The Pope Can't Be an Organ Donor Because the Catholic Church Has Seized Ownership of His Body

Image by Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images During his papacy, Pope Francis was an outspoken supporter of organ donation, the medical term meaning when a person signs paperwork so that after they die, their organs can be used in transplants to save the lives of others. The practice "means looking at and going beyond oneself, beyond one's individual needs and opening oneself generously to a wider good," he said in 2019, adding that "organ donation is not only an act of social responsibility, but also an expression of the universal fraternity which binds all men and women together." But ironically, the former pontiff — who passed away this week at age 88 — appears to have been unable to be an organ donor himself, at least after becoming the head of the worldwide Catholic Church in 2013. We know that because the topic came up in relation to his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, years before his death in 2022. As CBS reported back in 2011, the debacle began when a German doctor ... Read full article.