10/12/2012: Death with Real Dignity - A Discussion

This event is being held in anticipation of the upcoming Massachusetts state ballot initiative on
Doctor-prescribed suicide. It will include prepared remarks from the speakers,
followed by an interactive Question and Answer session.

FOR DIRECTIONS TO ST. PAUL'S, CLICK HERE!
Please see below for speaker bios

E. Joanne Angelo, MD
A gifted teacher and outspoken pro-life advocate, Joanne is a graduate of the Tufts University School of Medicine, where she is now an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry. She has also taught courses at Cornell and Harvard Universities. For the past 14 years, she has been an active member of the Pontifical Academy of Life in Rome, serving as a key medical expert on topics ranging from abortion and post-abortive healing to euthanasia and doctor-prescribed suicide. For her pro-life work and efforts, she was one of three awardees of the annual People of Life Awards, sponsored by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities (2011), which celebrated, among her many accomplishments, her assistance in establishing both the Good Samaritan Hospice and Project Rachel in the Archdiocese of Boston. She has been featured in leading national and international publications, a recent example being the National Catholic Register’s 2011 profile of her work, titled “Working and Witnessing Quietly Amid a Culture of Death." http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/working-and-witnessing-quietly-amid-a-culture-of-death/ (Photograph is courtesy of the National Catholic Register.)

Jill Fallon, JD
Jill Fallon is a graduate of Smith College and the Boston University School of Law. Admitted to the bar in New York, Massachusetts and the U.S. Supreme Court, she practiced law on Wall Street, in Boston and with the federal government, serving as Associate Solicitor of Conservation and Wildlife under the Administration of George H.W. Bush. After she was widowed for the second time, she invested her creative energies in developing ways to help people deal with the responsibility they most dread - putting and keeping their affairs in order - by reframing it in terms of legacy and developing a system to create gifts of good records, good directions, good protection and gifts of meaning and love. Her book, Your Legacy Matters, 10 Steps to Taking Care of the Business of Your Life and Legacy in the Digital Age and Finding Yourself on a Mission of Love, will be published next year and software will follow. Jill has been an online blogger for 8 years, and you can find her blogs “The Business of Life” and “Legacy Matters” at www.estatevaults.com. At St. Paul’s Church, Jill organized the parish screening of Fr. Robert Barron’s landmark 10-part Catholicism series (2011), and she is the current chair of the Bible Timeline project (2012). Moreover, Jill is the current Vice-President for Development of the St. Paul’s Pro-Life and Family Committee, as well as Treasurer of the St. Thérèse of Lisieux Circle of the Daughters of Isabella at the Harvard Catholic Center.

Stephen Lombardo
The Field Director for Mass Citizens for Life (http://www.masscitizensforlife.org) and the Campaign Manager for the “No on Question 2” Campaign, Stephen is a senior, currently completing his B.A. in Political Science and History at Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida. He began working in politics during the fall of 2009, when he advocated for preserving the historic legal definition of marriage during the successful "Yes on 1" ballot campaign in his home state. After he began college, Stephen was involved in Ave Maria Students for Life, becoming a part of the leadership and planning of weekly pro-life events, and eventually becoming the President of AMUSFL. During his time in Florida, Stephen worked with local pro-life politicians, as well as on the successful Marco Rubio senatorial campaign. Stephen's participation in social political campaigns has focused on abortion, marriage and other life issues. This summer, Stephen worked as a full-time intern for the National Right to Life Committee in Washington D.C., from which he has come to work for Mass Citizens for Life, and has been working on the campaign to oppose this ballot question since July. In his time with “No on Question 2,” Stephen has worked to create a statewide grassroots movement of volunteers who are able to effectively spread the opposition message about this dangerous bill, and he encourages all who are interested in the campaign to go to www.noonquestion2.org, and join the cause.

Kathleen A. Nopper, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, CHPN
A Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner at Southcoast Health System, Kathleen has been working in Hospice/Palliative Care for the last 15 years. She originally received her Diploma in Nursing at the Krankenpflegeschule (Provincial Diploma School of Nursing) in Salzburg, Austria (1989) and subsequently received her BSN (1997) and MSN (2010) as a Family Nurse Practitioner from Regis College. Kathleen has been a member of St. Paul’s Church for a number of years and has been active in the Lay Committee on Contemporary Spiritual-&-Public Concerns (CSPC). She is now a facilitator in the parish’s Bible Timeline. She places importance on the need to take time for daily prayer and for her own ongoing spiritual development, as well as work to promote peace and reconciliation, especially within the context of interpersonal relationships. Her time spent overseas in Caux, Switzerland, before and after the Fall of the Berlin Wall has proven to be instrumental in her life’s journey and in her ongoing professional work in end-of-life issues. Kathleen is certified as an ELNEC instructor (End of Life Nursing Education Consortium) and belongs to a number of nursing organizations; broadly, her research focuses on nursing presence and patient-centered care in order to meet best the needs of patients and to improve their satisfaction.