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In an August 2015 column in The Washington Post, George F. Will argued in favor of physician-assisted suicide, summing up his perspective this way: “There is nobility in . . . affirming at the end the distinctive human dignity of autonomous choice.”
His conclusion, however, raises several important questions: Shouldn’t death-dealing actions directed against ourselves be seen as a deep repudiation of our autonomy, insofar as suicide eliminates our personal freedom once and for all?
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Recently, I spent six days at a place only about a 10-minute drive from my home, but I had entered a country as “foreign'”to my experience as Botswana or Katmandu.
I had taken up residence in Hospitalland. I was brought in for an emergency appendectomy and had to undergo a second surgery, due to complications.
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Pope Francis has called a special session of the Synod of Bishops, which will meet from October 5 to 19 and prepare the agenda for the ordinary session of the synod that is scheduled for the fall of 2015; both sessions will focus on the family.
In my view, the synod should focus on two related themes: marriage culture is in crisis throughout the world; the answer to that crisis is the Christian view of marriage as a covenant between man and woman in a communion of love, fidelity, and fruitfulness.
To focus the conversation elsewhere is to ignore a hard fact and a great opportunity.
The collapse of marriage culture throughout the world is indisputable. More and more marriages end in divorce, even as increasing numbers of couples simply ignore marriage, cohabit, and procreate.
