CNA Staff, Jan 19, 2021 / 07:20 am
A Polish archbishop asked an English cardinal on Tuesday to intervene following a U.K. court ruling allowing the withdrawal of food and water from a practicing Catholic patient.
In a letter dated Jan. 19, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, president of the Polish bishops' conference, urged Cardinal Vincent Nichols "to undertake steps towards saving the life of our compatriot."
Local media reported on Jan. 18 that doctors had stopped providing life-support treatment to the middle-aged Catholic man, identified only as "RS," who fell into a coma after suffering brain damage. He is originally from Poland but lives in England.
Gądecki wrote in his letter to the archbishop of Westminster that public opinion in Poland had been "shaken" by the ruling last month that life-support treatment "could be lawfully discontinued."