Doctors

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
22 Jul 2007

Most Australians were shocked to learn that a group of doctors were suspected of belonging to a gang of murderous terrorists.  We expect doctors to save life and diminish pain not inflict suffering and death.

Doctors have earned their high place in public opinion.  While religious people often consult their priest or minister in times of trouble, more people visit their local G.P. (general practitioner) for medical help and advice or consolation.

Good local doctors, who know their patients and their families, are part of the cement of local communities, although such personal care is threatened by greedy technocrats who push their patients through quickly, usually offering a tranquilizer or a contraceptive.

The position of doctors in Australian public esteem is changing and is further threatened by some reform programmes.

Doctors used to take the Hippocratic Oath, dating back to pre-Christian Greece, vowing to save life and not take it.  The original version included a prohibition of abortion, but this oath calling on vanished gods and goddesses has now been replaced by a variety of substitutes.  As doctors bring us into the world and see us out, while they regularly prolong our lives in ways that were impossible even ten or twenty years ago, it is good that they are reminded by their profession to take their responsibilities seriously.

Doctors, like priests, soldiers, politicians and businessmen, are not born free from original sin, because they have the same selfish itch, the same capacity for weakness and moral blindness as the rest of humanity.  So do scientists, as all gifted and highly educated people can put their talents at the service of evil.  There is an old Latin saying, “corruptio optimi pessima”, which says that the corruption of the best produces the worst result.  We see this time and time again.

Doctors were prominent in the Nazi death camps and in the Soviet Gulag, which killed even more people.  Radoyan Karadzic, once leader of the Bosnian Serbian republic is a psychiatrist.

Much closer to home are the 90,000 abortions a year performed by Australian doctors.  This is an awful task for men and women dedicated to saving and prolonging human life.

Society compartmentalizes and locks out of sight this shocking reality, because we do not want our ideal of the healing doctor damaged.

The push for mercy killing, euthanasia would further destabilize our attitudes to the medical profession, if it was successful.  The rationale is that people would only be killed when the suffering was too much to bear, but in practice the boundaries would be pushed further and further.  Already now in Holland, where euthanasia is legal, many patients, even children, are eliminated without their consent.

Doctors are now revered as agents for life and health and we should work to ensure this does not change for the worse.