of higher learning and in a sizable segment of society. These points of view
promote the demotion of human life and of the human person from its lofty peak at the apex
of God’s creation, and as the intermediary between the material and the spiritual
worlds to just “an ingenious assembly of portable plumbing” (C. Morley),
“but breath and shadow, nothing more” (Sophocles), “the naked ape” (D.
Morris), or “nature’s sole mistake” (W.S. Gilbert).9 These views are,
namely: (1) materialism which can handle only the material and rules out the spiritual;
(2) naturalism, that identifies as real only that which can be weighed, measured, or
dissected; and (3) rationalism, which elevates reason (or the deification of science) to
the highest rung of the ladder, with no room left for Almighty God.10
This loss of the sense of God is the crucial issue in the tragedy of modern life. Pope
John Paul II belabors this point in his encyclical in the following statements: “the
loss of contact with God’s wise design is the deepest root of modern man’s
confusion; it rejects the very idea that there is a truth of creation which must be
acknowledge, or a plan of God which must be respected” (no. 22); “it produces a
progressive darkening of the capacity to discern God’s living and saving
presence” (no.
21); “there are evil men who deny God and believe that they can build an earthly city
without Him; their thinking becomes empty and their irrational minds, murky” (no.
24).
The Gospel of Life (no. 23) makes reference to the likely sequelae of
the denial of the sovereignty of God in our day-to-day existence as follows:
(1) Practical materialism is intensified and breeds hedonism, individualism and
utilitarianism;
(2) The values of “being” are replaced by those of “having”. The only
goal which counts is the pursuit of selfishness;
(3) “Quality of life” is simply and solely economic efficiency, consumerism,
physical beauty and pleasure to a disregard of the interpersonal, religious and spiritual
aspects of life;
(4) Suffering, certainly inescapable but often an instrument of personal maturity, is
“censored”, rejected as pointless, shunned and considered as evil;
(5) The body is regarded as a cluster of organs or functions to be used solely as material
for one’s pleasure; there is depersonalization and exploitation of sexuality - not
seen as a gift of self and acceptance of another;
(6) Procreation and the openness to new life are not desired due to the breach between the
unitive and procreative functions;
(7) Interpersonal relationships are no longer based on respect, generosity or service
but by efficiency and usefulness; the strong lords it over the
weak, with the very young and the very old, the sick and suffering in the first line of
fire.
The man who denies God makes a god of his own, focuses on the self and the material world
and shows streaks of ignorance.11 Where God is denied, and people live as though He did
not exist, His commandments are not obeyed. In consequence, both the dignity of the human
person and the inviolability of human life are not acknowledged. This clears the way for
abortion and euthanasia.
Most important of all, when the sense of God is lost, the sense of man
is threatened, poisoned and thereby, lost. For the creature (man) disappears without the
Creator (God). Man, then:
1) does not perceive himself as different from other creatures;
2) regards himself only as a living organism which has reached a high
stage of perfection
3) is a “thing” constricted within his limited physical
nature.
4) no longer grasps his “transcendent” quality
5) does not think of life as a superb gift from God (P22).
St. Thomas’ brilliant analysis of God, man, and the world in the
Prima Pars of his Summa Theologica is
absolutely relevant to our modern age because modern man is bombarded with a barrage of
conflicting hypotheses and conjectures about God, man, and the world. There has been more
emphasis on the physical world, the earthly environment, but much less pondering on the
meaning of man and the attributes of God. 12 This way of thinking is fraught with danger;
for “the world is understandable only in terms of God and man, and man can comprehend
only in terms of God. Unless a man appreciates the singularity of God he cannot know
himself or be aware of what the world offers.” Man must know who he is, where he
comes from, where he is going, the purpose and goal of his life, and his relationship to
creatures below and those above him.13
Building a New Culture of Life
“Teachers, catechists and theologians are to emphasize the
anthropological rationale which constitute the justifications for respect for individual
human life” (no. 82). Anthropology is the science that studies man, with special
reference to his origin, physical, sociocultural development and racial characteristics;
it also includes philosophical anthropology—the study of the nature and essence of
man.14 It has also been defined as theology dealing with the origin, nature, and destiny
of human beings.15 Only through Christian anthropology, the solid-rock substructure of our
ultra-modern society, and which sets apart man as he is proclaimed in the Gospel, can we
re-create a renascent culture of life.
John Henry Cardinal Newman (born in London in 1801, received into the
Catholic Church in 1846, and ordained a priest in 1847) was a brilliant intellectual. In
one of his scholarly books, he listed a variety of ways of visualizing man, i.e., in
relation to the following:
1) The chemical elements in the body or the biological makeup
2) His mental disposition and temperament
3) The family
4) The sociocultural milieu
5) The Being (God) Who created him.
In consequence, Newman added, we are biased in our scrutiny of man in
accordance with what we profess, i.e. respectively, as (1) physiologists or physicians,
(2) sociologists or moral philosophers, (3) economists, (4) politicians, (5) theologians.
Moreover, according to Newman, “If we relate to man only as physicians,
physiologists, politicians, etc., and if we do not value the whole person, then our
perception of him is unreal.”16 A case in point: “The philosophical surgeon
started out to remove a negligible or non-existent disfigurement in man and ended up with
a monstrous deformity, incalculably defacing the image of God in man. This indefinable
thing created by modern philosophers is not man as we know him, as men down through the
ages, and God have known him from the very beginning.”17
John Paul II exhorts every Catholic to put into practice the truths of
the Christian philosophical anthropology which fully brings to light what and who man is,
and the meaning and purpose of his existence and being. He further asserts that “To
be truly a people at the service of life, we must broadcast and disseminate these truths
unceasingly and courageously in the proclamation of the Gospel, catechesis, personal
dialogue and in schools” (no. 82).
The Encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, contains precious “pearls” of wisdom apropos
of man included in many paragraphs, such as:
1) Man is precious in God’s eye and the value of his life is
priceless (no. 25).
2) Man is at the summit of God’s creative activity. Everything in
creation is ordered to man and made subject to him. He has a primacy over things (no. 34).
3) Man possesses spiritual faculties which are distinctly human: reason,
discernment of good and evil, and free will (no. 34).
4) Man seems insignificant when compared with the vastness of the
cosmos; yet God made man His masterpiece and crowned him with honor and glory (no. 35).
The message of “The Gospel of Life” is powerful and authoritative. It teaches
unequivocally that human life:
1) Is sacred from its very beginning (no. 2).
2) Belongs only to God; for this reason, whoever attacks human life
attacks God Himself (no. 9).
3) Must be respected, protected, loved and served, with no exception.
Only then will there be true justice, freedom, peace
and happiness (no. 5).
4) It is a gift from God; it is entrusted to man as a treasure which
must not be squandered, and as a talent which must be used well. For we are to render an
account of our lives to our Master (no. 52).
The Catholic Physician: Defender of Human Life
“When does man begin?”—seemingly, is a
clear-cut question, as declared by the geneticist, Jerome Lejeune, M.D. To him, however,
the obligatory inquiry should be, “What is Man?” He posited these perplexing
dilemma in 1969 in San Francisco, California before a meeting of the American Society of
Human Genetics. In the same breath, he gave a decisive response - “No dictionary, no
legislation or any civilization has ever fully answered this baffling mystery of what is
man.”18 In preceding statements in this article, I had alluded to Cardinal
Newman’s caveat to medical students to: “never study a human being in only one
aspect of his person or perceive him only through the narrow prism of the medical
profession.” In the same vein Dr. Lejeune gave his fair warning: “Depending on
what some specialists look for in an individual person - his molecules or personality or
his politics - the scientist, psychologist or the pragmatist, have given their own
answers. Certainly the riddle of the human person is a complex problem, too heavy,
perhaps, for the human intellect to bear!”19
The foregoing profound reflection on the human person is a useful tool
for the medical profession whose singular purpose is to alleviate suffering and defend
human life; this care and defense of human life, properly, starts on the spiritual and
intellectual level. Cardinal Newman took it upon himself to define, for the medical
faculty and students in Dublin, Ireland in 1858, the nature of the human person. He said:
“Man has moral and religious components, in addition to his physical traits. He has a
mind and a soul which have a cogent supremacy over the material body.”20
In the Gospel of Life, our Supreme Pontiff chides many doctors for
their culpability in crimes against human life. The indictment is borne out in these
illustrative examples, such as: “Certain atrocities are inflicted against human life
with the assistance of the health care system” (no. 4). “Attacks on life are
intensifying with the powerful support and involvement of some health personnel” (no.
17). “Doctors and nurses are accountable for their wrongdoing whenever they exploit
their technical skills acquired in professional training to promote life and use them
instead to hasten death” (no. 59). “Many claim that abortion is acceptable since
it can be done safely by physicians” (no. 68). “Biomedical research, a
scientific field which raises hope for humanity’s well-being, should always repudiate
any experimental research that is an affront to human dignity” (no. 89).
Notwithstanding John Paul II’s disapproval of those who contribute to the culture of
death, he commends the medical practitioners who are vanguards in the battle for life, and
he blesses their dedication and devotion to this praiseworthy crusade and for their
research to improve the quality of life for all. “Medical science perseveres in its
committed effort to find new remedies and cures for the sick” (no. 26). He consoles
and reassures the numberless who have gone beyond the call of duty, and supports their
right not to be coerced against their will. “The pro-lifers have a right to demand
not to be forced to take part in morally evil acts. Sometimes, the choices are difficult
and may require the sacrifice of prestigious professional positions or career advancement.
To refuse to take part in committing an injustice is not only a moral duty but it is also
a basic human right” (no. 74).
Like Cardinal Newman, the present Pope persuades Catholic physicians,
too, to be “conscious of the more profound dimension of existence, i.e.
interpersonal, spiritual and religious” (no. 23). “Often we lose sight of the
mystery of God and the mystery of our own being” (no. 22). And Cardinal Newman alerts
medical doctors to the danger of being so engrossed in their own profession that they do
not accept a “higher order and religious truth.”21 He cited also, the danger for
the medical doctor, “to see man as a being who has little more to do than to be born,
to eat, drink, to reproduce his kind, and to die. Doctors may be convinced that there is
no difference between animals and human beings. This is a debasing view of man and his
eternal destiny.”22
Similarly, John Paul II states that “if the body is reduced to
mere materiality, it becomes simply a complex of organs and functions to be used solely
for pleasure” (P23). The cultural change our Holy Father has in mind calls for
demands on everyone, including physicians, to make choices based on the right hierarchy of
values such as the primacy of being over having, and the primacy of persons over
things” (P98). In other words, physicians must make use of rational anthropology.
This is summarized in texts of “Instruction On Respect For Human Life In Its Origin
And On The Rights Of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions Of The Day,” issued by
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on February 22, 1987.
“For it is only in keeping with his true
nature that the human person can achieve self-realization as a unified totality and this
nature is at the same time, corporal and spiritual. By virtue of its substantial union
with a spiritual soul, the human body cannot be viewed as a mere complex of tissues,
organs and function, nor can it be evaluated in the same way as the body of animals;
rather, it is a constituitive part of the person who manifests himself through it.
Physical life, with which the course of human life in the world begins, does not, of
itself:
1) contain the whole of a person’s value;
2) is the supreme good of man, who is called to eternal life.
However, it does constitute, in a certain way, the fundamental value of
life, precisely because upon this physical life, all the other values of the person are
based and developed. The inviolability of the innocent human being’s right to life
from the moment of conception until death is a sign of the inviolability of the person to
whom the Creator has given the gift of life.”
Contemporary society is ever more secular; an immense number pay homage to the gods of
consumerism, hedonism and secularism. Newman depicts the secular world as a tenacious
adversary of supernatural truth; it can lead on with an iron fist, bait by means of
bullheaded logic, and seduce with captivating facts. Newman further specifies that the
Catholic Church is the repository of the more important truths and the defender of the
whole truth about (1) the being of God, (2) the certainty of future retribution, (3) the
moral laws, (4) the reality of sin, and (5) man and supernatural grace. In all of the
above, the Church is the only undaunted champion and unflinching guardian. She has been
doing battle for the past two thousand years for the welfare of the human race and to
protect the deposit of Faith entrusted to her by our Lord, Jesus Christ. Newman adds that
her enemies subject her to hatred, hostility, abuse, and calumny.23 But the Catholic
Church is ever the same, ever young, energetic, prevailing over new heresies with age-old
weapons. Newman hence instructs physicians to “trust the Roman Catholic Church even
if your ordinary judgment differs from hers, and would tempt you to be skeptical of the
Church’s watchfulness and to discredit her wisdom.24 For the Catholic Church was
designed by Divine Mercy as the ubiquitous, discernible, and the only possible antagonist
to modern distortions of truth.25 Catholicism is the strength of religion, as science and
system are the strength of knowledge.”26
The Incarnation and Human Life
At the very outset of this article, reference was made to the first
appearance of man on earth according to Genesis; many centuries later, the world waited
with bated breath for the answer of a Virgin in the little town of Nazareth when the Angel
Gabriel was sent by God to reveal His plan for the human race. “The Mystery of the
Incarnation is a fact, and a reality worth clinging to. Indeed it is the central even that
gave youth back to a despairing universe, release from the slavery of sin and it reopened
the gates of heaven for humanity.”27 God came down to bridge the infinite chasm
between humanity and Divinity. He assumed human nature to redeem and give dignity to the
human person.
A Parting Word
Honor the physician with the honor due him, according to your need of him, for the Lord created him;
For healing comes from the Most High, and he will receive a gift from the King.
The skill of the physician lifts up his head, and in the presence of great men he is admired.
My son, when you are sick do not be negligent,
But pray to the Lord, and He will heal you.
Give up your faults and direct your hands aright,
And cleanse your heart from all sin.
And give the physician his place, for the Lord created him.
Let him not leave you, for there is need of him.
There is a time when success lies in the hands on the physicians,
For they too will pray to the Lord
That He should grant them success in diagnosis,
And in healing, for the sakes of preserving life.
(Sirach 38: 1-3, 9-10, 12-14)
Dr. Gabriel is a psychiatrist from Pittsburgh and a past contributor to this
magazine.
End Notes
1 Christoph Schonborn, From Death To Life, The Christian Journey, trans.
Brian McNeal (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1955), 48
2 Editors of Life Magazine, “The First Days Of Creation”,
Life, Aug., 1990: cover page
3 Ibid., 27
4 Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, (New York City: Simon &
Schuster, 1939), 2:342-343
5 Ibid., 346
6 Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed. (Springfield,
MA: Merriam Webster, Inc. 1994), 591
7 Durant, op. cit., 347
8 Paul Likoudis, “Catholic Physicians’ Group...Revitalized,
Affirms Beliefs”, The Wanderer, 4, Dec. 1997: 1,11
9 Robert L. Chapman, ed., Roget’s International Thesaurus, revised
ed., (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1977), 320
10 Walter Farrell, A Companion To The Summa, (New York City: Sheed &
Ward, 1941), 1:187-189
11 Ibid., 158-159
12 Ibid., v
13 Ibid., vi
14 The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, (New York City:
Random House, 1966), 63
15 Merriam Webster’s, op. cit. 49
16 John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Idea Of A University, (Garden City,
NY: Image Books, 1959), 85
17 Farrell, op. cit., 55-56
18 Suzanne M. Rini, Beyond Abortion, (Avon, New Jersey: Magnificat
Press, 1988), 172-173
19 Rini, op. cit., 173
20 Newman, op. cit., 456
21 Ibid., 458
22 Ibid., 459
23 Ibid., 462
24 Ibid.,