“Quality of Life” and Salvific Suffering

What does the term “quality of life” mean to you?  If you have been a decision-maker for someone who is suffering interminably, with little or no hope of recovery, you will have struggled with this question. Maybe your loved one was conscious or worse, unconscious.  Of course, you are distraught, agonizing over what to do, with thoughts running through your mind, “Should I listen to the Doctors?” “What would he or she want me to do?” “How did I get caught up in this?” “How can I make the right decision?” Perhaps the person is in a persistent vegetative state. There are so many compilations.  “I just want to do what’s right!”  “I just want to do what’s best!”

Quality of Life

Maybe the patient has a degenerative disease but is otherwise, right now, very healthy.  The only problem is they want no more medical treatment or worse, they opt for physician-assisted suicide in order to avoid suffering or what they consider to be a poor quality of life.

The scenarios are endless.  Sometimes the physicians/hospital staff sort of prod you, reminding you of the pain the patient is in and of course, the economic factors that are involved – insurance, the use of the machines that could be helping someone else with more promising prospects, etc. They may ask, “What is the least quality of life you are willing to accept?”  This could be a question for the patient or for you.  It also treads a thin line in usurping your prerogative by making you feel guilty or selfish.  It is not exactly unbiased advice.

Salvific Suffering

Let us move on to Salvific Suffering.  “What the heck is that”, you wonder to yourself.  It sounds like some holy-roller bunch of pious nonsense.  Everyone knows that suffering is to be shunned and avoided at all cost. The only concern revolves around the patient’s comfort, prognosis, and wrapping things up quickly if at all possible.

Just turn on the television and look at the commercials, they have a pill for everything, no pain, no suffering, please!  Sometimes the medical staff or we get caught up in a kind of cost/benefit analysis regarding the value of keeping the patient alive only to postpone the inevitable.  Suffering is surely a bad thing and we must avoid it or eliminate it.

This is the world we live in today.  Many good people are making irreversible decisions without having all of the necessary information.

What Does the Church Say?

Let’s approach this from another angle – “What does the Church say?”  Can it get our moral compass pointing in the right direction?

In Gaudium et Spes (“Joy and Hope”), we learn,

Since all men possess a rational soul and are created in God’s likeness…have been redeemed by Christ and enjoy the same Divine calling and destiny, the basic equality of all must receive greater recognition (Gaudium et Spes n29)

In Evangelium Vitae ( The Gospel of Life), St. John Paul II teaches us,

The eclipse of God and of man inevitably leads to a practical materialism, which breeds individualism, utilitarianism, and hedonism…The values of being are replaced by those of having.  The only goal which counts is the pursuit of one’s own material well-being.  This so-called quality of life is interpreted primarily or exclusively as economic efficiency, inordinate consumerism, physical beauty, and pleasure, to the neglect of the more profound dimensions-interpersonal, spiritual and religious-of existence  (Evangelium Vitae n23).

In our day, the opposite of the above values should be woven into our lives.  Saint Teresa of Calcutta did so in a most beautiful, foundational, faithful way.  She describes an incident, which led her to found her first home for the sick and dying in India:

I saw a woman dying on the street outside Campbell Hospital.  I picked her up and took her to the hospital but she was refused admission because she was poor.  She died on the street.  I knew then that I must make a home for the dying, a resting place for people going to heaven (Kathryn Spink, Mother Teresa: An Authorized Biography (New York: Harper One, 2011), 3.

Mother Teresa saw the dignity and infinite value in every human life, regardless of material attributes, physical beauty, or economic well-being.  She put the totality of her faith in God, realizing that her life was not her own – it was only doing the will of God that counted, being His instrument in the world.

In another incident,

One evening we went out and we picked up four people from the street.  And one of them was in most terrible condition…So I did for her all that my love can do.  I put her in bed, and there was such a beautiful smile on her face.  She took hold of my hand. And she said one word only:  “thank you”-and she died  (Mother Teresa, “Nobel Peace Prize Lecture” (1979).

In his article, “The Quality of Life:  Who’s the Judge?”  Published by the USCCB, Richard M. Doerflinger asserts,

Only by serving those who are helpless will we build what the Holy Father has called a civilization of truth and love-the truth that we belong to one another and the love that finally conquers death (The Quality of Life:  who’s the Judge? |USCCB).

The clearest rebuttal of the “Quality of Life” error I’ve come across was from a 64-year-old re­tired Boeing computer programmer named John Peyton (1945-2009). He lived in Kent, Washington, and had an unusually aggressive form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The disease made him totally dependent on Patricia, his wife of 40 years. She dressed him, fed him, and regularly shifted his body position in the living room recliner where he spent his declin­ing months (Making Sense of Bioethics:  Column 187:  The “Quality of Life” Error – The National Catholic Bioethics Center: Rev. Tad Pacholczyk).

Peyton continued to speak out against physician-assisted suicide even as his own health declined.  He was emphatic about describing his great quality of life, being totally dependent on others, having a good family, friends, and church members. He had a great, thankful attitude.

Instead of making quality of life judgments about people, we should be making “Quality of Treatment” judgments for those who are ailing and vulnerable…” (Fr. Pacholczyk: article 187)  Fr. Pacholczyk goes on to say that these patients call us to a higher level of acceptance and challenge us to give more support even under such challenging circumstances. (Fr. Pacholczyk, Article 187.)

The other aspect of the tremendous suffering many endure is Salvific Suffering, in his apostolic letter, SALVIFICI DOLORIS, Pope John Paul II uses the words of St Paul to teach us the value of Salvific Suffering: “In my flesh, I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col 1:24).  He tells us that there is great power in this suffering we offer up for others that brings us closer to Christ.

John Paul II was certainly one who practiced what he preached.  The whole world was a witness to the extreme suffering he went through, especially towards the end of his Pontificate, until God called him home.

He taught us that suffering should not be shunned but embraced for the good of souls, including our own.  Some of the other benefits of Salvific Suffering may include an elevated place in Heaven, time off purgatory, and greater intimacy with Our Lord who allows us to unite our sufferings with His for the price of souls.  He gives us the ability to help our fellow man, in love, as He has.  It would serve us well to be mindful that all life has dignity and only the Creator can say with authority and correctness when it begins and when it ends.  If we humans interfere in this approach with regard to life it is a tremendous act of hubris, since we are usurping the privilege of the Creator – God.

We must ask ourselves, do we want to walk away as many of Jesus’ disciples did at the Eucharistic Discourse (John, Ch. 6).  Or do we want to accept the challenge of raising the quality of life for each other and embracing suffering for our brothers and sisters as well as ourselves?  Admittedly this seems a bit counter-cultural by today’s standards.  A little like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave where shadows are reality.  However, it is possible if we develop the mindset to try for the love of God.

If we are fortunate enough to achieve the Beatific Vision, we may well thank God for the suffering He sent us in this life.  As the old saying goes, “When you work for the Church, the salary may not be great but the retirement plan is out of this world!”