going in the future. get started at keeps.com/tv. (upbeat music) hello and on behalf of the arch diocese in san francisco, welcome to mosaic. you won't think it's a joke, i hope, if i say none of us can live without dying. it was a joke in the old jackie gleason routine when he said have you lived your whole life in brooklyn. jackie answered not yet. that captures our situation. we are not there

yet, but we will be. now 100% of us must die. some of us, many of us, will accompany our loved ones to and through death. a smaller group will be among the professionals, the medical and support people whose vocation it is to aid and guide the sick and dying. how does any of us in any of the categories approach these tasks? how discharged these great responsibility this is what do we need to know and understand and do? important questions. after this brief break, please join us for a catholic conversation on death and dying.

>> hello and welcome to mosaic. we're talking about death and dying. the serious subject, but with some lively people as guests. they're entertaining and interesting, knowledgeable. i'll introduce them briefly. this is vicky evans. vicky, on your title, i put cpa and stl behind your name. you work as a cpa, that's your vocation. i know you're also a writer, a giver of workshops in bio ethics and end of life issues. i understand you have an advanced degree, which is stl.

so you're an advanced person. you are working with the archdiocese of san francisco. what is your title there? >> i am the respect life coordinator in the department of human life and dignity. i've been there 15 years. spent about four of the years in rome getting my degree. and then i came back, and now i speak on the subject and end of life issues, beginning of life issues. >> wonderful. you're a wonderful colleague and hard working. next to her is dr. tom kavanaugh. notre dame phd in philosophy. you're a professor at the university of san francisco. >> yep. >> your bio says started there in 1994. i think it's 25 years. >> yes. >> coming up. >> 25 delightful years. >> you teach a first seminar

course, what is wisdom. an honor seminar in media literature, and you specialize in medical ethics. you have a new book i'm reading right now. it's very interesting. so you are our experts. i said this would be a catholic conversation on death and diagnose. it's not for catholic, necessarily. it's for everyone. i tried to paint the picture of a pyramid with 100% of us all going to die. many on the next level and on the top, professionals working in this business. i'd like to ask you this question. what do the catholics have to tell us about death? what is the catholic teaching for us? why do we come to them. >> there's a beautiful document put out by the vatican called declaration on euthanasia. not a great title. it's more

uplifting than the title makes it sound. the catholic church has an amazing body of knowledge around death and dying. and catholic social teachings form the principles of what we call end of life care. the declaration on euthanasia goes through various points. very practical points, talking about death, first of all. death is a part of the human condition. it's neither to be feared and avoided at all costs, more is it to be actively procured. so, you know, we know that's part of life. and by looking at some of the principles of catholic teaching, we can see what the best way is to die. what principles are okay. how much medication is allowed. what we should be doing and shouldn't be doing. how to help each other through deaths,

spiritual and physical ways. >> you provide practical resources for people to know. your website at the archdiocese, all your resources there. they can study that and talk to you personally. >> yes. we have a hotline that's actually on our website. if anybody is having a problem, either with a relative dying, a friend dying. if they have a question about an end of life issue, they're welcome to call. it's difficult to be at someone's bedside. say you have an elderly person or parent dying. is the doctor doing this right? are they withholding nutrition or hydration? are they giving them too much morphine? you never know if you're doing everything right. sometimes it's good to have backup. >> i would think so. i would think being prepared with the knowledge you may need. it's

frustrating and confusing when someone is dying. tom, there's a question of a higher order of philosophy or theology. understanding what is it the catholics supply for us? >> i think the catholic church has a good message concerning death. that's kind of paradoxical. the gospel is in greek, a good message. the good message is death is not the end of our existence. so in the catholic theology we distinguish between the first death and the second death. the first death is the separation of our bodies from our souls. and our souls are the principle of our life. they vivify us. when our souls separate from our bodies we separate the first death. that's not the end of the story. that's the good news. the good message the church has to share about

death. it's not all over. there's an after life. the soul continues to exist after death. we're not that soul. we're the union of body and soul. the soul continues to exist after death. and the great good message is when jesus tells us i am a the resurrection and the life. he who believes in me should be dead and live. we will rise again from the dead just as jesus did. that's the good message that the church has to share. the second death is the one that we want to stay away from. that death is the separation of the soul from god. our source of life. and the church offers us ways, means, sacraments of avoiding the second death. we're all going through the first death. jesus calls that of the little

girl who died. she had fallen asleep. she's fallen asleep. they ridiculed him because they said well, no, she's dead. but jesus knows she's not dead in the second death. her soul has separated from her body, but she, her soul is not separated from god. at the end of our lives, the church offers us the last rights. so we have, in the church we have the anointing of the sick is actually a sacrament in the catholic theological tradition. it anoints the sick. it can be used when we're not dying, but it can certainly be used when we are dying. we are the anointing of the sick. we have confession. all of these means are available to us so that we can die well. >> spiritual medicines. thank you. we will take a brief break now and be back in a couple of minutes to talk more about

death and dying.

>> hello and welcome back. we're talking about death and dying. end of life care is what we call it now. we're talking about the medical practice and the personal practice of this inevitable stage of life. right? so i was reading the head of a catholic health care group who wrote this. he has a story that says my parents' deaths taught me about end of life care. one parent died hard, one died easy. he says this. i've said many times, if we can improve patient experience in the last two years of life, we will go a long way towards improving health care for people at every stage of life. that's strange because the layman thinks end of life medical care could be a

big waste of resources, could be a big waste of time, could go down a money pit in the last years of life. he's saying no, it's a time in which we can praclen new things that can help us throughout the medical practice. does that sound right to you? >> you know, i think that when you're talking about preparing for end of life, it's always a good idea to have an advanced health care directive. we have a great catholic health care directive. it's really good for anyone. it takes up a few of the main questions that occur when people are dying. how much medication, pain medication is too much? if you're given a lot of morphine, will that accelerate your death? the answer is no one is expected to go through pain when they're dying. and giving pain medication like morphine, as long as the intent is not to cause death. here intent is

always the most important word. it's okay to give pain medication, even if theoretically, it could reduce the life span of the person. another issue that always comes up is nutrition and hydration. artificial nutrition and hydration is considered necessary healthcare. it's not a healthcare procedure because you're eating and drinking. i get a lot of call ifs family members saying i'm afraid we weren't feeding my mother and father or hydrating them. did they kill them? there's a point in which the body can't assimilate food and water when you get close to the dying process. cutting off food and water is okay. it's a valid thing to do. if you look at the advanced healthcare directives, particularly ours, it goes through these points very briefly. and it helps people think about well, what do i

want when i'm dying? if these are the parameters, then maybe i don't have to be as strict with myself as i would otherwise be. >> surely everyone should be. >> definitely. >> is thisc about to be more and mowh them, but are still obbecaus people don't like to talk about the issue, they don't like to think about it. >> tom, let me ask you. this gentleman is talking about a new way of patienting and doctoring, which involves more revealing of the patients, more questioning what the patient wants, needs and who he is to prepare for this stage of life. as the man says, if we get this kind of behavior as a habit, which we need to do, it can leak back into prior stages of medical care. does it sound right? >> it strikes me as remarkable

similar as another literature. the art of dying. there are treatises in the art of dying. if you can prepare adequately for death, it will transform the way you live. this comment from this gentleman, this doctor, about the deaths of his parents, it strikes me as very similar to the experience of these thinkers, these theologians. in the 1400s they began to be written in that time. where we have to -- we're mortal creatures. we're going to die. if we can maturely think about that truth about ourselves and how we want to do it, it's understandable that

given we're mortal creatures, that will transform our way of living. it makes perfect sense. so the doctrine, if the doctor patient relationship adequately addresses and maturely addresses the issue of dying, it will understandably, thereby, address medical issues associated with living. >> i do see that. the catholic press published a journal for someone who is terminally ill to confront the questions and to record things. but i thought, i'm pretty healthy these days. i could open the book and do that now and it would help me in thinking on what kind of death i want. >> people don't have to be hooked up to machines in hospitals. if there's no requirement in the catholic church or anywhere for you to be hooked up to machines at the end of your life. you can refuse treatments that are

extraordinary. >> it does seem that the doctors have a dilemma or we all do. our medical care is such that you can aggressively give more treatments at the end of life, or we now have the capability of ending life voluntarily. this is in the law these days. so the medical practice can divide along that place. we can do one thing or whatxactly is the right thing to do. >> if we draw a boundary and we say, in the oath we have i will not give a deadly drug if i'm asked or counsel this plan. he draws a boundary. within the confines of that boundary, he practices the art of medicine. the art ofyou can excel in a practice only when one has a boundary. you can't

excel, you can't become excellent at someone if you have no boundaries to conduct that practice. he lays that out. >> and the goal. let me just stop you there. we're going to take another break and come back for the last segment, and we'll talk about how to learn more about these things. thank you. we'll be right back.

>> thank you for being with us.

we're talking about death and dying. now, to learn more, vicky, you're putting on a conference in november. >> november 17th. >> in san francisco. you and some associated catholic groups. i noticed, it is for professionals. you get continuing education units in your medical specialty. it's also for the layman. i'm thinking about going. it's a full day gaining knowledge in the things we're talking about. now, we'll run a slide here to show the flyer for the program. it's at st. mary's cathedral. all day on november 17th. to know more about that, go to our website. all the information is there. vicky, tell me. the title of the conference is interesting. both titles. converging roads and the heart of the end of life. >> yeah. converging roads is where the medical practice and ethics converge. because they do, certainly. the title of the

conference is the heart of end of life care, catholic social teaching. as i said, we have a great body of social teaching underlying end of life care. if our viewers would like to learn more, we're having a conference that john was mentioning. november 17th. we have speaker ifs all over the country. dr. kavanaugh is one of our speakers. we have speakers. it's for doctors and nurses because continuing education credits are available, but it's also for the general public because these principles are going to be very helpful for yourselves, for your loved ones, for everybody forwards the end of life. we're looking forward to a good conference. >> i really do want to come. you've advised us, we have to get prepared. it's serious business getting prepared for end of life, for ourselves and our families. tom, let me ask

you this question. what do you think we all should be doing to vicky has a for d offe? g.hat main ldwe away? >> think what we're doing now is a model of what we should be doing. talking about dying in our families. what good deaths have we seen? have we experienced? what good deaths have we been part of? why were they good death this is what bad deaths? what bad deaths have gone badly and what can we do looking forward to our own deaths and the deaths of our loved ones and families to make sure the bad things don't happen. sharing these stories with one another is crucial. >> vicky, do people just not talk about. >> one way is when you're filling out the advanced healthcare directive, the most important thing on the form is appointing a healthcare power

of attorney for healthcare who knows your wishes and yo that the portt thing too. au' t. s, good >> we're upcoming on halloween and the day of the dead. october 31st, november 1st and november 2nd. we talk about the dead, the people who are saints, and those who are in purgatory. we can talk about our loved ones and talk about the fact that we're mortal and associate it with that national holiday that we have. halloween. originally it comes from the irish. the church has a lot to say about it, too. >> november is called month of the dead. it's a time when you particularly remember the dead, pray for the dead and reinvolve the dead in your life so

they're not forgotten. i'm going to say that everybody, during november, sit down with your family and talk about your preparations. >> very good. >> that's true. even this had twneral this family. sit down and wh you want for your funeral service and what you want to have. otherwise the grieving people are trying to figure out what to do. time to get ready. interesting. now, tom, let's talk about your book also, if i may for a minute. you're going to be at the conference on november 17th? >> yes, i will. >> you'll have your book there. >> yes, i'll have my book there. >> we'll be having a white mass. after the conference, there's a 5:30 white mass at the cathedral and tom's book signing at a reception afterwards. >> end it with a mass and i'm a there's latin and greek in

there, but it's interesting. give me the gist of your book. >> the gist of the book is it phician makes promises w he or will care what norms the physician will honor and abide by. that's a profession to stand in front of other people and to tell them what you stand for and how you'll conduct yourself before them and your interactions with them. we have forgotten precisely where the initial conception began. it began about 2500 years ago. >> you're taking on an art you will stand and you happen profess your intentions and goals. vicky evans, tom

kavanaugh. good luck in your work. it's been great having you. thanks very much for joining us on mosaic.

from cbs news, bay area, this is the morning edition. >> clear skies today after one of the rainiest days ever in the bay area. we look at what is left to clean up with more wet weather still to come. and bringing in the new year, we will look at the celebrations and the new rules as we say hello to 2023. plus, taking on a polar plunge, starting the year in a very cold way. good morning it is sunday, january 1. thank you for joining us. let's start with a quick check of our first