{"id":2238,"date":"2008-01-21T08:34:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-21T08:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html"},"modified":"2008-01-21T08:34:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-21T08:34:00","slug":"a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html","title":{"rendered":"A priest’s priceless gift to a parishioner and friend: his kidney"},"content":{"rendered":"

This item from Florida is as surprising as it is rare: the story<\/a> of a priest who truly gave of himself for a former parishioner. <\/p>\n

From Florida Catholic: <\/p>\n

<\/a>Chances are, if you\u2019ve ever had to hold your breath for more than a few seconds, you can imagine what it is like to fight for your life. Now imagine having the power to save the life of another human being.<\/p>\n

When faced with that opportunity, Father Alfred Cioffi did not hesitate. He donated one of his kidneys to save the life of his friend and former parishioner, Margarita Chavez, whom he calls a \u201cliving, walking miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two months later and doing just fine, Father Cioffi, recipient of the 2007 Archdiocese of Miami Respect Life Award, seeks to dispel common myths about living organ donations while encouraging others, especially priests and religious, to do the same.<\/p>\n

Chavez, having been given a new lease on life, is now the respect life representative for her parish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many compelling reasons to promote living organ donations, since the demand is considerable,\u201d said Father Cioffi. He explained that kidneys from living donors last twice as long as kidneys from cadavers \u2014 about 16 years compared to eight.<\/p>\n

According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, about 100,000 people are waiting for kidneys in the United States alone; 15 to 17 of them die each day for lack of a donation.<\/p>\n

Father Cioffi said this tragic situation is due in large part to a distorted perception of the risk involved in a living kidney donation. \u201cIn reality, the risk factor for a healthy donor is rather low.\u201d<\/p>\n

He compared the fear of donating a kidney to the fear of flying. \u201cThe actual risk of having a car accident is many, many times greater than when flying. Yet more people have a fear of flying rather than a fear of driving.\u201d In fact, he said, according to Dr. Linda Chen, who operated on him, \u201cthe chances of being killed by a bus are 10 times greater than from donating a kidney.\u201d<\/p>\n

It makes for a great story: \u201cPriest donates kidney to save life of parishioner.\u201d However, there is much more to this tale. Those involved say that, with each twist and turn, God left a brilliant trail of spiritual gems \u2014 a signature assortment of events that add up to much more than mere coincidences. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You’ll want to read the rest<\/a> to find out how it all happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This item from Florida is as surprising as it is rare: the story of a priest who truly gave of himself for a former parishioner. From Florida Catholic: Chances are, if you\u2019ve ever had to hold your breath for more than a few seconds, you can imagine what it is like to fight for your…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nA priest's priceless gift to a parishioner and friend: his kidney - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A priest's priceless gift to a parishioner and friend: his kidney - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This item from Florida is as surprising as it is rare: the story of a priest who truly gave of himself for a former parishioner. From Florida Catholic: Chances are, if you\u2019ve ever had to hold your breath for more than a few seconds, you can imagine what it is like to fight for your…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-01-21T08:34:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R5SgZomED1I\/AAAAAAAAB2U\/i5aJAypbAT8\/s200\/20080118_mia_kidney_cioffi_2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A priest's priceless gift to a parishioner and friend: his kidney - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A priest's priceless gift to a parishioner and friend: his kidney - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"This item from Florida is as surprising as it is rare: the story of a priest who truly gave of himself for a former parishioner. From Florida Catholic: Chances are, if you\u2019ve ever had to hold your breath for more than a few seconds, you can imagine what it is like to fight for your…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2008-01-21T08:34:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R5SgZomED1I\/AAAAAAAAB2U\/i5aJAypbAT8\/s200\/20080118_mia_kidney_cioffi_2.jpg"}],"author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html","name":"A priest's priceless gift to a parishioner and friend: his kidney - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R5SgZomED1I\/AAAAAAAAB2U\/i5aJAypbAT8\/s200\/20080118_mia_kidney_cioffi_2.jpg","datePublished":"2008-01-21T08:34:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-01-21T08:34:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R5SgZomED1I\/AAAAAAAAB2U\/i5aJAypbAT8\/s200\/20080118_mia_kidney_cioffi_2.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R5SgZomED1I\/AAAAAAAAB2U\/i5aJAypbAT8\/s200\/20080118_mia_kidney_cioffi_2.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/a-priests-priceless-gift-to-a-parishioner-and-friend-his-kidney.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A priest’s priceless gift to a parishioner and friend: his kidney"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10","name":"deacon greg kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","caption":"deacon greg kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}