Pope Francis' Health Scare in February 2025: A Case Study in Poor Journalism

As of today, Pope Francis has been confined to the Gemelli Hospital for one week. The media had been on guard for new developments, though it is not quite at the level of the media attention John Paul II’s final hospitalizations received.

On Thursday, 20 February, Blick — long considered a trashy Swiss tabloid — was the first to claim that the Swiss Guard had begun rehearsals for a Papal Funeral. The UK’s Daily Mail, another rubbish publication, repeated the claim. Reliable publications did not follow suit, rightly being skeptical because of the shady reputation of the source. Because the Daily Mail is in English, it is accessible for Americans, who tend to be unaware of its domestic reputation of “polemics… filled with fictions and falsehoods.” As a result, Americans see the extremely dubious claim and believe it.

This morning, Zenit — a much more reliable publication — reported the Swiss Guard's denial of there being funeral preparations. This entire sojourn was an example of irresponsible media sources misrepresenting the truth, with the average reader ill-equipped to balance their views with informed skepticism.

Similarly, reporters asked the Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille if Pope Francis is looking to resign. Cardinal Aveline said, “Everything is possible.” Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi also personally speculated that if the Pope’s health “was compromised, then I think he might decide to resign.”

Both Cardinals were speaking generally. All they both said was that anything was on the table. Papal retirements have been possible since Benedict XVI set precedent in February 2013. Neither Cardinal claimed that retirement is imminent with Pope Francis’ current health problems. Additionally, neither Cardinal is positioned where they would have inside knowledge on if the Pope truly were currently on the threshold of resignation. Not all curia workers have close access to the Pope, even if they are Cardinals. More reliable information would come from the Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin or the Pope’s personal secretary, and who both would be unlikely to publicly talk about it.

Nevertheless, the media later reported this as if we should now be on resignation watch. The clowns at the Daily Mail reported “Pope ‘could RESIGN if his ill health worsens.” This is so horribly misleading.

It has become a real-world game of Telephone.

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Pecularities of Euthanasia

Back in 2017, the Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu invited me to dinner at his home around the Christmas season. The big news story at the time was that the Hawaii State Legislature was considering passing a euthanasia bill. Of course, this is something I am against.

By that point, anybody who could be persuaded to oppose euthanasia already opposed it anyway. I asked Bishop Larry, “What are the secular arguments against euthanasia?” The Bishop pointed out two things.

First, we spend so much time and resources in preventing teenage suicide. Nobody thinks teenage suicide should be permitted. Why then are we not applying that same standard to someone seeking euthanasia? Why do we give more value to the teenager’s life?

Second, why should someone seeking euthanasia even seek permission to kill themselves? Realistically, people kill themselves all the time. People who seek euthanasia do it with the mindset that they want control over their own bodies. But if that’s so, why do they need to seek permission to do this? A euthanasia law would have the patient get perscription from a doctor — essentially needing the doctor’s permission to commit suicide. If this is all about bodily autonomy, why does the person need permission?

The Bishop was, of course, totally correct.

The euthanasia law in Hawaii now reads as such:

§ 327L-2. Oral and written requests for medication; initiated

Except as otherwise provided in section 327L-11(c), an adult who is capable, is a resident of the State, and has been determined by an attending provider and a consulting provider to be suffering from a terminal disease, and who has voluntarily expressed the adult's wish to die, may, pursuant to section 327L-9, submit:

(1) Two oral requests, a minimum of five days apart; and

(2) One written request,

for a prescription for medication that may be self-administered for the purpose of ending the adult's life in accordance with this chapter. The attending provider shall directly, and not through a designee, receive all three requests required pursuant to this section.

Laws 2018, ch. 2, § 3, eff. Jan. 1, 2019; Laws 2023, ch. 43, § 3, eff. June 1, 2023.

To kill himself by euthanasia, a man still would need to request it.

I thought about it more. I realize that legalizing euthanasia is meant to serve as an emotional crutch to suicide. Somehow, if a man takes his own life, it feels more official, more clinical, more acceptable if it’s done with the prescription from a man in a white coat. He still could buy a bottle of Tylenol and do it on his own.

Physician-assisted or not, it’s still a suicide. It is essentially no different from a depressed teenager.

And that is the illusion of euthanasia laws. A shotgun suicide is no different from a clinical and sterile suicide.

Giving Alms in the Twenty-First Century

Almsgiving is one of the customs of Lent. While we all know that Catholics are prescribed to abstain from meat during Lent, we often forget the motive. In previous times, land meats were more expensive than fish; sacrificing meat in favor of fish is meant to help people spend less on food and have more money for the poor. We forget the meaning of fasting and abstaining in its entire context. But what else are we missing when we think of giving to the needy?

Last year, Honolulu’s mayor Rick Blangiardi visited Saint Augustine Church in Waikiki to ask its pastor to cease the parish operations of feeding the homeless. As you can expect, this was met with outrage. But was the mayor wrong?

In 2011, Marc Alexander served as the coordinator for homelessness in Hawaii. Now laicised, Alexander was a priest with an impressive background with degrees from Louvaine and the prestigious Pontifical Gregorian University. He eventually was tapped to be Vicar General under Honolulu’s Bishop Larry Silva.

Alexander said, “Don’t feed the homeless.”

Alexander had a point. If we feed the homeless on the street, they stay homeless on the street. If we feed them at the shelter, they’ll go to the shelter — and to be able to get fed there, they would need to get off drugs and behave.

Alexander’s admonishment demonstrated what the government’s goal is — they want to give the poor a hand up, and not just a hand out. The government would prefer to systematically help them get into lives integrated with society and wants to make success stories out of them.

When Mayor Blangiardi visited Saint Augustine Church to ask them not to feed the homeless anymore, this is what he had in mind.

So what should Saint Augustine Church do? How can you tell a Christian to not feed the poor?

Of course, both Blangiardi and Saint Augustine Church agree with the end goal. No one working for the mayor’s government believes the poor shouldn’t be fed. No one working for Saint Augustine Church believes that the homeless should be kept homeless.

This is worth considering as we go into Lent. Should we give handouts to the hungry on the street? I have misgiving with that, considering the money might go for drugs instead of food. Perhaps it’s preferable to give to organizations that systematically help the poor better themselves.

Yet, say we stopped giving handouts. Do people who do not give handouts on the street ever actually give to charitable organizations? I’m guessing not.