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.

A leading Vatican expert, meanwhile, said in a comment published yesterday that John Paul is not considering resignation. Hospitalised twice last month following two breathing crises and with a tube placed in his throat to help him breathe, John Paul has become a picture of suffering. When he appeared at his apartment window on Wednesday to bless pilgrims in St Peter’s Square, he managed to utter only a rasp. Later that day, the Vatican announced the Pope had been fitted with a feeding tube in his nose to help boost his nutritional intake.

Meanwhile, Catholic author Vittorio Messori, who helped the Pope write the 1994 best-selling book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, wrote in the Corriere della Sera newspaper yesterday: “John Paul II will not step down. Whatever happens, whatever the evolution of John Paul II’s pathologies, the Church will not register another ex-pope in its annals.” Papal resignation is extremely rare, but is allowed by Church law.

Nevertheless, with speculation swirling, many officials have insisted that the Pope’s grip on the Church remains firm despite his ailments.