Once again definitive words from the CEI on euthanasia. The cardinal president, Gualtiero Bassetti, opening the work of the permanent Episcopal Council today, spoke of “grave concern” over “the prospect of a referendum to decriminalize the murder of the consenting party”. “Authoritative jurists – he underlined – have highlighted serious problems of constitutional compatibility in the question for which the signatures were collected and in the consequences that a possible repeal would determine in the legal system”. For the Italian Church “it is necessary to reiterate that not there is an expression of compassion in helping to die “and it is” a striking contradiction “with the solidarity breathed throughout the country in this difficult period marked by the Covid pandemic.
At the Permanent Council, the bishops address the most urgent issues on the ecclesial agenda with respect to the country’s emergencies. It is an agenda not studied at the table but dictated by the voice of the bishops scattered throughout the territory. “The wounds caused by the pandemic in the economic and social fabric of the country are still deep – explains the cardinal, not by chance -. Suffice it to say that compared to two years ago, despite the recovery in recent months, thousands of jobs are still missing. “” It is therefore essential that the benefits of economic growth are distributed in such a way as to reduce, and not increase, inequalities that have deepened due to the pandemic “, he stressed.
The Church has long been strongly in favor of vaccines. For this reason, the CEI thanks the institutions for the vaccination campaign and highlights “the consent of the citizens who have not shied away from what the Pope called ‘an act of love’. We must continue on this path that allows us to save many human lives, especially among the most fragile people. We hope that all this will take place in full respect of the dignity of the person. Just as we hope that it will be the prerequisite for a recovery to be consolidated beyond the contingent phase, always in the safeguarding of workers’ rights “.
The Church is concerned that fewer and fewer children are being born in Italy. Bassetti says that “the historical opportunity to give the new single allowance for children a financial endowment adequate to the strategic task that this measure is called to carry out should not be lost. a clear development in the principles and in the basic guidelines that knows how not only to take charge, but to harmonize the various seasons of life in an organic framework “.
Hence the increase in population poverty: the new poor created by the pandemic continue in part to need the support of Caritas. “The new Caritas Report on poverty and social exclusion confirms that almost one in three of the new poor in 2020 – reported Bassetti – also turned to the Caritas Centers during 2021. A survey with an ambivalent meaning: on the one hand, it can be index of the first positive effects of the recovery; on the other hand, it shows that we have not yet returned to pre-crisis levels in which poverty was, in any case, a social emergency “.
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