"In principle, the supply of food and water, by artificial ways, too, is an ordinary and proportionate means to preserve life. Therefore, such supply is compulsory, as far as it is demonstrated that it reaches its own goals, consisting in guaranteeing hydration and nourishment of the patient. In such a way, sufferings and death due to inanition and dehydration are avoided": it is the first one of the two answers given by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the document signed by Prefect Card. William Levada, to as many questions asked the Holy See by the United States Episcopal Conference about "artificial hydration and nourishment". The first question asks whether "supplying patients in ‘vegetative state’ with food and water (either by natural or artificial ways) is morally compulsory, if those nutriments cannot be absorbed by the body of the patient, or they cannot be supplied without causing him a remarkable physical inconvenience". At the bottom of the document, Card. Levada added that Pope Benedict XVI himself approved the answers, ordering their publication. (to be continued)
