On World Transplant Patient Day, which is celebrated this June 6, a priest who is an expert in health pastoral care debunks some myths about organ donation.
This special date is promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) to encourage organ donation so that people with chronic or terminal illnesses can continue living.
Receive the main news from ACI Prensa by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social media. Subscribe to our free channels today:
Myths about organ donation
In statements to ACI Prensa, Father Mateo Bautista, Camillian priest, nurse and doctor of Theology in Health Pastoral, explained that people should not be afraid because the entire process, in organ donation, is legal and transparent.
“Let us not be carried away by the obscurantism of false opinions that oppose the generous and Samaritan donation of organs after our death,” urged the priest of Spanish origin who serves in Peru.
Father Bautista also came out against those who distrust the procedure and believe that organs are extracted from living people or those who have been murdered to obtain them.
“The entire donation procedure is done under the law with the rigor of medical protocols, with the approval of our family and always after our brain death, proven by a medical team different from the team that extracts the organs and performs the transplant,” said the expert. Everything is carried out “with utmost transparency,” he stressed.
For an organ to be transplanted to another person, it must meet some requirements: it must be healthy and in good condition, it must be of the same blood group and have the same Rh factor, and it must not be rejected by the immune system of the recipient.
Life after death
The priest also highlighted that “after our death we can give life in this life thanks to the voluntary donation of our organs.”
“How many people have recovered their health and returned to normal life after receiving a generous transplant? The potential organ donor card should not be missing from our portfolio. The consent of potential donors must be recorded in official documents,” she assured.
This issue, encouraged the Camilo priest, “must be treated with great serenity in the family.”
To conclude, Father Mateo Bautista recalled that “Jesus donated his blood and his entire body to us. Let’s register as potential organ donors. It is giving life.”
Originally published June 6, 2023. It has been updated for republication.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.