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vivificantem
Guest
If a person has been diagnosed with cancer, and refuses to undergo any kind of treatment, and so may die, is it a sin? Does it depend on someone’s age and other physical problems they may have?
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Eufrosnia
Guest
This sort of treatment will fall outside the necessary means to live i.e. food, water etc.
So Catholic theology does allow one to refuse this sort of treatment if they feel that they are uncomfortable with it.
That being said, there is no harm in encouraging such a person to obtain treatment. You can explain to them why it matters to you that they live or fight the disease. Be honest and have a heart to heart talk. It might just be that the person right now is feeling that all he has to do in life is done and he is ready to leave the world when God wants to take him.
Maybe he just needs the reminder that some of you would like him to live and fight the disease. We all enjoy the communion of persons. Sometimes we just have to let them know how much we value their presence.
EDIT: The distinction between food and treatment is usually referred to as “Extraordinary means” in Catholic Bioethics. You can perhaps do some research on that as well.
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LilyM
Guest
For me it would depend on other factors as well. If someone has a spouse and children to help support and raise, and the person has excellent chances of being restored to good health if they are treated, then it may be a neglect of their duties towards their family to not seek treatment.
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SecretGarden
Guest
I think it depends on the type and the stage of the cancer. If it’s stage 3 or 4 of a progressive form of cancer and the only point of the treatment will mean it will prolong their death by a few months and they will spend those extra months suffering, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to forgo treatment. Either way the cancer will get them therefore if forgoing the treatment will reduce their suffering, I think that is the best way to go.
On the otherhand if the cancer is caught early or it isn’t a progressive form of cancer which means, if they have the treatment, the chances of survival are good, then they should have the treatment. The treatment won’t be easy, however in this case, I think, they should try, and fight the cancer. Some cancers are more treatable than others and if they have a treatable form, they owe it to the others in the first paragraph to fight and see what happens.
Even if the chances aren’t that good, one should always at least try to fight. Miracles always happen and one never knows when the next miracle will occur. Fighting cancer is like going off to war. Everyone fights and no one knows know which way one will return home. But inside every story there is someone who is loved by someone.
On the otherhand if the cancer is caught early or it isn’t a progressive form of cancer which means, if they have the treatment, the chances of survival are good, then they should have the treatment. The treatment won’t be easy, however in this case, I think, they should try, and fight the cancer. Some cancers are more treatable than others and if they have a treatable form, they owe it to the others in the first paragraph to fight and see what happens.
Even if the chances aren’t that good, one should always at least try to fight. Miracles always happen and one never knows when the next miracle will occur. Fighting cancer is like going off to war. Everyone fights and no one knows know which way one will return home. But inside every story there is someone who is loved by someone.
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timotheos
Guest
I have a rising PSA and have struggled with whether to do something about it. Unfortunately, my wife has fallen into grave sin as a result of my supporting her too well over the years; among many things she has spent several hundred thousand dollars and put me in a hole that is taking years to dig out. The extra work is taking a toll on my health, and she still does not see what she is doing.
I wonder whether my greater duty is to lose my life from prostate cancer, which may finally shake my wife from her life of sin. Isn’t this my ultimate duty, to get her to heaven? Nothing else has worked, including many masses, prayers, rosaries and holy hours. Maybe some things do require the ultimate sacrifice.
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maryjk
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You might want to start by taking control of the checkbook. It would be less damaging to you and might snap her out of it.
For the OP, most things aren’t that cut and dry. We get many threads here that start, “Is it a sin?” And it always, always comes down to individual circumstances.
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Eufrosnia
Guest
Let God make that choice for you my friend. You should do your best to take care of your wife. That would include you trying to stay alive i.e. get treatment. If God needs your death to wake up your wife from sin, he will do so regardless of your efforts.
What you said also reminded me of a story Ven. Fulton Sheen included in his book Three to get Married. In that true story, the husband, out of love for his non-believing wife, had made a prayer the first day they met to God saying to offer his life to God if he would bring about her conversion. Years after their marriage, his wife converted to the Catholic faith on his deathbed and received her first holy communion.
So I think you should let God take care of this and do your best to stay alive to love your wife.
meltzerboy
New member
Even though I realize every family situation is different, it just doesn’t sound right to me that you’re thinking of sacrificing your own life, by not going for medical treatment, to save your wife. Do you really think your own death is likely to result in her straightening out her spending problem rather than maintaining or accelerating it? I would suggest you and your wife have an honest talk with one another if you have not already done so, and also with a trusted priest as well as perhaps a family counselor.
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CopticChristian
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Tim,
If you are postulating Prostate Cancer as a demise plan to wait a long time. People can live a long life with Prostate Cancer…I suggest you take care of yourself and find out what to do about your rising PSA…a biopsy might be the first thing to do…
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SecretGarden
Guest
Timotheos, letting yourself go in order to help your wife is admirable but it won’t change her habits. Your best bet is to go into marriage counseling. Obviously there are problems inside your marriage and letting yourself go especially when prostate cancer is very treatable isn’t the answer.
Let’s work on your marriage and see where that leads.
Let’s work on your marriage and see where that leads.
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vivificantem
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vivificantem
Guest
Thank you all for your thoughts.
Timotheos, I pray God will guide you to His will.
Timotheos, I pray God will guide you to His will.
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manualman
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timetheos,
Have you taken direct action? Are you the primary source of income in the family? If so, why can’t you open a new bank account with ONLY your name on it and redirect your paychecks there. Close any joint credit card accounts and tell her to get her own account. IMO (amatuer) there is no moral requirement to have combined finances in marriage, especially if it merely enables her to ruin you both. You can continue to pay the critical bills, and support your family by paying for food, housing, utilities, cars and reasonable budgets for discrentionary income. But if she doesn’t have check writing priviledges on your account and has no credit card with your name on it, how bad can she ruin you? She’ll be hopping mad, but isn’t that still a better means of confronting her self destructive behavior than you dying would be? Just a thought…!
Have you taken direct action? Are you the primary source of income in the family? If so, why can’t you open a new bank account with ONLY your name on it and redirect your paychecks there. Close any joint credit card accounts and tell her to get her own account. IMO (amatuer) there is no moral requirement to have combined finances in marriage, especially if it merely enables her to ruin you both. You can continue to pay the critical bills, and support your family by paying for food, housing, utilities, cars and reasonable budgets for discrentionary income. But if she doesn’t have check writing priviledges on your account and has no credit card with your name on it, how bad can she ruin you? She’ll be hopping mad, but isn’t that still a better means of confronting her self destructive behavior than you dying would be? Just a thought…!
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thistle
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CCC 2288 Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good.
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timotheos
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Didn’t mean to derail the thread, but in my defense my case is not hypothetical, in spite of the slow progression of most prostate cancers. (correct as usual, coptic)
For me, this is where the rubber meets the road. Is Jn 12:25 (he who hates his life will keep it) just a figure of speech, just a way of feeling devout but, oh gosh no, not really hating one’s life?
How many of you have spent childhood naturally rejected by your peers, fought like crazy for an education in spite of the odds, sacrificed your entire young adult life to be part of the healing profession, been used by people for the money you now make, and have your spouse of 20 years run to a neighboring state to “reconnect” with an old flame, who happens to be a practically toothless, overweight, aging, chain-smoking bachelor whose house could be featured on “Hoarders” if he cleaned it up a bit first? * I am telling the truth, and any illusions I have had about life being something I “love” have been totally shattered*, and any shred of self-respect I have had is now ripped away from my being. * I am a worm, and no man* (Ps 22:6); I don’t just read this passage, I live it. Is this wrong? If so, how? Because it is sacred scripture itself.
Christ is on the cross: If Christ is the Way, anything that keeps me from the cross is not the way. If Christ is the Truth, anything that keeps me from the cross is not the truth. And if Christ is the Life, anything that keeps me from death on the cross is no life.
I believe my wife is not in a typical state of sin, she is a hard core prisoner of Satan himself, and is lost in a blinding vanity to which she clings with every fiber of her being. Marriage counseling? Don’t kid yourself, it’s no match for the evil one. For well over ten years I have had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach that the ultimate sacrifice would eventually be required of me.
For those who think I have lost my marbles, I don’t think so, as I continue to have my doubts about this line of action. But at least my doubts are based less and less on fear of suffering and death as time goes on. And maybe that is really the only point.
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CopticChristian
Guest
Tim,
Ok,
Let’s get real here. You had a childhood. You have an education. You have a cancer. You have money. You have neighbors. Your wife has lost her marbles and many wives do. You are not your education. You are not your cancer. You are not your money and your neighbors may or may not be good neighbors. You are something that existed prior to and subsequent to your wife. You can’t control anything except you.
Christ died so you may have life and have it more abundantly. Your life is what it is and sad as it is it is still your life. If you were able to succeed from childhood to now and I am sure in the face of adversity you can succeed again as a human being that has been asked to engage in suffering that only you can handle with all the grace you need to handle it.
You are here on the CAF and that is good. You will have to take some time to reflect on these things and while you pray I suggest that you constantly reflect and stop asking why any of this happened. That will for sure drive you nuts.
Ask of yourself…How can I do the Will of God with what has happened and make all the difference in my life that I can so that others can see that love of Christ you say you have…that would be something to behold…Go to the cross…John of The Cross did…and while you prepare to die on the cross, all Christ asks of you is to die to self and live for Him…and you can’t do that unless you can see the joy that there is in life despite all the roadblocks…He had more…think of that…
I would ask you to accept that I would think of you and I am sure that others will as well…I would pray that you consider doing nothing more than the blessed mother said when asked what to do with the jugs of water…do all that He asks…and He doesn’t ask you to suffer without grace…and He doesn’t ask you to die unless you are called…so get off the couch, get on your feet and start living as if all the joy of Christ was in you and then you will see your neighbors wondering what in the world got into Tim…as will others…let me know how you do…
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AbideWithMe
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timotheos
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CopticChristian, I know you mean well, and I know you probably are right. But honestly, and with all respect, you and people like you make me wonder why I try to live as a Catholic at all. Do you think I don’t know how to live life happily and joyfully? Here’s one way – to live as a nominal protestant Christian, fully assured of salvation regardless of anything I may do. Go to mass on Sunday? Why would I? God just wants me to commune with him in the morning sunshine. Admit a matrimonial error, get a divorce and start over with someone else. This time allow for contraception so that relations can be frequent, passionate and “care free”. Give just enough money away to feel good about myself, but not enough to be uncomfortable. Hey, people would definitely see a positive change in me; I would be FUN! God loves me, and I am assured of heaven, so, why not start my heaven here on my terms? Why indeed? Because I just can’t. Maybe it is my unhealthy sense of Catholic “guilt”, or maybe it’s a sickness or even psychopathology, but I just can’t. Too difficult to explain.
You may very well be right, and I may spend my life suffering only to find out that God is very displeased with me, and send me straight to hell, the hell I chose on earth. But if so, it will be His will, and I will have no choice but to accept it. But I will not change my path simply because some other mortal being tells me I’m going the wrong way. Not when scripture and the lives of the saints are full of images of suffering! I may be doing it all wrong but at least I tried.
And lastly, and I forgive you because you don’t know me, but the “get off the couch” comment is most rude and dismissive. That’s all I’m going to say.
I think I need a long break from this forum, maybe permanently. I pray that God may bless everyone here, and for his assistance and mercy in all of your lives.
Tim
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lifeandhope
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I have a genetic disease that causes cancer. People with my disease have so many tumors that we treat them as they become a direct threat (for example, I have four brain tumors–it would kill me to have four more brain surgeries, so when a tumor starts to become active we HAVE to act to save my life. The gamble is that not all of the dozens of tumors I have will activate at once). I have had multiple brain and spinal cord surgeries, and have had a Whipple for pancreatic cancer. All of the surgeries, especially the Whipple I had four years ago, were all BRUTAL. So much so that the idea of another “cancer treatment” sends me into a panic. But I’m in my mid-thirties and have two elementary age daughters. And guess what? They BOTH have the disease as well. My oldest was diagnosed with her first tumor last week–in her left eye. Tonight she was telling me that she doesn’t want to go blind. It breaks my heart. I hate my disease. It killed my father four years ago and it has nearly destroyed my brother and I as we battle our own cancer. BUT, to answer the OP’s question, I strongly believe that all the suffering I have endured in treatment has been the appropriate course of action, and that if I were to just ‘let things happen’ for myself it would be an indirect way of suicide. If I were to ‘let things happen’ for my daughters, it would be reprehensible. Would I ignore the disease because it is easier emotionally in the shorter term and allow blindness to overcome my daughter? I could never live with myself. But there are many with my disease who bury their heads in the sand and pretend they do not have the disease…but they usually die young from a burst brain tumor or metastatic disease.
The exception, I suppose, would be if a cancer disease is found very late and there is very little that treatment can offer, save a few months of extended life that has little quality to it. But speaking as someone who will ALWAYS have cancer, and will ALWAYS need to fight it to stay alive, and will ALWAYS remember the brutal way my beloved Dad slowly died from my disease, and will ALWAYS be a mommy fighting alongside her daughters so they can also live–for me to refuse any and all treatment for my tumors and my daughters’ tumors would be wrong. I’ll fight until the Lord calls me home, and if it comes to a point where I have untreatable tumors, my doctors, husband, and I will make the decision about treatment together. God has allowed much suffering in my life, but I want to show my daughters how to live through suffering with joy and love of God–even in the midst of tears and pain–and be a good example of suffering well.
Suffering gives us the rare opportunity to REALLY identify with the Passion of Christ. I would never seek out my suffering, but when it comes my way I must endure it with grace.
The exception, I suppose, would be if a cancer disease is found very late and there is very little that treatment can offer, save a few months of extended life that has little quality to it. But speaking as someone who will ALWAYS have cancer, and will ALWAYS need to fight it to stay alive, and will ALWAYS remember the brutal way my beloved Dad slowly died from my disease, and will ALWAYS be a mommy fighting alongside her daughters so they can also live–for me to refuse any and all treatment for my tumors and my daughters’ tumors would be wrong. I’ll fight until the Lord calls me home, and if it comes to a point where I have untreatable tumors, my doctors, husband, and I will make the decision about treatment together. God has allowed much suffering in my life, but I want to show my daughters how to live through suffering with joy and love of God–even in the midst of tears and pain–and be a good example of suffering well.
Suffering gives us the rare opportunity to REALLY identify with the Passion of Christ. I would never seek out my suffering, but when it comes my way I must endure it with grace.
meltzerboy
New member
I must say you are a courageous and faithful woman and an inspiration to us all. May G-d bless you and your family.
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