Posted by Jack
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s top bioethics official calls “reprehensible” the suicide of an American woman suffering terminal brain cancer who stated she wanted to die with dignity.
Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told the ANSA news agency on Tuesday that “dignity is something other than putting an end to one’s own life.”
Brittany Maynard’s suicide in Oregon on Saturday, following a public declaration of her motives aimed at sparking political action on the issue, has stirred debate over assisted suicide for the terminally ill.
Carrasco de Paula said “Brittany Maynard’s act is in itself reprehensible, but what happened in the consciousness we do not know.”
He cautioned that he was not judging individuals “but the gesture in and of itself should be condemned.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The fifth commandment forbids direct and intentional killing as gravely sinful. The murderer and those who cooperate voluntarily in murder commit a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance.
Infanticide, fratricide, parricide, and the murder of a spouse are especially grave crimes by reason of the natural bonds which they break. Concern for eugenics or public health cannot justify any murder, even if commanded by public authority.”
What a contrast to that other religion whose extremists carry out stonings, mass murder, beheadings and such in the name of the religion.
Bioethics? Funny how the Vatican can condemn someone for wanting to die with dignity yet are mostly silent on what is happening with the Isis butchers in the middle east . . . ..