Reframing End-of-life Care During COVID

We Need a Revolution of Love in End-of-Life Care

Over the last 10 months, we have seen so much death. And we’ve seen the heightened dangers elderly Americans face during the Coronavirus pandemic. Their vulnerabilities are made worse by ideologies that would cast them aside as inconvenient – even while we have made sacrifices to protect life, at the same time we have seen what Pope Francis calls our throwaway society on display. Government orders even suggest someone might have thought seniors in nursing homes were necessary casualties of the pandemic. We must do better. And while we hail frontlines workers who have made tremendous sacrifices, we have a responsibility to do our best to reverence their lives until the natural end – as with all lives.

Sr. Constance Veit, LSP, is a Little Sister of the Poor. The Little Sisters welcome the elderly poor into their homes with loving care, seeing each one as Christ Himself.

Charles Camosy has been a foremost watchdog in advocating for the elderly. Associate professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University, Camosy is author of Resisting Throwaway Culture: How a Consistent Life Ethic Can Unite a Fractured People.

This event is moderated by Kathryn Jean Lopez.