As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI
was a card-carrying organ donor.
But the card became invalid when he
became pope, according to his personal secretary.
The issue arose when a German doctor recently began promoting organ
donation by citing the pope's enlistment in the organ-donor program more
than 30 years ago.
The Vatican asked the doctor to stop using the pope
as an example, and the pope's secretary, Msgr. Georg Ganswein, explained
the reasons in a letter.
"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," the letter said, according to Vatican Radio.
Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, president of the Pontifical Council for
Health Care Ministry, told reporters that the most evident reason a pope
could not donate organs was that, in a sense, "his body belongs to the
whole church." He said the church's tradition that a pope's body be
buried intact also reflected the possibility of future veneration.
"That takes nothing away from the validity and the beauty of donating one's organs," the archbishop added.
Other Vatican sources said church officials were worried that the
publicity in Germany about the 83-year-old pope as an organ donor might
create "unrealistic expectations" when the pope dies.
Pope Benedict has called organ donation a generous "act of love."
In
2008, he told a Vatican conference that "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."