Baby Charlie Gard Was Murdered

Today the parents of Baby Charlie Gard announced that he passed away after he was removed from his ventilator.  On Monday it was announced that his parents would discontinue their effforts to seek experimental treatment for him, owing to the damage done to Charlie by his court-ordered stagnation at Greater Ormond Hospital.  Even after they ceased their oppposition to the British death-dealing socialized medicine machinery, the parents weren't even allowed to bring their baby home so that he could die surrounded by love.

All across Catholic social media this news is circulating.  I've yet to see anyone call Charlie's death what it really is - murder.  The various British authorities knew that without treatment Charlie would die.  There was news of experimental treatments that have helped other patients like Charlie, and all expenses were paid for Charlie to be transported to such treatment.  Still the British authorities refused to budge.  The fact is that these NHS facists had much to lose if Charlie did indeed benefit from the treatments.  Their status as unquestionable experts would immediately vanish.  No longer could they, with credibility, claim to be the undisputed arbiters of what constitutes the "rights of patients".   As Chris Gard said in the press conference when he annnounced cessation of treatment efforts for Charlie, the British authorities caused delays that rendered efforts futile.  I think that delay was deliberate.  In their mental paradigms, they could not risk Charlie's survival.  They did all they could to protect their collective pride, and they didn't particularly care that they had to engineer the death of a helpless baby in order to save face.

In Catholic moral theology, murder is defined as "the deliberate taking of innocent human life".   The commission of murder isn't always brought about by acts of violent aggression.  The deliberate withholding of due treatment to a sick individual is also an act of murder.  That's why we say that Terri Schiavo was murdered in 2005.  The British authorities deliberately denied to the Gard family the opportunities to pursue treatments for Charlie, preferring instead their own overly-exalted opinions and status to the true well-being of Charlie.

As mentioned earlier, the authorities wouldn't even allow the baby to die at home.  I now wonder that if he were taken home, might he still be alive - or was a quick death engineered?  Now that Charlie has passed away, will the parents be allowed to take his body so they can at least give him a proper funeral?  If not, consider such refusal suspicious.

National Catholic Register And Capital Punishment

The National Catholic Register, a normally sensible publication, has linked arms with some not-so-sensible publications (America and National Catholic Reporter) and partook of their kool-aid.  They have glommed onto the push to end capital punishment.  I've blogged before about the consequences of embracing positions that are not in accordance with Catholic tradition.  In one of those posts I put forth my reasons for believing that the push to end capital punishment is a slap in the face to God Himself.

The Register article features one quote of Bishop Thomas Wenski of Miami: "The use of the death penalty devalues human life and diminishes respect for human dignity. We bishops continue to say: We cannot teach killing is wrong by killing."

We'll unpack the last sentence, for therein lies some confusion.  The Fifth Commandment prohibits murder, not killing.  Owing to poor translations from the Hebrew, we do have some confusion.  "Murder" and "killing" are not the same.  Murder is defined as "the deliberate taking of innocent human life". While all murder involves killing, the converse does not hold.   There is, for example, the killing that must sometimes happen in the course of self-defense; no sane person will call that "murder".  Therefore I'd say to Bishop Wenski that it is not "killing" that is wrong per se, but "murder".  Moreover, the "killing" done by capital punishment is done after due process of justice whereby the condemned is adjudicated not innocent, but guilty of capital crimes.

Further down into the article, Cardinal O'Malley called capital punishment "institutionalized practice of violence".  Here again we have a problem with the defining of terms.  Violence is defined by Catholic moral theology as "the unjust use of force".  In this case, "force" and "violence" are being confused by the Cardinal.  After the due process of justice as mentioned above, the use of deadly force in capital punishment is not "unjust".

A blogging colleague, Veneremurcernui at A Blog for Dallas Are Catholics has his post on this matter.  In it he had video of a homily on the topic.  I post that below.  We pray for the salvation of those condemned.  We pray also for the 3500 babies murdered each day via abortion, for whereas the condemned criminals can avail themselves of the sacraments, the innocent babies haven't that advantage.