All men must die and the best case scenario is to delay that inescapable fate a little bit. The worst case scenario, in my opinion, is to prolong the end in a state of suffering. As the Pope's health seems to be failing I find myself wondering, "What if he slips into a coma without flat-lining his EKG graph, and the consensus medical opinion is that he has no chance of growing younger?".
I also wonder, "What if technology can maintain his state of ill-health indefinitely, keeping him alive as some sort of living mummy?".
Should he be maintained with electrified heartbeats, feeding tubes, and breathing apparatus? If so, would he still be the Pope, since that job is held "for life"?
People close to the pope describe his state as "suffering" and also say he has "great difficulty breathing". Does this mean that Jesse Jackson and Jeb Bush ought to alight to Rome with their placards and showmanship and demand he be kept alive, and also personally attack any Cardinal that says different?
Keep Pope alive!
Obviously I think that the Schiavo case in the soap-opera state of Florida was old-fashioned political grand-standing, but I could be proven wrong by a principled commitment to life expressed Popeward. After all, the Pontiff himself could be allowed to "cross over to the other side peacefully" when there is yet a chance to maintain the bloodflow in his tissue and the motion in his lungs.
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