Pope’s feeding tube highlights Vatican policy

THE use of a feeding tube for Pope John Paul II, struggling to recover from throat surgery, illustrates a key point of Catholic policy he himself has proclaimed: It is morally necessary to give patients food and water, no matter their condition.

As Parkinson’s disease and other ailments have left him increasingly frail, John Paul has been emphasising that the chronically ill, “prisoners of their condition ... retain their human dignity in all its fullness.”

The Vatican has repeated that principle recently in comments concerning Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged American woman whose feeding tube was removed earlier this month. While John Paul is fully alert, some see parallels in the two cases.