Posted on 12/11/2019 12:57:47 PM PST by ebb tide
ROME - A leading Vatican official says he would “hold the hand” of someone who was dying from assisted suicide, even though he considers it wrong, because “no one is abandoned” by the Church.
Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia was speaking on Tuesday during the presentation of an upcoming symposium on end-of-life issues co-sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, which he heads.
“I believe that from our perspective, no one is abandoned, even if we are against assisted suicide, because we don’t want to do death’s dirty job,” the archbishop said, when asked about one bishops’ conference’s directive that a priest not be in the room if euthanasia or assisted suicide is performed.
“To accompany, to hold the hand of someone who is dying, is something that every faithful must promote as they must promote a culture that opposes assisted suicide,” Paglia said.
But regardless of a willingness to accompany a person through such a decision, the archbishop said Catholics should continue to fight against a “selfish” society that labels the elderly, the terminally ill and others as “not good enough” and a surplus to the world.
Suicide - in whatever form - is a “defeat” for the rest of society, Paglia said: “We can never transform it into a ‘wise decision’.”
However, he admitted he always celebrates the funerals for those who take their own lives because he sees suicide as “a great request for love that was not satisfied. This is why the Lord never abandons anyone.”
Paglia was speaking with journalists at the presentation of a Dec. 11-12 conference on Religion and Medical Ethics: Palliative care and the mental health of the elderly, which is being co-organized by the British Journal of Medicine and Qatar’s WISH foundation.
The archbishop told reporters that even though they were looking “for a rule,” the principle of never abandoning anyone is not a matter of law for him.
“In this selfish society, we don’t need new laws. We need a love supplement, a co-responsibility supplement,” Paglia said.
“We are all necessary, with no one to spare. A society that runs towards a perspective of justifying suicide or leaving behind those who are not ‘good enough’ is a cruel one,” he explained.
“For me, a person who takes their own life shows a failure of society as a whole,” the prelate insisted.
“But it is not a failure from God. We are each children of God. Can a mother abandon her son?”
Paglia noted that the Church says there’s no certainty that even the apostle Judas, who betrayed Jesus before killing himself, is in Hell.
“For a Catholic to say so, it’s heresy,” he said.
The bishop was also asked to share his thoughts about Italy’s growing anti-Semitism, where Senator Liliana Segre, an Auschwitz survivor and a member of the Italian Senate, now travels with a policse escort due to anti-Semitic threats.
Paglia said that a leap of conscience is important, so that the word “‘race’ is banned, and the words ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ are used instead.”
He said that open demonstrations of support for people like Segre from other Italian politicians are indispensable because “there is a surge of anti-Semitism. We see it almost daily, and the Internet favors its growth.”
Paglia also said that it’s important not to forget Pietro Terracina, one of the last Italian survivors of the Holocaust, who died on Sunday.
“Those who forget will repeat, and those who pretend not to remember, risk these tragedies being repeated,” Paglia said.
Ping
when I get incapacitated and no hope...I want to be put out of my misery....I’ve told my kids to shoot me up with fentynal or something to kill me quickly
Wow.. this isn’t my Daddy’s catholic church anymore.
Part of the job description is “comfort the dying” - regardless of why they are.
This is not an inherent approval of “assisted suicide”.
“For a Catholic to say so, it’s heresy,” he said.
"When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled."--John 17:12
"The effectiveness of Christ’s protection is complete, because none of them is lost: my sheep hear my voice (John 10:27); and no man will pluck them out of my hand (John 10:28); everyone who . . . believes in him, may have eternal life (John 6:40). One person is excluded, that is, the son of perdition, Judas. He is called the son of perdition as though foreknown and foreordained to eternal perdition. In this way those destined to die are called the sons of death: you are the sons of death (1 Sam 26:16); you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte . . . and you make him a son of death twice as much as yourself (Matt 23:15)."--St. Thomas Aquinas, commentary on John 17:12
I think the mystery here for me is why this would be a news story. Of course I would comfort anyone whom was going into God’s arms through death, be it suicide or not. Do I believe that I’ll be the last comfort they’ll have if they commit suicide? Absolutely. I’m very sorry that their selfishness will condemn them to hell.
It is God’s choice when you die, not yours, not the doctor’s, and certainly no the insurance company’s. I can also respect and hope God forgives their refusal of resuscitation and life support. But to me, that also is a form of suicide. I hope I’m wrong, as the idea of a robot preserving my life rather than my body also terrifies me. But if the Lord sends a life boat, it is our duty to step aboard.
HOGWASH!! Catholics have been abandoned by the church of rome!
It has many authoritative links and excerpts, including pages 4-6 with only secular arguments against the practice.
True enough.
It is God’s choice when you die, not yours, not the doctor’s, and certainly no the insurance company’s. I can also respect and hope God forgives their refusal of resuscitation and life support. But to me, that also is a form of suicide. I hope I’m wrong, as the idea of a robot preserving my life rather than my body also terrifies me. But if the Lord sends a life boat, it is our duty to step aboard.
Well put.
Would he hold the hand of someone dying of the electric chair?
Could I have the Scripture that states a person who commits suicide is condemned to he’ll by God? Thank you
Would you comfort a woman undergoing the voluntary abortion of her baby?
Both abortion and suicide are acts of murder.
“Thou shalt not murder” -Exodus 20:13 & Deutoronomy 5:17
The term, “murder” implies not just killing, but premeditated murder, which would include killing yourself. Having contempt for life—your own or others. Suicide involves plenty of careful and wilful planning... Suicide is murder. No scripture exists stating committing it means automatic perdition of the soul, but if your last conscious thought is pure contempt for one’s own life and The Creator, as when committing suicide, there’s a great sign a soul is not fit for eternal harmony and peace with God.
Did Christ die for our sins? All of them or some of them?
Sounds like you're not a believer in Christ's warnings about many souls going to Hell.
Do you think He was just bluffing?
Do YOU think that when He said he died ONCE, for ALL sin, He was bluffing?
He never said that.
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