By Patrick Downes

The Red Mass message this year was one of warning.

The guest homilist, diocesan theologian Father Marc R. Alexander, assailed efforts to introduce physician-assisted suicide to Hawaii, calling the practice an assault on critical relationships between society and its most vulnerable citizens.

The annual mid-morning liturgy, celebrated Jan. 20 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, welcomed about 50 state, city, and health care officials into a congregation of several hundred worshippers.

The traditional Mass is a prayer for wisdom and guidance for Hawaii’s public servants, in particular, members of the state legislature who started their session the day before.

Diocesan administrator Father Thomas Gross presided at the Mass for the Holy Spirit assisted by about 25 priests and seven deacons.

The topic of physician-assisted suicide “a very important and sensitive matter of public concern,” Father Alexander said, and recent efforts to legalize it here were “misguided” and a consequence of “fraudulent reasoning.”

“Physician-assisted suicide corrupts vital, sustaining, age-old relationships,” he said, “between patient and doctor, between family members, and between society and its ill members.”

He said it also “irreparably damages authentic end-of-life care.”

The state of Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide in 1997 and remains the only state to de-criminalize the process. In 1998 in Hawaii, Governor Ben Cayetano’s “blue ribbon panel” on dying recommended legalizing both physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. Since then, assisted suicide legislation has been proposed nearly every year, but has never passed.

Father Alexander described Oregon, whose suicide law often has been cited as a model for Hawaii, as “an unfolding chaos” that has eroded its end-of-life care, especially for the poor, in favor of the $50 suicide prescription.

He called Oregon an “aberration” that no state yet has dared follow in the eight years since it allowed the procedure.

Father Alexander also used the Netherlands as an example of a “slippery slope” gone “over the edge,” where assisted suicide has led to active euthanasia and proposals to kill disabled infants.

The speaker praised scientific advancements and recent Hawaii laws that have made the dying process much less painful and more self-directed. But he said there is much more to do.

“This is where legislative effort should be focused,” he said, in providing for more palliative care physicians and nurses and hospice programs.

“And much more public education needs to be done so that our citizens know what programs are available to help them manage their healthcare choices and options,” he said.

“We in Hawaii have an opportunity to show the world what aloha really means,” the homilist said. “Let us support the family. Let us protect the vulnerable. Let us treat our elderly with dignity and our dying with compassion.”

State Rep. Dennis A. Arakaki, chairman of the house health committee, told the Hawaii Catholic Herald, that he would “like to use” Father Alexander’s remarks and information in his legislative deliberations.

He said the speaker provided a “very good rationale as to why we shouldn’t be doing it. I’m just glad we are blessed by his insights and his research.”

“I’m very concerned about the issue of assisted suicide and I think we’ve done as much as we could to make it unnecessary,” he said. “But still, there are those advocates that still want to see legislation passed.”

State Rep. Michael Y. Magaoay (46th) said that “Father Marc hit the nail on the head.”

“I believe life is precious,” he said. “I am going to rally the people in our House of Representatives to go against this bill again.”

State Rep. Kymberly Pine (43rd) told the Hawaii Catholic Herald she appreciated the homily’s direct approach.

“I’d like to see the church continue to be that tough on a lot of the issues that affect them,” she said. “Because they really have a lot of power if they use it.”

She said physician-assisted suicide would be “devastating to our seniors in Hawaii” because it would put the power of ending life into the wrong hands.

Franciscan Sister Beatrice Tom, CEO of the St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii, called the homily “one that everyone could understand and appreciate.”

“I think he hit all of the major points,” she said. “He was just very sensible about his approach.”

At the Red Mass’s final blessing, the politicians and state and city officials were called forth to gather behind the altar and be blessed by Father Gross and the entire congregation.

Also attending the Mass were members of several Hawaiian royal orders whose black suits, white dresses and black holokus, accented with red and yellow capes and elegant feather leis, have added regality to the liturgy for many years.

The Red Mass has been a tradition in many U.S. cities since the early 1900s and has been celebrated in Hawaii since 1955.

Lisa Benoit contributed to this report.