- Welcome back everyone to the frontline with Joe and Joe. Joe Basilow and Joe Recinello, you're exactly right Joe. - We work for the man upstairs as you do. - You're setting me up quite well. You just gave me an alley youth. - The greatest revolutionary act to commit right now is to open your mouth and speak the truth. - Whether you're an academic or you're a regular guy, you have to be fearless. - And once more, dear brothers and sisters, let us go into the breach. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hello again everyone and welcome back to the frontline with Joe and Joe, Joe Basilow, as always joined by Joe Recinello. And once more, dear brothers and sisters, let us go into the breach on the Veritas Catholic Radio Network, 1350 on your AM dial, 103.9 on your FM dial, spreading the truth of the Catholic faith to the New York City metropolitan area. Two things, you know what I'm gonna ask. You download the app, share it with your friends. You'll have access to all of our station's original content and EWTN programming. And wherever you see Joe and I on social media, X, Facebook, Rumble, YouTube, please like, subscribe, share. Help us get these conversations out. Joe and I are very blessed that we're able to have some really in-depth conversations with people who know what they're talking about on a particular topic. And so today we have Dr. Steven Doran, who's joining us here because he's written a new book that's out from Ignatius Press to die well. A Catholic neurosurgeons guide to the end of life. Now anybody out there that knows Joe and Joe knows that we spend a lot of time, we talk about a lot of important issues. We don't think enough time is spent on end of life issues. And as Catholics, we have to take this very seriously. And that's why we're very honored and blessed, as I said to have Dr. Doran here. I wanna just give a quick bio. Dr. Steven Doran, a board certified neurosurgeon with over 25 years of experience. He's an ordained permanent deacon and serves as the bioethicist for the archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska. His writings in bioethics, neurosurgery and gene therapy for brain disorders have been widely published in national media outlets, academic journals and neurosurgery textbook. He is married with five sons, along with his wife Sharon. He is the co-founder of Seeking Truth Catholic Bible Study. Dr. Steven Doran, welcome to the frontline with Joe and Joe our brother. - Well, thank you so much, Joe and Joe. It's just my honor, my pleasure, my blessing to be here with you guys today. - You're welcome. And Dr. if you don't mind, you are a deacon. I'm gonna throw it over to you and we'll start with a prayer. - Let's do a name of the Father and the Son of Holy Spirit, Amen. Holy Spirit, we welcome you into this time together as we discuss such important things about life and death. We ask your blessing upon us. We pray Mary's mental protection. As we delve into this topics, we pray for this ministry for frontline with Joe and Joe that you continue to bless it, prosper it in your perfect way. And we ask these in your name, Amen. - Amen. - Thank you, Dr. John, I'm gonna hand it over to you, we'll get rocking. - Dr. just to give you a little background on Joe and I, we come from like simple Italian stock. And I say that because I've watched people in my family live well and die well. I've witnessed this with my own eyes. Uncles, my father, my grandmother, they were simple, they worked, they took care of their children, they lived with dignity and they died with dignity. I've witnessed this with my own eyes right in front of my face, my father passed away three years ago. He was in hospice care. We took care of him in our home for the last 18 months. He had Parkinson's disease. He lived well, he died well in the grace of God with the sacraments. How important this is as Catholics. And here's why I say, I come from simple stock and so does Joe. You don't have to be a fancy person to do that. You simply can people do it all over the world and that art of dying is getting thrown out the window in America. What do you mean by the art of dying well? Because I think Americans need to understand this because the medical profession and we're going to get into this because I watch this with my father, they don't look at dying like Catholics look at dying. Please elaborate on that. - Well, first of all, you hit it on the, when you hit the nail on the head just with your own experience. I mean that I couldn't have said it better myself when honestly because that's the entire focus of this book is exactly what you experienced. And so praise God that that's was your experience and regrettably it isn't always the experience for many people that, you know, I think when we talk about dying well, we have to, it kind of begs the question, well, that implies there's a bad death, right? You know, there's a good death and then there's a bad death. And so I think we have to look at what the culture might define as a good death and compare it with what you described is what I would say is truly a good death. The culture would say that a good death is one that is painless, which is fine, surrounded by family and friends, which is great. And that is in some ways kind of how to say controlled, which isn't always good. And because what happens then is that if people put this disproportionate emphasis upon a good death being a painless surrounded by friends and family, which is all great, well, then all these efforts will then be made to, well, let's do all we can to create this so-called good death and which is a very small step to what happens with assisted suicide in euthanasia. We uphold this particular idea of a good death and then we're going to do everything we can to make it happen. So we can't have that be the definition of a good death. I mean, it is good. Don't get me wrong. It's wonderful if someone has a painless deaths surrounded by family and friends and they had a chance to reconcile with everybody. That's wonderful. That's great. But if we uphold that as the definition, we're going to run into trouble. So the good death as what you already alluded to is one that begins way back with our baptism, back when we live well. We frequent the sacraments. We live a life of virtue. We become detached from the things of the world. All the things that the saints have been telling us for centuries. You know, there's nothing new here. There's nothing that hasn't been said since the time of Christ that, you know, for those to die well, that you live well. And that means those things. So it's super important for us to understand what is a good death. - I want to, Joe, let me just jump in. I want to just tell a personal story. My aunt Lydia, I was with her about 12 hours before she died. Practicing Catholic, she didn't have children. She couldn't have children. Her and her husband did pretty well. My uncle Richard worked at Cheering Plow. They had some money and they were generous. She helped people, particularly in the family, who needed help. And she prayed the rosary. And when she died, I went to see her 12 hours before she passed. And I called a priest. She received the last rites. And she, her last words to me, you know, basically what she wished me luck. And she said, "I can't wait for the joy." And the next day I saw her, the nurse said, "I don't know what happened during the night." She said, "Your aunt is somebody special." I can't tell you, I didn't even solicit the comment. That is a good death. That is real. And that leaves an impression on people. It did on that nurse. She said, "I didn't solicit it." She just said, "Your aunt is somebody special." And in life, she really wasn't. She was just normal. They lived a simple life. My uncle worked and she was kind and decent. And lived her faith. And that's a good death. I mean, I just want to put some concrete like, like anyone could do that. Joe, I'm sorry. - No, no, that's quite all right. Well, if you're just joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe, we're being joined by Dr. Steven Doernan. And we're discussing a very important topic. The end of life, all right. And the title of the book is To Die Well, a Catholic neurosurgeons guide to the end of life. Please buy it from the publisher, if you will, Ignatius Press. Doc, it is Ignatius Press, correct? - Yes, yes, Ignatius Press, yes. - We always emphasize that we want to not only support our Catholic authors, but also support our Catholic publishers. Dr. Doernan, let me ask you this. Because, and both of you kind of alluded to it, the secular culture, okay? 'Cause I mean, now it's more like in your face. We already know that the godless, and I know people think I'm being harsh when they say that, but they are, they're godless. You know, when you throw out God, then the human life has no intrinsic value. And they're telling you that, okay? And what I mean by that is, yes, I'm not talking about, let's say, the political left, even though that's part of it, is more of like the secular cultural left. There's no dignity, there's no value to human life. You go into the ground, you're dead, and that's it. And let's just move on. Give us some concrete ideas. What are the moral issues related to death that we have to concern ourselves with? - Well, I think you really have to start with something you just mentioned at a very fundamental level is what exactly is death, because then everything flows from that, right? I think that what we believe is that as human beings made in the image and likeness of God, we are a unified body and soul. And death is this separation of the body and soul. So that's not just some theological issue with theological ramifications. It has very practical ramifications, because if we see death merely as the ending of bodily function, with a heart stop speeding, your lungs stop breathing, you're dead, and so on, that's it. If that's all we see death is, then all the moral issues become amplified. All the problems that we have, or if we just see this as a collection of organs that are working, and when those organs stop, you're dead, and forget about the spiritual realities, the fact that we have a soul that lives on eternity, the fact that we are meant to be in union with God, that all the moral issues, and you can just go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and go down the list. They all stem from this lack of acknowledgement, lack of understanding of what death is, which is the separation of the body from the soul. - Yeah, 'cause when you hear, let's say, when you hear some people give speeches on, you know, in venues and venues like TED Talks and stuff like that, talking about there's no intrinsic value, and this is what they say. Like, I'm shocked, I'm blown away that people actually take these people seriously, they say things like, there's no intrinsic value, the human beings have no intrinsic value, what are rights, rights are just things we make up to make ourselves feel good, okay, and stuff like that. And I shake my head saying, what sort of world, what would the world look like if someone like that had some real power, you know, and then what happens to human life at the end of life? I mean, we see what they propose for children in the womb, okay, and that'll just extend to those, if you're not useful, you go, and that's it. And I don't think that's me being too harsh. I love your comments on that, doctor. - Well, you know, it's interesting what you bring up, and there's, I don't think people realize this. So this idea that the lack of intrinsic value of a human being goes way back to the eugenics movement, you know, social Darwinism, that there are certain people at genetic traits that are superior, therefore they should be, you know, encouraged and allowed to flourish, and those who lacked in those characteristics, well, we should get rid of them. And we all are familiar with what happened with that. And look at, you know, Nazi Germany, and those things like that. So the eugenics movement is actually a real, it's at the foundation of some of the problems that we see now, because people don't see life in itself as having value. Certain lives are more valuable than others. And so what happened with eugenics is, well, let's kill people where they don't have value. Well, now the movement for physician assisted suicide in euthanasia is essentially saying the same thing. It's saying that certain lives aren't worth living. Now, the eugenics movement says, well, we're going to kill the person and the assisted suicide movement says, well, we're going to allow that person to kill themselves. And so, but the basic idea is the same. Certain lives aren't worth living. And the reality is people want to say that, well, fine eugenics may be back then. We had some connection, but it doesn't matter. Not what does matter, not because in some countries, children can be euthanized, you know, at their parents' request. So now once again, we have the involuntary killing of people at the request of something else, which is exactly what the eugenics movement does. So if we move away from the fact that life has an intrinsic value, it isn't, you know, it's not a slippery slope, it's a free fall downhill into all the disasters that we have in our country right now. - I was going to say, yeah, that's not a slow movement. Once you devalue human life, you're going to spiral pretty quickly. And we've seen that. We, this has been practically applied in certain countries over the last hundred years, whether you look at, you know, let's say, like you mentioned Nazi Germany, when you look at, let's say, the communists in China and in the USSR, life meant nothing. And we see exactly what happens. Hiles of bodies and rivers of blood. That's the result of this. It's not just some innocuous, oh, I want my mother. She would have, I don't want it or something. No, no, no. It does have societal, there is a societal impact on taking this worldview. And we as Catholics, and that's why we're happy. You're here, Dr. Stephen Doran, to talk about this. We as Catholics have to fight against these terrible, terrible ideas. Joe R. Sinello. - I first want to explore what you just said, doctor, about eugenics. Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a eugenicist. That's factual. Why is it that Planned Parenthood clinics, the lion's share, 80% of them are in African American and Latino neighborhoods? They're not my neighborhood. They're probably not in your neighborhood, Doc. That says something. People should connect that dot. Many people still believe what you just said. I actually worked with a man who was an engineer from India. He was my friend who actually vocalized it to me in a conversation when discussing abortion. Don't think that people in elite circles of America, behind closed doors, do not echo what you just said because they do. That is a fact. Let me just say that. Eugenics is alive and well in America. And the example is in Planned Parenthood, where their locations are. Point two, Catholics believe in womb to tomb. What does that mean? Life begins at conception. It ends when the good Lord calls your name and life ends. Why? Because through suffering, we learn something. Many times we're not ready to die and God knows it. And he's giving you an opportunity. You see, the world doesn't value that. They don't understand that. You said it, suffering has to be controlled. I remember when Jacqueline Onassis died. She implied indirectly that she was going to take her own life. She said, no, her son, in a press conference, she died on her terms. Who dies on their own terms? Nobody dies on their own terms. She had died. No one wants to die. She took a walk through Central Park. And then she went home to her beautiful apartment in New York City overlooking the park and she passed. Now, that's not how it works. That's not how it works. God uses suffering. God uses death to reach a hand to you because heaven is in a guarantee. And suffering is a tool. Talk about that, because that's what we believe. And what do we have to be careful of? That we somehow want to remove that from the dying process when God is using it. I just had this conversation with a weekend with my mom. And she's in her 80s approaching the end of her life. And my father died, gosh, I spent 15 years ago. And we talked about this specific issue of suffering and suffering at the end of life. Now, there's not some bar suffering that we have to reach to have a good death either. We don't want to go to that extreme. The one extreme says, no suffering is a good death or the other extreme like, agony is a great death. That's not what is meant by suffering at the end of life. But what we talk about in suffering and the importance of it is this idea which I believe but I don't fully get or understand is the idea that in some way my suffering is redemptive not only for myself but for the entire world. Paul says in Colossians that we make up for its lacking in the sufferings of Christ like nothing lacks in Christ's sufferings. But in some mysterious way, when we unite our sufferings with His, it's for the life of the world. And so I think that, so that's why the preparation of death has to begin a long time ago because that's a really deep thing that needs to be thought about, prayed about so that at the time when yeah, you are really suffering mentally or physically or spiritually, you can kind of draw back, you can draw from this wellspring that you cultivated years ago to say, okay, but there's purpose here. There's something here, I may not fully understand it but I believe it. I believe in this mystery that what I'm doing now matters. Matters for me, matters for my family. And in some mysterious way matters for the entire world. And if we see suffering as only some existential experience that I experienced by myself, well, yeah, let's get rid of it, right? Again, I'm not saying anybody should suffer unnecessarily but suffering inevitably comes. And what we do with it is based so much on how we see what it does for everybody, not just myself. I wanna add on that because without Christ, two things that are fundamental to every human being make no sense, death and suffering. And the problem is particularly in affluent circles, I work in banking, you talk to people who basically, like when someone dies, particularly a very gifted person, I remember when I was working at Morgan Stanley, a lawyer died in his 30s of cancer, people basically were like, how does that happen? How does that person die? Well, got news for you guy, just like the garbage man dies, he dies too. We all die, it's part of life. It's just the way it is. But with, when you have God in your life, death makes sense, suffering makes sense. When you remove that, you are lost. I don't care if you went to Harvard. I don't care if you're worth billions of dollars, you're lost, you are standing over the abyss. And that's why during COVID, people were confused, lost, they had nowhere to go because they're not grounded in reality and Christ is reality, death is reality, suffering is reality and you're just meaning to both. - You brought up a good point. I'd love your comments on that doctor. What we saw during COVID, the depression, suicide, talking about death, okay? I mean, it really was a nightmare scenario. People locked in their own homes. But again, when Joe was locked in his home and you're in me, okay, it was hard, didn't like it, okay? But we were praying every day and we wake up knowing that this is all gonna end. That didn't happen for a lot of people. And it's the same with end of life. People don't have any hope and then it's tragic. I mean, do you know where I'm going with that, Dr. Dorn? - Yeah, I think that what you're speaking to is the impact of isolation and how it impacts us throughout our lives and how it can impact us at the end of our lives. And it's interesting thing that there's some people who through no fault of their own become isolated as they're dead. They don't have relatives, they don't have friends and that in and of itself is a challenge, a huge challenge. The thing that's interesting to me is there's some people who in a sense choose to isolate themselves at the end of life because they don't wanna be a burden. Okay, well, I'm gonna set everything up in just a perfect way so that whether it's the extreme of assisted suicide or even short of that, I can get everything just set so I'm not a burden to anybody and which is this really missed, guided thing that stems from isolation and you're just feeding isolation when you say, "I'm gonna get it all together so no, I'm not a burden, everything we just find." Because at the end of the life, one of the greatest things that you can do is to bring people into that reality. If you keep yourself isolated and keep a wall up, not only are you missing out for your own benefit, but you're also depriving other people to share into that holy time of dying. And it's kind of a selfish thing to say that, you know what, I'm fine, I don't need you, everything's good, I'll take care of this on myself. So isolation, whether it's isolation imposed upon us during COVID or that there's self-imposed isolation that occurs at the end of life, both are destructive. - Dr. Steven Doren is joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe. His book, "To Die Well", a Catholic neurosurgeons guide to the end of life. Dr. We have a few minutes before we go to the break. This is an important topic because there are some, again, concrete things that we're trying to, Joe and I need to learn and that's why you're here and our audience, talk about, give us your thoughts on a living will. I don't, you know, some people look at that as something that's not necessarily a danger. I'd love for you to talk about that and maybe expand on some of the pitfalls there that we need to be aware of. - Yeah, I think it's become one of these things that when you do your estate planning is kind of boilerplate like, okay, you've got your will, you've got your advanced directives and we just do it. Advanced directives is this broad category that includes living wills, also includes durable power of attorney for medical healthcare. A living will is an attempt to kind of list like, this is what I want, this is what I don't want at the end of my life. The idea, once again, I'm going to try to control what happens, excuse me, sorry. The problem with that is it's impossible to anticipate the circumstances at the end of your life. There's no way you're going to know those details and you could actually, I'm really sorry, you could actually create a situation where you kind of type people's hands. You want certain things to be done or not done. Sorry. That might be contrary to your faith. And so trying to have this list of things in advance is really counterproductive. Really all that you need is a durable power of attorney. Someone who knows you, someone who knows your faith, shares your faith, who loves you, who can then be in the position to make decisions for you in the event that you can't make them for yourself. That by far and away is the most important thing that you need is a person, a power of attorney. Fine, if you want to put together a living will to provide some guidelines, great, wonderful. But that can't be the driving force of what you want to have at the end of life. You really need a power of attorney and that's probably all you really need. - And that could be anybody, a durable power of attorney could be anybody you choose. I would imagine, I would imagine for faithful Catholics, that's going to be your spouse because obviously my wife would know exactly what I want because she would want the same thing. But let's say for our good sake, it's a man whose wife has passed away. You could choose anybody you want to be a durable power of attorney? - Yes, I mean, yes, you can. I mean, and typically it is a spouse. And quite honestly, if you don't choose it by default, it becomes a spouse, you know, legally at the end of life. But that's the person who should know you the best. But I mean, maybe there's some spouses who are not capable of doing that for whatever reason. So it certainly could be somebody else. - Right, right. No, and thank you for that, Dr. because again, a lot of this stuff is always dressed up in language that I think, you know, it's just meant to try to, you know, convince people that these really bad ideas are something to be valued or something good. And that's why we're happy you're here, you know, kind of like to blow that up a little bit. Joe Ressinello, we have like, if we start a question, I could just politely cut you off, Doc, and we'll pick it up on the other side of the break. But we have a couple of minutes. - Doc, let's talk about like things to watch out for. 'Cause like when my dad went into hospice care, I mean, we're not like masochists, Catholics. There's comes a point where I think you take it, what's you could say better than I like, extra measures, like where you say, well, that's enough. We're gonna not take extraordinary means to basically continue on with this. Talk about what we can do and what we can do. You're a deacon, you're a doctor, you know best. - Yeah, so that's a really important thing because you bring up some words that are important. You might use the words extraordinary or ordinary or proportion or disproportionate. Basically what those words mean is that are the treatments being given do the benefits outweigh the risks or the side effects and holding those things in balance so that a treatment whose benefits are minimal, whose risks are super high, could rightly be seen as extraordinary or disproportionate. The problem is it's very much dependent upon the situation at the time. And in some situations, what began as quote ordinary treatment as time goes on becomes extraordinary or disproportionate or burdensome. Say, for example, someone who has cancer, starting treatment with radiation chemotherapy, very ordinary treatment at the beginning. But as the cancer progresses, that same treatment now becomes disproportionate or extraordinary because it's not effective. And now that benefit and versus side effects shifts. So it isn't like, you can identify as single treatments like, oh, that treatment's always extraordinary or that treatment's always ordinary. Again, that's why living wills can be problematic. - All right, we're gonna take a quick break. Dr. Stephen Dorn, where could our audience members please let us know every place they could buy the book. And where people could follow you and different things that you're writing and all those things? - So the book is available at IgnatiusPress, Ignatius.com. It's available on the other major book outlets, Amazon, places like that. Can't believe I did this. I made a website for myself. I'm almost embarrassed to say that, but Stephen Dorn, what's the world come to? Stephen Dorn, S-T-E-P-H-E-N, D-O-R-A-N.com has information about me, has other links to writings that I've done both in the medical world and in popular Catholic outlets and things like that, they can look at. So that's probably a good place to, and a place that I can be reached to if someone has a question wants to reach out to me. - Awesome, thank you for that, doctor. So, so you're at the Veritas Catholic Radio Network, 1350 on your AMDYLE 103.9 on your FMDYLE. Now, these are types of conversations that we would really encourage you to share with your friends. You could share it here. You can share the Veritas app and all of Joe and all of the content at Veritas Catholic Radio Network is archived there. So you go listen to all of our interviews and really like conversations like this, as we said, are very, very important. We have to be equipped to confront a lot of the nonsense that's going on in the world. And yes, end-of-life questions and issues are something that we're all gonna have to deal with, both for ourselves and family members. So please, let's educate ourselves and let's educate our family and friends where you see Joe and I, hopefully on social media, Rumble and X in particular, but we are also on Facebook and YouTube until Zuckerberg and Google shut us down, which we expect any moment now. But in the meantime, like, subscribe, share, do all that fun stuff, stick around, we have another great segment with Dr. Stephen Doorn. - Catholic Radio Works. And now we have it here in Connecticut and New York. It's been seen around the country that there's no better tool for evangelization. Where there's Catholic Radio, the folks who listen deep in their faith, families are strengthened, perishes and communities flourish. So, let people know you're listening to Veritas, tell your friends to tune in and let's make an impact here for Jesus and his church. This is Steve Lee for Veritas Catholic Network. - Welcome back everyone to the Frontline with Joe and Joe, Joe Pacillo, Joe Arsenello. We are way in the breach with Dr. Stephen Doorn and we're discussing his new book to die, well, a Catholic neurosurgeons guide to the end of life available. It is available in Amazon and other larger outlets, but we would encourage you to please buy it from the publisher, in this case, Ignatius Press, Joe Arsenello. - There's a classic book, Pilgrim's Progress, that talks about a gentleman who goes on a journey going to a castle. The last adventure this gentleman has is crossing a dark river to get to that castle and the river is daunting and that's death. And why do I bring that up? Because at that moment, we're human. God is there, but so is the devil and the devil is gonna put fear inside of you. It's just the way it is, but the church has an answer to that, the anointing of the sick. Why is that a sacrament? Because it gives you the grace which elevates our human nature. They're the tools where blue collar guys, doc. I always say the sacraments of the tools, we gotta use the tools. That's a tool to help us to cross the river. Talk about why that is so important for Catholics when you know that the time has come that you have that sacrament. You know, in our last segment, we were just talking about advanced directives and durable power returning and all that type of stuff. My wife has just one request. The only request she says, "Call a priest." I don't care about anything else. That's the only directive that she has at the end of life is to call a priest. You know, and so what I think that speaks to is the reality that being sick, being really sick is overwhelming. And then less in our own minds, we kind of prepare ourselves for that priority. Like, you know, my spouse is sick. We have to make all these decisions. We have to decide this or that is like, in the back of our mind, we have to have that just rumbling there that call a priest, call a priest, call a priest. You don't, if you forget everything else about the end of life, call a priest. Because because the anointing of the sick is like all sacraments, powerful, it's a chance for us to receive extraordinary grace. And the time process really can be a holy time. Not saying it's easy, you know, when Jesus died, it was the holiest event ever, but one of the most horrific events ever, right? So holiness and easier, they don't equate. So any time we can invite grace into our lives, to elevate the holiness in our lives, we don't have to avail ourselves to that. But you have to think about it. You have to have a mind for it or your loved ones have to have a mind for it. And so, yeah, the anointing of the sick is super proper. Now you don't have to be dying to receive it by any means. Any serious illness or surgery or something is an appropriate use of it. I mean, it's not meant for you have a bad cold, but it's meant to, you know, at the time of wearing greatest need when we're vulnerable is to ask God to come into this situation. And I think that's so important that we do in all our lives is that we invite God in to our lives, that we don't put up a roadblock to. And so the anointing is a particular invitation for him to come into our lives. Now, if possible, and this isn't always possible, if the anointing can be accompanied with viadicum, which is the final communion, viadicum means food for the journey. Now some people are comatose and not able to receive viadicum, but if the anointing and viadicum can be received, wow, I mean, that's just, you know, grace upon grace upon grace, you know, layer upon layer of a frosting on top of the cake. You know, just if those things can be experienced together, even more powerful. - Absolutely. Dr. Steven Dorn, let me ask you this. Again, we wanna try to get into some concrete things that many people, people in our audience, you know, might have questions about and are going to have to face at some point. What is the proper view, Catholic view of funerals and cremation? What do we need to watch out for when it comes to those two things? - So the Catholic Church permits cremation. It has a strong preference for bodily burial. And not because that, you know, at the resurrection for the dead, God can't resurrect a cremated body versus a body that's there. That's not, it has nothing to do with that, but it has to do with the fact that we honor our bodies at all times, even after death. And so in recent years, the Church has acknowledged that for a variety of reasons, quite frankly, maybe cultural or maybe finances, to be honest, that cremation is a legitimate choice, but there still remains a strong preference towards bodily burial. And I think for anybody who's been to a funeral where there is a body versus they've been to a funeral where there's the cremains as they call them now, there's just something about that experience. I mean, the Catholic funeral is, I'm so glad, so proud to be a Catholic whenever we go to a Catholic funeral. And there's something about the body being there that just brings this, Robbie Toss, this, I don't know, I'm kind of struggling for the right word, but it's just how it ought to be that there's a body there that we reverence the body. It's there, we reverence it. Cremation, you kind of lose that aspect to it. So it's allowed but not preferred. Now there's some other things on the horizon that the Catholic Church has started to make some, at least at the, maybe not quite at the Vatican level, but more at the bishop's level about certain other ways of dealing with remains. There's this body composting, which quite frankly is where you take a body, what's that? - It's legal in New York state. - You brought it up, it was going through my head as you were talking. - So body composting, as you probably already know, is basically you could have body in a bag and allow the bacteria to decompose the body. And then typically what's done then is that, the bones that are left over are ground up, and now you have fertilizer. I mean, it's meant to be this green approach to death or another method is called alkaline hydrolysis or instead of burning the body in cremation, you dissolve the body and not an acid but a base. The Church is about pretty strongly against, especially body composting. They're not quite so sure about alkaline hydrolysis, but the whole body composting thing is an example where we've lost reverence for the body after death, and that's really a very undesirable thing. - Let me ask you about funerals, Dr. Dorn, and because I say from personal experience, I remember getting to a really bad argument with my best friend when I was back in New Jersey because I made a statement. I said, you know, he was asking why, let's say, for instance, he as his father had Parkinson's, he could not give the eulogy at the funeral, right? And I said, quite frankly, because people want to talk about everything, everything else aside from the person's spiritual wellbeing at the time of their death. And you start talking about, well, here's my grandmother, she died and she was made the greatest meatballs and having nothing to do with, as you went to the word, the gravitas of the situation. Okay, your loved one just died. The mass, and this was the statement that really took them off. I said, the mass is not about your father and I loved his father, God rest his soul. Okay, loved him to death. I said, the mass is not about your father. The mass is about Jesus Christ and he blew a gasket. He got very mad at me. And then it wasn't long after that funny enough that father Paul Scalia, when he eulogized his father, made it about Christ, not about Anthony Scalia. And that's the way it's supposed to be. Why do people have such a hard time with that? I don't want to talk about, when my mother kicks, I don't want to talk about her meatballs and she, my mother used to make great meatballs, but I want to talk about that. I want to talk about Jesus, your comments, doctor. - So there is a time for that in the wake service, right? And there's a time set aside for that specifically for that. Unfortunately, I don't know if it's happening in your locations, but when I'm seeing having more and more locations, that the wake service, and this, I think, started in COVID, but the wake service is being eliminated. And instead people have a short visitation before the funeral, you know? And so there is no wake service anymore. There is a proper time within the wake service to allow people to stand up, share, you know, hopefully in the context of the person's faith and things like that. So the church allows for that. The church creates space for that within the entirety of the funeral rite, because within the funeral rite includes the visual service for the wake service. So it does provide for that. Now if you don't have a wake, because of whatever reason, you just have an visitation for the funeral, you lose that opportunity and you're right. The funeral is not meant to be a time to eulogize that. The funeral is meant to be a time where we celebrate the anticipation of our outlet resurrection, of our union with God. And yes, we can make some references to the person you want at homily or whatever to be, you know, at least somewhat personalized to the individual who's dying, but you're right. The purpose of that is to celebrate the resurrection. That's what it's meant to do. Yeah, and I wish, you know, again, maybe I'm not judging anybody. I'm sure there was a time in my life before I actually started to take the faith seriously that I probably, well, I did fall into that trap. I was upset when my father died in 2005, because I couldn't eulogize my father. And again, I was taught the way, you know, that's why we have you here, because you have to listen and you have to learn from what the church sees. I was taught that the funeral masses about Jesus Christ, and then I understood why the archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey said that I could not eulogize my father, and I accepted it, okay? So I'm not judging anybody, but we have to emphasize to people, the masses about Jesus, that's what we're concerned about the person's eternal destiny. We should all just be praying and not worrying about grandma's meatballs, okay? That was my larger point. Dr. Stephen Doran is joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe. Please go out and buy his book, 'cause this is an important topic. End of life issues are extremely important for Catholics. To die well, a Catholic neurosurgeons' guide to the end of life. You could buy it at the big box stores like Amazon. We would encourage you to buy it from the publisher at Ignatius Press, Joe Rissanello. - I just wanna add one thing about the cremation Catholics have to take those ashes and bury them, because the body is sacred. We're not allowed to go tossing them on the golf course in the Pacific Ocean. That is a sacrilege. And the church does not permit that. That's very important. I wanna also just back it up a little bit and talk about divine mercy. We all live in the world. We're Catholic, but not everyone is a practicing Catholic. But God loves everybody and God desires mercy for everyone and so should we. A book I think everyone should read is the Diary of Faustina. It's an important book. And in that book, she says, and I'm gonna say it. This is not speaking for the church. I think she'll become a doctor of the church, the fourth woman who becomes a doctor of the church. You heard it here. I think that's gonna happen. - Joe Strodomis, Joe Strodomis has said it. - So anyway, in that book, she said that at the hour of death, I always remember this, that Christ who loves everyone infinitely will reach a hand of mercy to that person. And if we pray the divine mercy chaplain at the bedside of someone who's dying, that is extremely efficacious. Talk about that because let's be honest, not everyone is a contemplative nun when they live their life. Not everyone is in the state of grace, but God loves that person. And we don't know what's going on between God and that person as they're dying. It's a good practice as Catholics to assist that individual by praying the divine mercy chaplain. What are your thoughts, Doc? - Well, I think it really speaks to the larger question of intercessory prayer in general, whether it's praying the divine mercy while someone's dying or praying for your kids who are in trouble or offering something for the souls and purgatory. It comes down to this, again, this things that I believe, but not fully understand the communion of saints. Like it says in Hebrews, we're surrounded by this cloud of witnesses. One of the beautiful things, the opening line of the wake services, something of the effect that the bonds that are forged in life do not separate in death. There still is that connection. So intercessory prayer at the time of death, intercessory prayer after death, intercessory prayer during life is super important. And it's not just some exercise and futility, oh, well, might as well do it or fire insurance, well, I'll do this just in case. It really has power. It goes back to what we talked about in Colossians earlier. We make a forward that's lacking in the sufferings of Christ somehow in some mysterious way. What I do with my suffering matters for the world. What you do at the bedside of your loved one, praying the divine mercy somehow matters. And that's really, really important. - Yeah, and let's stay on prayer for a second, okay? 'Cause this is one I get, this is when I get a little upset at others Catholics who many times want to twist things. I'm gonna give an example. Whenever I pray the rosary, which is generally speaking every day, unfortunately, sometimes I miss, but generally speaking every day. When the first three beads, one of the beads is I pray for the souls and purgatory. Okay, and then there's several people that I pray for specifically. And I'll tell you right now, it's my father, Joe's father, my wife's father who recently passed away. And then I'll pray for them every day for the rest of my life. And then I pray for other people who have recently passed away and I'll pray for them for a time, okay? Because everybody needs prayer. Now here's my point and I love your comments 'cause this is what bothers me. I remember when my father died and somebody who I love very much says, we call them Junior, say you think Junior's in heaven. I said, I have no idea. And they wanted me to say he was in heaven. I said, I have no idea. I don't, I'm not God. I said, but here's what I do know I'm gonna do. And I wasn't really even practicing at the time, Dr. Dorn, all right? But I still knew enough to do this and then it ramped up over time as it started to take the faith more seriously. I said, here's what I can do. I'm gonna pray for Junior's soul every day and then ask God to forgive him of his sins 'cause my father did not die in the grace of the sacraments. So I have a serious concern about his eternal destiny. I can't do anything about that. And you know what I got? Why are you judging him? That's what I got. Said, I'm not judging my father. For his own well-being, I'm praying for his soul. Sometimes Catholics get it twisted. If I pray for you, it doesn't mean I'm judging you. It means I love you, okay? You can be doing everything right in life. I can still pray for you. You can be doing everything wrong in life. I can still pray for you. You can be dead. And I have no idea where you are, but I'm still gonna pray for you. You're calm. I know that was a little bit of a rant, Dr. Dorn. But I love your comments and that because a lot of times people take that attitude. It's like you're judging people 'cause you're praying for them. And that's not right. We're praying for them 'cause we love them. - Well, I think this speaks to the point that I would not encourage everybody to really study God's word, to really spend time in Scripture and to because that's how we learn the mind of God. That's how we, it's his love letter to us. And Paul says, Paul says, "All of us have fallen short. "All of us have sinned." You know, and so it would be ridiculous to think that anybody is not in need of prayer. Now the church has declared that certain people we believe to be in heaven. And so at this time they are no longer necessarily in need of our prayers. But for the vast majority of us, to your point, we don't know what happens after our death. And this idea that there's this purification, this purgation, this purgatory, that the vast majority of us will go through. In fact, probably even the saints went through it. It just was a very, you know, brief time where I don't understand it fully, but I believe it. So there is, again, value in our prayer for people who have died. You know, again, not because we're judging them, but we just recognize by our fallen nature, we sinned. There's nobody other than Mary who never sinned. And so the greatest of saints sinned than some of the saints were some of the greatest of sinners, Augustine, you know, just go down the list. And so even saints were in need of purification before they could enter an union with that. So it's not a, it's not a judgment on them. It's an act of kindness, an act of mercy, an act of love and say, you know, Aunt Jane, I love you so much. Now that you're gone, I'm gonna continue to pray for you 'cause I love you so much. There's nothing to do with a judgment, everything to do with an act of love. - Right, and we're talking about the, I'm gonna kick it over to Joe Russinello, Dr. Stephen Doran joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe, I'm gonna kick it over to Joe. But there's a danger in, yes, modernism, okay? And modernism, which is in the church, seems like nowadays, you know, doesn't, you know, I don't have to pray for so-and-so, they're fine. They're in heaven, you know, Joe, like Joe says, Joe always says on the show, nobody just floats into heaven, okay? You mentioned purgatory. Yeah, yeah, I do believe, I don't believe anybody goes straight to heaven except the blessed mother. I don't, I don't believe anybody has gone straight to heaven because we're all, we're all, we're all not completely pure and God needs to temper us and get rid of the impurities before we could face him. But this idea that everybody goes to heaven is a dangerous idea. It really is because it's like, you know, I don't have to pray for so-and-so because they're in heaven. Well, they never killed anybody. Well, what does that mean? There's 9,000 other sins that we could commit that could send our souls to hell. And I feel like sometimes the church doesn't, you know, emphasize this. Remember, Jesus came to save us. It involves our eternal destiny. Whether we go to heaven, whether we go to hell, okay? And I think it's just such a dangerous idea that people say, well, well, well, others in heaven. So everything's fine. That's my rants, Dr. Doran. I hope you don't mind my little rants. Joe Ressinello. - You talk about prayer for someone who passed. The highest form of prayer is the mass. This is something that Catholics should do for those who die. Have mass is said for them. Another thing Catholics should do, and I was very graced to have this basically shown to me by my father, go to the cemetery. My father, Doc, had a cemetery kit in his trunk. Who does that? Except a crazy Italian barber from New Jersey. He had a cemetery kit in his trunk where he had little clippers to cut the grass, water for the flowers, and he would go. And I go with my mother to see my father because of that. To this day, we go a number of times during the year. Talk about the importance of that. That's an act of mercy, by the way. And it's also something that's part of our tradition as Catholics. - Yeah, I'm gonna go back and say it again. The opening line of the funeral wake service, the visual service says, the bonds which are formed in life do not dissolve with death. And if they did, then it'd be silly for you to go cut grass. But the truth is we recognize that those bonds are still there and will always be there. And so in going to trim the grass to plant flowers to pray, at the grave side, again, it's an act of love. It's an act of commemoration of this person to pray for their soul. It's a very intentional thing. It's a sacrifice to, yeah, I could be doing a million other things, but I'm gonna go to the grave to honor this person's life and to pray for them after death. Again, those bonds do not go away once we die. - Dr. Stephen Dorian is joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe. - Dr. let's talk about our post-Christian world that we're living in. I wanna break it to people out there. Yeah, the people might call themselves Christian. We're not really acting like it, okay? And that's not just Catholics either. Okay, a lot of Catholics are not acting Catholic. And that's just the way it is. People wanna take that as a judgmental statement, I don't care, all right? Because that's a fact. The times have changed just in our lifetimes, okay? Where people didn't have these views, even when I was a kid, I remember, right? They took what the church said seriously and tried to apply it to their life. Again, nobody does it perfectly. We're all sinners and that's why the Lord gives us confession. But it's gotta be rough to be a doctor now. And when we hear stories like in medical schools, they don't wanna give a medical student or they wanna jeopardize that person's degree if they don't learn how to perform an abortion, okay? And things along those lines. Is it difficult nowadays, especially for younger people, Dr. Doren, to be a doctor, to study to be a doctor and, in fact, practice medicine? - Well, I think some of those challenges do exist in certain specialties. And I think for a person who's willing and to say, for example, the field of obstetrics, you have to be willing to face that possibility of that being part of your training. If that's, if possible, you got a training program that uses Catholic hospitals. And so you don't have to be confronted with that issue. But I still, I assume good intent. I still believe that people want to do the right thing if given the opportunity and that there certainly are challenges. There's challenges to our religious freedom. There's all sorts of things that make medicine more difficult that kind of make life more difficult in general. But I would not give up hope. I would certainly not discourage anybody from going into medicine, two of my sons are going into medicine. And so I have a lot of hope for the profession. I mean, where else can we be invited into the mystery of suffering? Where else does someone open themselves up in such a vulnerable way? It's a holy time. It's something I hope I never take for granted. The fact that someone is placing their trust in me and they're asking me to help them. And so whatever challenges might be out there, I think are far away by the blessing in the healing professions, whether it's a physician, a nurse or whatever the case may be. And just always remember we're in a place of privilege. - Isn't that how the hospital, the idea of the hospital came into existence? You know, people think like atheists, I always beat up on atheists on the show, Doc, I hope you don't mind. They think that like these things just popped up. The Catholic church created the hospital system just like it created the university system. Isn't that the impulse behind? You see, we're talking about death and the people that abuse the end of life, particularly in the medical profession, right? In the secular culture, okay? But the hospital itself came about because of the recognition of the dignity of every human life. And that's what seems to be lost. Doc, we got a couple minutes left. I just wanna give you the floor to let our audience, just some final thoughts for all of us to think about. - Yeah, I think that the one thing that we, you know, didn't necessarily touch upon a whole lot is this fear that people have that at the end of life, they're going to lose control. And that I think that if you look at, for example, the reasons why people, there's all these reports that come out of like Canada or Oregon, why people commit youth and age assisted suicide. The biggest fear that they have is not pain. The biggest fear is loss of autonomy, loss of control. And so again, I just can't emphasize this enough that to prepare for your inevitability of death, you need to start a long time ago. And that means building relationships with the Lord, building relationships with other people, not isolating yourself, self-imposed isolation through sin, not isolating yourself by putting up a wall between you and those who love you, not isolating yourself from the church. So what I would say is that the fear of isolation at the time of death, the fear of loss of autonomy, a lot of that can be reduced, maybe not totally eliminated, but can be reduced by cultivating things during your life now, prepare for your life right now. Use the sacraments, live a life of virtue, seek reconciliation with God when you send seek reconciliation with your loved ones when you harm them. That may not seem to have anything to do with our death but has everything to do with our death. How we live our life now matters. What we do now matters. - Absolutely. Thank you so much for that, Dr. Doran. And we really appreciate you coming on the show. Again, we emphasize everybody out there. This is an important topic. And we need, it's not only, I mean, there's so many issues out there. Obviously, we say all the time on the show, like Joe and I are trying to fight the good fight on the abortion front, all right? But this is just as important because this is how the secular world views every human life, whether it's pre-born human life or whether it's your grandmother who's 90 years old. Society says throw away, it's still my grandmother. - Yeah, and so Dr. Doran, needless to say, you're welcome back here at the front line with Joe and Joe anytime to discuss anything you want. This was a fantastic and edifying conversation. - Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I'll keep you guys in my prayers, keep your ministry in my prayers and thank you for your good work. Thank you for being on the front line. - You're welcome. Thank you so much. Dr. Stephen Doran, please go out and buy his book to die well a Catholic neurosurgeons guide to the end of life that's available at Ignatius Press where you see Joe and I on social media, particularly Rumble and X, okay? Even though if you see us on Facebook and YouTube, that's fine. Try to help us out. Smash the like button, share. If you like the conversation, share it with your friends. And you really be helping us get all these conversations out there to a wider audience and download the Veritas Catholic Radio Network mobile app so that you can have access to all of our stations content and share that with your friends. Remember, we are 1350 on your AM Dial 103.9 on your FM Dial, spreading the truth of the Catholic faith through the New York City metropolitan area. Thank you once again and remember, until the next time that our conversation is your conversation and that conversation is going on everywhere. We'll talk to you soon. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
