A few small points

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i have a couple questions:
  1. my parents were working on their wills, and told us that if they ever are on life support to pull the plug… what am i to respond as a Catholic? would that be a sin?
  2. in a list of apocryphical new testament books was “the home-going of the holy Mary”. this was one of many books that was “damned then, now and forever”. this book taught of the assumption of Mary into heaven. apparently because this book was damned, all of its information was damned with it… any support?
 
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jax8686:
i have a couple questions:
  1. my parents were working on their wills, and told us that if they ever are on life support to pull the plug… what am i to respond as a Catholic? would that be a sin?
  2. in a list of apocryphical new testament books was “the home-going of the holy Mary”. this was one of many books that was “damned then, now and forever”. this book taught of the assumption of Mary into heaven. apparently because this book was damned, all of its information was damned with it… any support?
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I dunno about number 1, nor do I really know about number 2.

However, let me put this out there. I bet that apocryphal book taught that Mary was Jesus’ mother. Is that information damned? I bet it taught that Jesus was our savior, and maybe that he died on the cross. Was that damned too?
 
For number one, the Church teaches that we are not required to use extraordinary measures to keep people alive (artifical heart machines, respirators, etc.) So it is not sinful to “pull the plug” on artifical life support if there is no significant chance of improvement.

However, it still remains sinful to cease ordinary measures to keep people alive: Food, water, etc. Even if these are being given through a feeding tube, they are ordinary care and cannot be ceased.
 
jax8686,

You need to know exactly what your parents mean by “pulling the pug” to know if they are asking you to do what you cannot do as a Catholic. Some extraordinary measures can be ethically discontinued in certain circumstances; other procedures (such as the adminstration of food and water, unless the body is shutting down) can not be ethically discontinued. You need more information. I would suggest going here for some articles:

catholiceducation.org/directory/Current_Issues/Medical_Ethics/

As for your second question: some of the Gnostic Gospels contain truth here and there—the truth a book contains is not affected by the books’ condemnation.
 
i had brought up the point of the Gosples and how all of it could not be damned because much of our faith would be damned too. and thanks for the link and info about taking people off life support
 
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Sherlock:
jax8686,

You need to know exactly what your parents mean by “pulling the pug” to know if they are asking you to do what you cannot do as a Catholic. Some extraordinary measures can be ethically discontinued in certain circumstances; other procedures (such as the adminstration of food and water, unless the body is shutting down) can not be ethically discontinued. You need more information. I would suggest going here for some articles:

catholiceducation.org/directory/Current_Issues/Medical_Ethics/
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Definitely… there is a fine line, and many shady areas. You would need it spelled out from them, And then compare it to Church teaching. Then you can share your convictions/duties as a CatholiC.

And as for #2… the condemnation of an apocryphal book does not exclude all iformation in the book – after all,there is a skeleton of truth about Christ’s life that makes it an albeit false Gospel. That truth is no more condemned then the occasional truth in an otherwise fictional account.
 
Here is another link on bio-ethics.

Go to www.usccb.org and click on the Bioethics topic. You’ll find this website to be a great resource.
 
On Catholic Answers Wednesday, the 20th had an EXCELLENT Guest who knew her stuff about what you are asking. You can download that segment. I encourage you to do so for expert info.

Magdaline
 
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