Denver Catholic

18 AUGUST 26-SEPTEMBER 8, 2017 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives It's a culture war, stupid T hose who persist in denying that the Church is engaged in a culture war, the combatants in which are aptly called the "culture of life" and the "culture of death," might ponder this June blog post by my summer pastor in rural Québec, Father Tim Moyle: Tonight I am preparing to celebrate a funeral for someone ( let's call him "H" to protect his privacy) who, while su– er- ing from cancer, was admitted to the hospital with an unrelated problem, a bladder infection. H's family had him admitted to the hospital earlier in the week under the assumption that the doctors there would treat the infection and then he would be able to return home. To their shock and horror, they discovered that the attending physi- cian had indeed made the decision NOT to treat the infection. When they demanded that he change his course of (in)action, he refused, stating that it would be better if H died of this infec- tion now rather than let cancer take its course and kill him later. Despite their demands and pleadings, the doctor would not budge from his decision. In fact he deliberately hastened H's end by ordering large amounts of morphine "to control pain" which resulted in him losing consciousness as his lungs fi lled up with fl uid. In less than 24 hours, H was dead. Let me tell you a bit about H. He was 63 years old. He leaves behind a wife and two daughters who are both currently working in universities toward their undergraduate degrees. We are not talking here about someone who was advanced in years and rapidly failing due to the exigencies of old age. We are talking about a man who was undergoing chemotherapy and radia- tion treatments. We are talking about a man who still held on to hope that perhaps he might defy the odds long enough to see his daughters graduate. Evidently and tragically, in the eyes of the physician tasked with providing the care needed to beat back the infection, that hope was not worth pursuing. Again, let me make this point abun- dantly clear: It was the express desire of both the patient and his spouse that the doctor treat the infection. This wish was ignored.... Canada's vulnerability to the cul- ture of death is exacerbated by Can- ada's single-payer, i.e., state-funded and state-run, health care system. And the brutal fact is that it's more "cost eœ ective" to euthanize patients than to treat secondary conditions that could turn lethal (like H's infec- tion) or to provide palliative end-of- life care. Last year, when I asked a leading Canadian Catholic opponent of euthanasia why a rich country like the "True North strong and free" couldn't provide palliative end-of- life care for all those with terminal illnesses, relieving the fear of ago- nized and protracted dying that's one incentive for euthanasia, he told me that only 30 percent of Canadians had access to such care. When I asked why the heck that was the case, he replied that, despite assurances from govern- ments both conservative and liberal that they'd address this shameful sit- uation, the fi nancial calculus always won out — from a utilitarian point of view, euthanizing H and others like him was the sounder public policy. But in Canada, a mature democ- racy, that utilitarian calculus among government bean-counters wouldn't survive for long if a similar, cold cal- culus was not at work in the souls of too many citizens. And that is one reason why the Church must engage the culture war, not only in Canada but in the United States and through- out the West: To warm chilled souls and rebuild a civil society committed to human dignity. Then there is the civic reason. To reduce a human being to an object whose value is measured by "util- ity" is to destroy one of the building blocks of the democratic order – the moral truth that the American Dec- laration of Independence calls the "inalienable" right to "life." That right is "inalienable" — which means built-in, which means not a gift of the state — because it refl ects something even more fundamental: The dignity of the human person. When we lose sight of that, we are lost as a human community, and democracy is lost. So the culture war must be fought. And a Church that takes social justice seriously must fi ght it. The Catholic Di« erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL The Hunger Games of social media T he scenes at the Cornucopia in The Hunger Games, both in the books and fi lms, are some of most intensely violent parts of the story, hard to read or watch. Writ- ten by Suzanne Collins and later produced into a four-part fi lm series, the games set young contestants against each other to fi ght to the death. At the beginning of each of the games, they all race to the center of the arena toward the Cornucopia to compete for weapons and other valuable supplies — hacking each other down while the rest of the country watches from screens. The Capitol, the utopian city where the wealthiest citizens live, watches these violent games as enter- tainment, making sport of human life and suœ ering. This is just one scene of the dystopian story that's in the milieu of some distant future in a fi ction novel, but it's revealing about the way our culture already is today. Let's look at the world of our media. Earlier this year on Easter, Steve Stephens drove around downtown Cleveland, streaming himself on Facebook Live, on what he said was a mission to commit murder. It wasn't long before he found Robert Godwin Sr., a 74-year-old man, and shot him to death. Millions witnessed the shooting over social media. That's just one example, albeit extreme, of the world we live in. Our entertainment has become one that feeds oœ of the pain and even death of others. Not unlike The Hunger Games. None of us are immune — we breed and feed oœ of negativity on social media, and just about all of us are guilty of it. Look at the way we're sharing sto- ries to our social media feeds (some- times from totally unreliable sources) that have bogus headlines and get everyone riled up in comments. We forget we're speaking to human persons who deserve love and respect when we comment in a social media share, or even when we're sending feedback to an organization. Look at the way we're harboring division in our hearts as a result of the political divide, believing "the other side" to be the one that's the bad guy. And maybe we treat people kindly in person but forget that kindness online when dealing with people we can't see — especially if we disagree with them. These seemingly small encoun- ters with people in comments or stumbling across news that belittles a fellow human feed us, and they fester. We slowly start to believe the speculations about the world we're constantly fed, and we form opinions on things we actually know very little proven facts about — especially when it comes to the people around us. Whether we want to admit it or not, this negativity infl uences us and can deform us. And in his message for the 36th World Communications Day in 2002, St. John Paul II agreed. "The Internet oœ ers extensive knowledge, but it does not teach values; and when values are dis- regarded, our very humanity is demeaned and man easily loses sight of his transcendent dignity," he wrote. "Despite its enormous potential for good, some of the degrading and dam- aging ways in which the Internet can be used are already obvious to all, and [it should serve] the common good and not become a source of harm." But it doesn't have to be this way. We have a choice. Social media gives people a plat- form to speak, and most people talk about the way the world is going wrong in one way or another; but we need to stop thinking that the prob- lem is "out there." There will always be problems. The only real change happens when we take a hard look at ourselves and do something about what we fi nd there. Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly E– ective People, writes about the "Circle of Infl uence" — the things that we have the power Therese Bussen writes for Denver Catholic and would probably beat you in pop culture trivia. THERESE BUSSEN

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