Fr. Gerard Ream's Story - The death of a faithful priest by involuntary euthanasia

I first met Fr. Gerard Ream in 1998 while doing a house call for his mother, Dorothy. A brief initial conversation with them revealed that he was living in a small apartment only a block from my Podiatry practice, and that we shared many common traditional Catholic and pro-life interests. Dorothy later told me that after several years of marriage, she and her husband thought they could not have children, and they prayed to St. Gerard Majella for a child. After several years, Fr. Ream was born, and was named after St. Gerard. A first class relic of St. Gerard was one of Fr. Ream's prized possessions, and Dorothy maintained a deep devotion to St. Gerard until her death at age 101.

Fr. Ream soon became a close friend, and we met frequently for meals. I assisted him with various tasks around his apartment, and he called me frequently for fellowship. He got to know my wife and children well and relied on us for help, as his only brother lived in West Virginia. Fr. Ream eventually developed Parkinson's disease. We offered to take him into our home, but he declined, and entered a nursing home. We continued to visit him often and took him out to dine at his favorite restaurants.

In late 2007 and early 2008, Fr. Ream's health declined rapidly. He left a voice message on my cell phone late on a Wednesday in April 2008, asking me to stop to visit. By the time I was able to visit him two days later, he had been admitted to a local hospital for aspiration pneumonia, and had been diagnosed as "terminal" by the treating physician. He was transferred to the palliative care unit and the treating physician and Fr. Ream's brother insisted that Fr. Ream wanted no extraordinary care to prolong his life.

I was shocked that he was receiving no water, no food, no IV, only Morphine. His Parkinson's was advancing and the aspiration pneumonia was a crisis, but neither were terminal. We were permitted to wet a sponge to moisten his lips, and he would try to suck all the moisture from the sponge, but we were forbidden to give him a drink of water, ostensibly because of the "risk of further aspiration pneumonia." Fr. Ream had shared with me his opposition to passive euthanasia in the past, and he was trying to talk to me, but he had become so dehydrated that he could not form any words.

When the attending physician made rounds, I told him my concern that Fr. Ream was receiving no food or water. The physician asserted that their hospice rules forbid IVs as it only "prolonged the process." A Catholic father of six himself, this doctor then stated, "The public has a misconception that death by dehydration is torturous, but that's not true. Its the most humane way to do this, with the least discomfort. We'll control any discomfort with the Morphine. That's what we're going to do." And with that he looked me in the eye defiantly, turned on his heel and left.

I was speechless. I pleaded with Fr. Ream's brother that he would never have consented to passive euthanasia by dehydration, to no avail.

I have always been pro-life. I had even attended pro-life conferences about euthanasia and I sat on the medical ethics committees of two hospitals in the mid 1990's. I had staff privileges at the hospital in question. But in April 2008, in Fr. Ream's specific case, I simply did not know what to do. I called four good pro-life priests locally, begging for advice.

They all agreed that "You have to do something, Brian!" but none could offer any specific advice, and none could personally intervene to help save their fellow priest. Another priest I consulted recommended I request a medical ethics committee consultation.

Late on a Thursday evening, eight days after Fr. Ream had left the voice message on my cell phone, I spoke with a physicians assistant who was on call for the ethics committee. I told her that he was a good priest and a faithful son of the Church who would never agree to being passively euthanized, and I discussed with her the relevant documents from Rome and the USCCB and Pennsylvania bishops. She asked me to enter these documents in Fr. Ream's chart, and the medical ethics committee would be happy to review the case Friday morning on rounds.

Relieved that there was something I could finally do for this good priest, I went to the hospital Friday morning at 7:00am, asked the unit clerk to formally enter the documents into his chart for the ethics committee consultation, and headed down the hall to visit him.

His room was already empty. Fr. Ream had died of dehydration several hours earlier.