Why Pope can’t donate heart after death -Vatican

A doctor in Germany had been using the fact that the pope possessed an organ donor’s card from a medical association to advocate the practice. The Vatican had asked him to stop, but he had not. To settle the matter, the pope’s secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, sent a letter to the doctor and the missive […]

A doctor in Germany had been using the fact that the pope possessed an organ donor’s card from a medical association to advocate the practice.

The Vatican had asked him to stop, but he had not.

To settle the matter, the pope’s secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, sent a letter to the doctor and the missive was reported in the German programme of   Vatican Radio.

“It is true that the pope owns an organ donor’s  card, but contrary to public opinion, the card issued back in the 1970s became de facto invalid with Cardinal Ratzinger’s election to the papacy,’’ Vatican Radio quoted the letter as saying.

In 1999, six years before he was elected to the papacy, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger disclosed that he always carried an organ donor’s card with him and encouraged the practice as “an act of love.’’

Vatican officials say that after a pope dies, his body belongs to the entire Church and must be buried intact.

They further said that if papal organs were donated, they would become relics in other bodies if he were eventually made a saint. (Reuters/NAN)