The Pope cannot donate his organs, The Vatican has decreed.
Though he’s a long-time signed-up organ donor, Pope Benedict XVi’s donor card became null and void the day he became head honcho of the Catholic church, his personal secretary revealed.
This is because the Pope’s organs belong to the church and cannot be just plonked in some mere mortals, apparently.
The issue came up when a German doctor recently promoted organ donation using the Pope as an example. The pope signed up to the organ-donor program more than 30 years ago and carried a donor card for decades in his native Germany.
However the the Pope’s secretary, Monsignor Georg Ganswein asked the doctor, in a letter, to desist from using Il Papa as an example.
“While it is true that the pope has an organ donor card, it is also true that, contrary to some public affirmations, the card issued in the 1970s became ipso facto invalid with Cardinal Ratzinger’s election to the papacy,” he explained.
The Pope has long been a supporter of organ donation which he described as an “act of love.”
In 2008 he said: “tissue and organ transplants represent a great advance of medical science and are certainly a sign of hope for the many people who suffer from serious and sometimes critical medical conditions.”
