Vincent Lambert: Our Lady, Health of the Sick, Pray for Him

Tomorrow, in accordance with a “death sentence,” a sick person, a disabled person, one of those “little ones,” as Christ calls them, will be executed by the withholding of food and water. What is his crime?

Involved in a traffic accident, plunged into a state of minimal consciousness, Vincent Lambert has become the mute object of a major controversy. A formidable controversy in a society in full downward spiral: a euthanistic spiral by claims for the rights of man, who has freed himself from the ones of God, Creator and Master of all things; a spiral by the frenetic search for organs, the pursuit of life at any cost in defiance of morality; a political and judicial spiral that allows for the killing of a disabled person in a society that has abolished the death penalty.

Not forgetting the disregard for honoring one’s word: France signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which provides in its article 25 that food and hydration cannot be removed from a patient because of his disability—an article that responds very clearly to Vincent Lambert’s situation. Certainly, France could be condemned as such by the UN, but by then, Vincent will be dead.

Here we must clearly reaffirm the inviolable right of the innocent to life, a law posited by God, the absolute master of creation.

We must repeat, against fraudulent rhetoric, that Vincent Lambert is in no way subject to intensive medication and that maintaining his life requires only very limited means. On the contrary, it must be said that this man is the object of a juridical-euthanistic fury unprecedented in our history.

It is appropriate here to recall the response to certain questions by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith given August 1, 2007, stating that “the administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life. It is therefore obligatory to the extent to which, and for as long as, it is shown to accomplish its proper finality, which is the hydration and nourishment of the patient.” Moreover, “a patient in a ‘permanent vegetative state’ is a person with fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care which includes, in principle, the administration of water and food even by artificial means.”

In the present circumstances, where the denial of justice has reached its peak, the only thing left is to turn to the Blessed Virgin, Health of the Sick, and Consoler of the Afflicted, repeating with full confidence the words of St. Bernard:

“Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.”