Giving the Gift of Life

One of the biggest misconceptions about organ donation is that your religious beliefs could stop you from becoming an organ donor. For the millions of Catholics and Christians around the world, Pope Francis put that fear to bed permanently. According to Pope Francis, “a gift to the suffering Lord who said that everything we have done for a brother or sister in need we have done for him.” Pope Francis has been known as the pope of love. He has been open to many progressive ideas and has led the church into a new era.

The Pope’s Statement

On April 13, 2019. Pope Francis met with the Italian Association of Organ Donors at the Vatican to discuss the importance of organ donation. Pope Francis stated, “Faced with threats to life, which we unfortunately have to witness almost daily… society needs these concrete gestures of solidarity and generous love to make it clear that life is something sacred.” The main distinction of his talks was that the donation needs to be for the good of others, and not for monetary gain. He believes that organ donation and blood donation need to be done as “An unpaid, free act.”

He goes on to say “In fact, any form of commercialization of the body or any part of it is contrary to human dignity. In giving blood or an organ of the body, it is necessary to respect the ethical and religious perspective.” Pope Francis believes that by giving the gift of organ donation freely, “we will receive our reward from God according to the sincere and concrete love we have shown toward our neighbor.” This belief of selfless giving pervades almost every aspect of Christianity, stemming from Jesus’s words to “Give and gifts will be given to you.” This is not to say that you should ever expect anything in return for giving anything to anyone, but by acting selflessly, we will be rewarded in kind.

______________________________________________

More than 46,000 organ transplants were performed in the United States last year. The need is great as nearly 120,000 people are currently in need of healthy organs. Every ten minutes a new name is added to the list; while on average twenty people die each day waiting for an organ to become available.

This Sunday February 16th, the Knights of Columbus will be handing out information on how you can register to become an organ donor.

Kindly consider “Giving the Gift of Life!”