Student-priest with terminal cancer responds to 'death with dignity' debate
RALEIGH, N.C. -- "Suffering is not worthless, and our lives are not our own to take."
With those words published in an online essay, Catholic seminarian Philip Johnson places himself in the middle of an age-old debate: is suicide ever justified?
The 30-year-old Greensboro native typed up the 1,700 word essay in reaction to a case that's making national headlines. It's that of Brittany Maynard, the recently married young California woman who has moved to Oregon to take a fatal "death with dignity" prescription, surrounded by loved ones and friends.
Maynard has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and has chosen to end her life rather than face the increasing seizures, pain, and loss of function that doctors say is inevitable. Oregon is one of five states where assisted suicide is legal.
In his essay on the website for the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, Philip Johnson tells his own story and urges Maynard to reconsider her suicide plans.
"I'm not trying to be critical of her," Johnson told me, "I'm critical of her decision. You can see in her videos that she doesn't want to die. She says she doesn't want to die - that she's not killing herself, the cancer is what's going to kill her. But I would disagree with that. I think it's the poison she's going to take that's going to directly kill her."
Still, who is Philip Johnson to question this seriously ill woman's choice? What does he know about her suffering?
Actually, quite a lot.
Because Philip Johnson has terminal brain cancer, too. Diagnosed at age 24.
"The first doctor I saw told me 18 months (to live), perhaps two years," he says. "They said since I was young I might do a little better. Usually younger patients do better. I still have headaches. I think the worse side effect is just fatigue. I went through a lot of chemotherapy treatment and it just kinda wore out my body. I'm not taking it anymore -- thankfully -- but I'm still very, very tired every day. I have to sleep a lot."
I spoke with Johnson by telephone from Philadelphia, where he's taking his seminary classes at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook. Those classes have been slow going, including a two-year break from seminary for treatment back in North Carolina. But if all goes well, he will be ordained as a priest in the summer of 2016.
It's been six years since his diagnosis -- well past the median life expectancy for patients with his type of brain cancer.
And yet, he lives.
"I really do attribute how well I'm doing to prayer. So many people have been praying for me. My bishop asked every single parishioner in the Diocese of Raleigh to pray for me. He sent out a letter that was put in the bulletin of every single parish asking people to pray for me. And that's why I think I'm still alive today."
Johnson says reaction to his passionate defense of life, posted online last week, has not been pleasant.
"A lot of harsh comments, actually. Time Magazine Online picked it up and posted the article and the comments on there are just horrible. Calling me self-righteous, calling me things that I cannot even repeat. Saying to stay out of it, it's her business. [But] she's made her decision public, letting groups use her story to lobby to make euthanasia legal in all fifty states. So that's why I felt that I had the right and really the obligation to say something about it."
Although Brittany Maynard originally said she would take her fatal prescription on November 1st after completing her "bucket list," she's now indicated she may postpone her decision to see how the disease progresses. Philip Johnson believes that's a good sign.
He says he would love to talk to her. About cancer. About suffering. About life. And about faith.
"It's actually strengthened my faith. At the very beginning, it really shook me up. I remember I was just in tears asking God why this would happen to me, I was so young. But so much good has come out of it! I'm able to empathize with the sick in hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices, and really know what they're going through, what they're feeling. I really feel like I've been able to better help people in ministry. So in that way I'm almost thankful that it happened to me because it really has shaped who I am. I don't define myself by my illness but it's become a part of me and I have embraced it and I'm trying to bring anything good that I can from it."
