In 1956, Pope Pius XII declared that: "A person may will to dispose of his body and to destine it to ends that are useful, morally irreproachable and even noble, among them the desire to aid the sick and suffering...this decision should not be condemned but positively justified."

In August 2000, Pope John Paul II told attendees at the International Congress on Transplants in Rome : "Transplants are a great step forward in science's service of man, and not a few people today owe their lives to an organ transplant. Increasingly, the technique of transplants has proven to be a valid means of attaining the primary goal of all medicine - the service of human life……There is a need to instill in people's hearts, especially in the hearts of the young, a genuine and deep appreciation of the need for brotherly love, a love that can find expression in the decision to become an organ donor."

In the Summer/Fall 2001 issue of On the Beat, a publication of the New York Organ Donor Network, His Eminence Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York, wrote that, in thinking about the glorious gift of life God has given each of us, one of the greatest ways an individual can honor that gift is being an organ donor. Click here for full article .

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prior to becoming Pope Benedict XVI, described organ donation as being “an act of love … so long as it is free and spontaneous.”   In a February 4, 1999, interview with the ZENIT International News Agency, Cardinal Ratzinger said that he was a registered organ donor. "To donate one's organs is an act of love that is morally licit, so long as it is free and spontaneous."Click here for full article.