rch with
regard to the summoning of a priest to an ailing Catholic patient
without knowing anything about them. He does it because of his
experience that his patients are benefited by the consolations of
religion. The wisdom of the Church in the decrees is seen very well by
the paragraph in which it is suggested that the reason for having the
physician always advise the calling in of a priest is that if this
advice is given only when there is serious danger of death many
patients knowing this will be thrown into a state of depression very
harmful to them when the suggestion is made.

How such decrees could be thought in any way to interfere with
medicine or its practice, or with the physician and his duties, or,
above all, represent any effort on the part of the Church to hamper
medical science or discourage patients from having physicians, I {429}
cannot for the life of me imagine. The idea sometimes suggested that
the real reason for this legislation was that the Church did not want
patients to die before priests were given an opportunity to secure
money for services in the administration of the last rites or for
masses for the recovery of the patient and the like, would only enter
into the mind of someone who not only did not understand the Church
and had no experience of Catholics and Catholic life, but who had no
proper recognition of the place of religion in life as a great source
of consolation and strength in the face of the mystery of death and
the hereafter.

Those who think religion a mere hypocrisy imposed on people by
designing clergy are so lacking in the knowledge that would enable
them to judge of the meaning of such decrees that their opinion is not
worth while considering. It must not be forgotten that these decrees
are still binding on a Catholic physician, and far from resenting them
we welcome them as helps in securing the aid of the consolations of
religion for our patients. Many a worried business man suffering from
some severe disease like pneumonia or typhoid fever, goes on to
develop a much more favorable mental attitude toward himself and his
affection after he has seen the priest. The last paragraph of the
first decree also emphasizes the wisdom of the Church and shows how
much of an aid her legislation was in the support of ethical
standards, for it forbids under the severest penalties that a
physician should ever advise a patient to anything contrary to his
conscience. This paragraph is