Word: trapasso
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Dates: during 1975-1975
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...that she would recover. As their testimony in court revealed, Mrs. Quinlan was the first to accept the inevitable, followed shortly after that by her two natural children, Mary Ellen, 19, and John, 17. But Joseph Quinlan kept talking about a miracle. His own parish priest, the Rev. Thomas Trapasso, said, "I was beginning to fear that Joe was not in touch with reality." The priest had to persuade him that Catholic theology does not require that life be preserved indefinitely by artificial and extraordinary means (see box, page 58). In early September, Quinlan testified, he gave...
When Joseph and Julia Quinlan asked that their daughter be allowed to die, they had the full support of their Roman Catholic priest, Father Thomas Trapasso of Our Lady of the Lake Church. Said he: "Extraordinary means are not morally required to prolong life." The vice chancellor of his diocese, Father Herbert Tillyer, agreed: "There is a profound difference between killing someone and allowing a person to spend his or her last few hours or days free from the maze of machinery that is beautiful only so long as there is hope for some recovery...
...this then the Vatican view? Father Trapasso's diocesan authorities insisted that both comments were merely private opinions, an accurate statement since only unsigned editorials in L'Osservatore are used to reflect papal thinking. In Rome, one theology professor fumed, "Concetti is no moral theologian, and what he wrote is stupid." Said Father Sean O'Riordan, a moral theologian at Rome's Alphonsianum College: "Concetti's article is clearly contrary to the teachings of Pope Pius XII and the unanimous moral tradition existing for centuries...
They were bolstered by long soul-searching talks with their other two children and their Roman Catholic parish priest. Father Thomas Trapasso advised them that there was "no moral obligation to use extraordinary means to sustain life when there is no realistic hope of some recovery." But when the Quinlans asked doctors to let their daughter die, the doctors refused. Karen was not a minor, they said, and they might be held responsible for her death...