FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS :

• What does the Church think of “induced death” [euthanasia]?
• What meaning can be given to the final resurrection ?
• Is it possible to communicate with the dead ?
• The Church and Cremation.
• What should we think about “near-death experiences” ?
• What should we think about belief in re-incarnation ?
• Must we believe in Hell ?

What does the Church think of “induced death” [euthanasia]?
Public opinion campaigns, broadcast by the media, regularly attempt to mix together “dying with dignity” and “gentle death”, otherwise called voluntary “interruption of life”. To decide to die when you are in good health in order to follow a dear-one, is not the same thing as choosing to die when threatened by a terminal illness or old age. It is something different again to ask to die because the suffering is too much to bear : only in this case may palliative care be a solution, because the cry for help in distress can be taken into consideration.

There is a way to die with dignity, which is neither suicide nor euthanasia. This is by offering up your life to the Mercy of God, so that this life should not be taken away but transfigured. This may seem a scandal for some people, today as yesterday. And, certainly, the Christian does not have the right to impose this on his unbelieving brothers and sisters. But nor has he the right to hide this from them either. That is why it is unacceptable to allow the partisans of suicide and euthanasia to take over the “dignity” of death, nor should it be the only issue presented as the ideal, to whoever wishes to die “properly”.

What meaning can be given to the final resurrection ?
The Risen One henceforth carries along all men in His wake. Christ has made this astonishing promise to every man of Faith : “I will raise you up on the last day” (John 6:44). To the astonishment of the philosophers of Athens, it was the resurrection of the body that St. Paul preached. Resurrection is not a “re-animation” of our body, nor re-incarnation. Our linguistic terminology is poor on this point. St. Paul said : “When it is sown it embodies the soul, when it is raised it embodies the spirit” (I Cor.15:44). This expression of Paul has been studied at great length; it is enough for us to retain the principle of it : resurrected man will share in the properties of Jesus’ glorious body, as the Gospel accounts of the Transfiguration and the Resurrection have already described to us. The risen body of Christ is the example. It is He, Christ, “who will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of His glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). St. Paul (1 Cor. 15:42-44) enumerates the new qualities of this body : incorruptibility, glory, power, spirituality. From now on, it is in this triumph of matter that lies the justification for the respect the Church demands for the body. Let us add that “the redemption of our body” (Rom. 7:23) will be like the signal for a cosmic liberation. In Christ, the Spirit has taken possession of matter, as He must do with all creation, at the end of time, when Christ “will sum up” all things in Him.

Is it possible to communicate with the dead ?
Let us leave aside practices connected with magic, spiritualism, occultism or witchcraft. The position of the Church has always been strict about this kind of experience, in which it suspects a connivance with Satan and the forces of evil. On the other hand, certain recent publications : “Les Témoins de l’Invisible” [Witnesses of the Invisible] and “Les Morts ont donné signe de vie” [The dead showed signs of life] by J. Prieur; “Les Morts nous parlent” [The dead speak to us] by F. Brune, appeal to another type of experience which occurred to the authors, to their readers or to well-known people, the most famous being Pierre Monier and Roland de Juvenel. But the Church has still had reservations concerning such phenomena, which are difficult to explain, even if advances in the physical sciences and in para-psychology allow us to confront them more calmly. God cannot be refused the right sometimes to give “personal signs”, recognisable only by the interested parties. They remain, therefore, isolated and individual cases, to be received in Faith. These exceptional facts all come down, in fact, to these essentials : it is that Eternal Life exists, and that prayer is the normal means of communication between the living and the dead, within the mystery of the Communion of Saints. Let us stress again the fact that seeking to communicate with the dead (automatic writing, TCL (transcommunication) etc. might well interfere with the mourning process, so necessary after the death of a dear-one.