Elements in the Catholic Church apparently have entered a new era of flexibility on doctrines that once stood as seemingly permanent protections for the sanctity of life. Michael Cook reports in Bioedge: One of the last substantial barriers to increasing the number of euthanasia cases for non-terminally-ill psychiatric patients in Belgium seems to have crumbled. A religious order in the Catholic Church, the Brothers of Charity, is responsible for a large proportion of beds for psychiatric patients in Belgium – about 5,000 of them. The international head of the order, Brother René Stockman, is a Belgian who has been one of the leading opponents of euthanasia in recent years. Nonetheless, in a surprise move this week, the board controlling the institutions of the Brothers of Charity announced that from now on, it will allow euthanasia to take place in their psychiatric hospitals. In a statement posted on their website the Brothers of...(Read Full Post)