PROSPECT HEIGHTS — Several years ago, when Father Jim Cunningham was undergoing kidney dialysis treatments, he met numerous people enduring the same grind, several times each week, and for three hours each session.
Yet despite the strenuous treatments, many of these patients refused to consider organ transplants, said Father Cunningham, currently the associate pastor at St. Francis de Sales Parish in Belle Harbor, Queens.
Conversely, Father Cunningham wanted a transplanted kidney and received one seven years ago from a friend, Patrick Nash. Yet despite his generosity, Nash, a firefighter, was urged by some other people not to go through with the donation.
Questions about organ donations resurfaced the first week of February, when New York City Police Officer Wilbert Mora died in the line of duty. His parents chose to donate his heart and some other organs to people with severe illnesses.
Still, some people steadfastly oppose organ donations. Last week, Father Cunningham recalled what other dialysis patients told him.
“Some were afraid of a surgery of any kind,” he said. “But other people didn’t want to because they were afraid it was against God’s design, which is not what the Church teaches at all.”
Donating an organ to save another person is in line with Church teachings about the sanctity of life, Father Cunningham said. “It is giving the gift of life,” he said. “As Catholics, we believe that we should do everything in our power to preserve life, from conception to natural death; it’s like that seamless garment.”
Several popes have endorsed organ donations.
In 2019, Pope Francis said: “Organ donation responds to a social need because, despite the development of many medical treatments, the need for organs still remains great.”
He added, “donation means looking at and going beyond oneself, beyond one’s individual needs, and opening oneself generously to a wider good.”
Pope Francis also noted 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.”
Father Cunningham is not the only clergy member in the Diocese of Brooklyn to receive or to actually donate an organ.
In recent years, The Tablet and Nuestra Voz have reported on how Father Henry Torres suffered kidney failure as a boy and later received a donation from his mother, Margarita. That kidney eventually failed, but he received another. Today, Father Torres is administrator of Mary of Nazareth Parish in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Now in his early 30s, he is the second youngest priest in the history of the diocese to take on such a responsibility.
The Health Resources & Services Administration is a federal agency that oversees organ donations in the U.S.
In that role, the HRSA has specified organs that can be transplanted while a donor is living. Examples are a part of a liver, one kidney, part of a pancreas, part of an intestine, or one lung.
The Church has guidelines on how to ethically donate these organs. They are described in “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, Sixth Edition (2018),” issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The USCCB directive states, “The transplantation of organs from living donors is morally permissible when such a donation will not sacrifice or seriously impair any essential bodily function and the anticipated benefit to the recipient is proportionate to the harm done to the donor.”
“Furthermore,” the directive continues, “the freedom of the prospective donor must be respected, and economic advantages should not accrue to the donor.”
HRSA has also listed which organs can be taken only after a donor has died. Examples are the heart, both kidneys, both lungs, and an entire liver.
The USCCB directive stipulates that such organs “should not be removed until it has been medically determined that the patient has died. In order to prevent any conflict of interest, the physician who determines death should not be a member of the transplant team.”
As a transplant recipient, Father Cunningham said he urges people who consider becoming donors to move forward in that process. It typically is accomplished when people renew their driver’s licenses and they have the opportunity to check the box asking if they want to be donors.
“When my time comes,” he said, “whatever I have, including my eyes, my skin — everything — I want it all to go because the burn unit needs skin. So many people can use your eyes. If you have kidneys or a liver — whatever — if it can be transplanted, it should be.
“I was lucky to have a living donor. My friend saved my life. Many people told him not to do it, but he never looked back. And because of that, I’ll be seven years transplanted.”
