Father Ed Panek, pastor of St. Thomas Becket Parish in Mount Prospect, has had three kidney transplants, the last one coming from his brother. So for him, the observance of the second weekend in November as National Donor Sabbath, strikes a chord. Panek joined Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White and the parents of a child who died and became an organ donor on “The Light Show,” a radio program that is part of the Catholic Community of Faith. The show aired Nov. 18 on Relevant Radio. On the show, hosted by Father John Cusick and Kate DeVries of the Young Adult Ministry Office, Panek said organ donation is a life issue. Organ donation helps those who receive organs and those who depend upon them. A variety of organs and tissues can be donated, from the heart and lungs to skin and corneas. Up to 25 patients can benefit from a single organ donor, White said. The Catholic Church supports organ donation, so long as the donation is done ethically. Pope Benedict XVI is a cardcarrying organ donor, according to news reports, and he spoke of the “unique testimony of charity” of organ donation at a Vatican conference on the topic in November 2008. “The act of love, which is expressed with the gift of one’s own vital organs, is a genuine testament of charity that knows how to look beyond death so that life always wins,” the pope said. White said he works to dispel myths surrounding organ donation, including the idea that someone who has expressed their intention to be an organ donor will receive less than the full measure of treatment intended to save his or her life. “Your doctor has an obligation to provide you with the best of care,” he said. “Your doctor is not going to give you the short count to benefit those 25 patients.” White said that in Illinois, there are about 5,000 people waiting for organs and about 300 people die each year because they don’t receive an organ soon enough. About 5.5 million Illinoisans have signed up to be organ donors under the “first-person consent” protocol. That means that once a person is registered as an organ donor, their organs can be harvested upon their death without asking their families for further consent. In the case of children who die, however, parents must give consent. That was the decision facing Kim Barrio and her husband, Jerry, whose 17-month-old daughter Mary Kate died in October. Representatives from Gift of Life called about four hours after Mary Kate died, Kim Barrio said, asking whether her parents would consider donating her heart valves and corneas. It was difficult to consider the request — “We were in total shock” — but she and her husband agreed. “We said, ‘OK. This is God coming to us and saying maybe there is a way that there is some redemption in this suffering,’” Barrio said on the radio show. “At the hardest moment of my whole life and my husband’s whole life, it was heart-wrenching but it was something we felt strongly, why deprive another child of the opportunity to see or have new heart valves in our grief, she said. “I think it was really grace that helped us through the moment.”