CN News with Vatican Radio
Cardinal Seán O’Malley giving the homily to the soon to be new priests of the Archdiocese of Boston. Photo George Martell/Pilot Media Group. Creative Commons License some rights reserved.
“A great tragedy for the human life, an action deeply wrong”. That’s what the USCCB President of the Commission for Life of the United States Bishops ‘ Cardinal Seán O’Malley, in a statement, about the legalization of assisted suicide in California, signed last week by the Governor of the state, Jerry Brown.
The law, which will enter into force only in the next few months, will allow terminally ill adults and in full possession of their mental faculties to choose death through drugs. The regulations require the approval of two doctors and the presence of two witnesses, one of whom cannot be a relative, which must accompany the doctors at the time of administration of the lethal substance.
The Cardinal O’Malley denounced the “confusion” that arose around the law: “For example, Governor Brown said he signed this law because it should not be a crime for a dying person in pain to end his life. “. But, said the Cardinal, “But suicide itself is a tragedy, not a crime. The crime is for people in authority such as physicians to facilitate the deliberate deaths of other, more vulnerable people. That crime will now be permitted in California.“
The result, adds Cardinal O’Malley, is that where the so-called ‘ where such “assistance” is legal, most people taking the lethal drugs do so not because of pain but because they feel they are helpless and a “burden” on others.”.
“A government that legalizes assisted suicide sends the terrible message Pope Francis has so eloquently warned us against, that there is such a thing as disposable people”.
Along with the Bishops of California, the cardinal laments the action of the Government of California, “deeply flawed”. ” I am sure the Catholic Church in this country will redouble its efforts to protect innocent life at its most vulnerable stages, and to promote palliative care and other real solutions for the problems and hardships of terminally ill patients and their families.”