VATICAN CITY. With euthanasia or assisted suicide, «the life of the patient is eliminated to stop suffering. And this is incompatible with true civilization “, because a human being does not lose his dignity when he suffers”. word of Cardinal Francesco Montenegro, archbishop emeritus of Agrigento, former president of the Italian Caritas. The cardinal recalls that for the Church “compassion does not consist in causing death, but in supporting the sick with affection and the means to alleviate pain”.
Your Eminence, what do you think of the ethics committee’s “yes” to the first assisted suicide in Italy?
“In Italy there is neither a law on euthanasia nor a law that defines the procedures for admission to assisted suicide. Following the Fabiano Antoniani case, the Court ruled that, under certain health conditions, suicide assistance is not punishable and invited the National Health Service to act on the matter. Hence, it was established that it is up to public health facilities to verify the clinical conditions in which assisted suicide is permitted.
In the concrete case of the Marches (the 43-year-old quadriplegic person) what the Ethics Committee has done is to check and affirm that there are the conditions of illness which, according to the sentence of the Constitutional Court, exempt a person from the accusation of aid to the suicide.
I am very puzzled that the courts require doctors to determine whether the patient’s medical condition is such that the people who help them die are not accused of assisting suicide. Because I believe that suicide is not an aid to the sick, it is simply an aid to death ».
We are in a secular country. Many people believe that it is right to allow a person under certain conditions to take their own life. Why does the Church think the opposite?
“The position against assisted suicide and euthanasia is not a position that depends on a particular religious belief. It is not something that belongs to believers or to a confessional society. The defense of life is the basis of all social ethics. The condemnation of suicide and assisting suicide is present in the vast majority of civil legislation. It is not a question of faith, it is of understanding society. A sign of civilization is the foundation of an individual’s dignity as a human being, regardless of other circumstances such as race, sex, religion, health, age, mental capacity, economic resources, or physical or mental limitations. With euthanasia or assisted suicide, the life of the patient is eliminated to stop the suffering. And this is incompatible with true civilization, because a human being does not lose his dignitỳ when he suffers.
It is true that in our society some factors have emerged that hide the profound and intrinsic value of every human life. One of these derives from an erroneous conception of the quality of life, understood as the presence-absence of certain psychic or physical functions. When the quality of life appears poor, then that life does not deserve to continue. In this sense Pope Francis spoke of a “throwaway culture”. Another factor that hides the value of human life is an erroneous understanding of “compassion”, which allows us to think that, in the face of suffering qualified as “unbearable”, the end of the patient’s life can be justified. In order not to suffer it is better to die. In this situation, the Church reminds us that human compassion does not consist in causing death, but in welcoming the sick, in supporting him in difficulties̀, in offering him affection, attention and the means to alleviate suffering. This accompanying the sick is not so much a gesture of charitỳ, but of social justice, in its twofold dimension: of promoting human life and not causing harm to the person. It is the same principle that Jesus transforms into the positive golden rule “Do whatever you want men to do to you, do it to them” (Mt 7:12). This principle of justice with the sick and the suffering is what the Church reminds society with the condemnation of euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Believers may not follow open suicide legislation while those who think differently do: isn’t that correct?
“The problem of assisted suicide is not a” medical “problem (in fact the World Medical Association is opposed to euthanasia and assisted suicide) but an anthropological problem, which concerns the configuration of society and which goes well beyond preferences and beliefs of individuals. The way we treat people in vulnerable situations, the way we welcome and support the weak, the elderly and the sick, with which we treat the last moments of our life, qualify the ethical quality of society. The intention to eliminate the patient’s life, on one’s own initiative or at the request of a third party, so that he does not suffer, is always immoral: one chooses an evil, suppressing the patient’s life, which is always a good in itself. This is even clearer if we consider that, to relieve pain and suffering, other means can be chosen that alleviate discomfort, control pain, comfort suffering, accompany and improve the vital situation.
Choosing euthanasia or assisted suicide is always a bad choice. Laws that legalize euthanasia or justify suicide and assisted suicide are unfair. These are laws that affect the foundation of the juridical order: the right to life, which supports every other right, including the exercise of human freedom. The existence of these laws deeply wounds human relationships and justice and threatens mutual human trust. The choice is therefore not neutral, because the countries that have legitimized assisted suicide and euthanasia show, from what I know, a degeneration of this social phenomenon. The legislative structures that, in some countries, currently allow assisted suicide and euthanasia, foster a cultural climate in which people who are in serious and long-lasting conditions of illness, or who have to face the terminal stages of life, risk being unjustly stigmatized as unworthy of life, depicted as those who damage the autonomy of others because – despite being marked by illness – they do not want to give in to despair and anticipate their death. These legislations create a “throwaway culture” ».
Life is sacred, but isn’t the freedom of the individual too?
«Today there is a conception of the autonomy of the individual, of the patient, in an absolute way. It is an absolutist conception where the freedom̀ of the individual is detached from the truth̀ and from the good. Euthanasia and assisted suicide appear as the right to personal autonomy taken to the extreme: “I am the master of my life, I will diè when and how I choosè”. The human being is free and perfects himself with free action. But conceiving the dignity of the person only on the basis of one’s own autonomy is a vision that leaves other fundamental dimensions aside. Children, the elderly, comatose patients … who have no autonomy, have no dignity? If autonomy is the ultimate foundation of the person, many people like this would have no dignitỳ. Furthermore, it is clear that a person’s autonomy is not absolute, nor is it a total concept. It is precisely in the case of the sick, and even more so of those who are terminally ill or in a situation of severe pain and suffering, that they are not totally autonomous. The disease itself, medications, and family circumstances necessarily limit their ability to make decisions. In the end, the request for autonomy ended up becoming the logic of abandonment, therapeutic and welfare, because no autonomy in itself is capable of bearing the weight of one’s own and others’ pain and suffering if it does not recognize the values of addiction. mutual and solidarity.
When the Church affirms the sacredness̀ of life, she does nothing but affirm the positive meaning of human life as a value that is alreadỳ perceptible by right reason, which the light of faith confirms and values in its dignity. It is not a subjective or arbitrary criterion. Instead, it is a criterion based on the inviolable natural dignity and on the transcendent vocation of every human being, called to share the Trinitarian Love of the living God. It is clear that we cannot accept that another man is our slave, even if he asks us to, likewise we cannot choose to attempt against the life of a human being, even if he requests it. Helping a sick person who asks to die does not mean recognizing his autonomy and valuing it, but on the contrary it means ignoring the value of his freedom̀, strongly conditioned by illness and pain, and the value of his life, denying him any further possibilitỳ of human relationship, sense of existence “.
Don’t you think that in the face of certain physical suffering it is more right to take a step back?
“We can never back down in the face of pain and suffering. Taking a step back means leaving the patient alone with his pain and suffering. Societỳ cannot̀ do this. Jesus̀ denounced it in the parable of the Good Samaritan. There the priest and the Levite took a “step back” leaving the dying man by the roadside. It is the Good Samaritan who is able to recognize, in the midst of pain and suffering, the dignitỳ of the person and to take “a step forward”. The idea that pain and suffering are incurable does not conform to reality: there are always ways to deal with pain and suffering. What we have to look at is not only the problem of pain but also the problem of loneliness, understood not so much as the absence of people, but as vital loneliness, that loneliness in which the patient faces the inner crisis caused by his illness without having someone to whom to lean. In this sense, Pope Francis proposes the figure of the Good Samaritan as a model of care for the terminally ill and reminds us of the words of Christ himself: “Every time you have done these things to only one of these my youngest brothers, the you did to me “(Mt 25,40). The affirmation of Jesus becomes a moral truth̀ of universal significance: it is a question of “taking care” of the whole life and of the life of all.
For this reason, we cannot take a step back, but we must take a step forward. And accompany the sick person not only with the relief of pain and physical suffering, which of course must come first, but also with global support for the sick person in their physical, psychological, social, family, spiritual and economic dimensions. In this secularized society in which many people die alone and desire and ask for death as a remedy for the burden of life, we can find elements for reflection on the importance of being close to those who die and those who suffer.
Let us not forget, however, that the loneliness of the sick is often also the loneliness of those who care for them. Societỳ in general, and the Christian community, in particular, must become a true healing community, where the centralitỳ of interpersonal relationships is given voice, highlighted by contemporary anthropology but not sufficiently practiced in the current processes of care and assistance. Therefore, a societỳ that wants to be a true healing community dovrebbe should express the double dimension of caring for the sick and those who care for them ”.